Entry for the 2010 Outdoor Awards is now open.
The call for entries launched this week with a tongue in cheek billboard campaign ‘The Outdoor Awards are Coming' currently running on a prominent site on Crown St in Sydney, Swanston St in Melbourne and Sandgate Rd in Brisbane.
The 2009 inaugural Outdoor Awards was promoted via a 10,000km journey across Australia with a mobile billboard with the message ‘The Outdoor Awards are Coming'.
CEO Charmaine Moldrich said the campaign opener was chosen to highlight that the Outdoor Awards are about great creative and as an industry we want to promote all Out-of-Home formats as a great canvas for creative advertisements. Whether it be simply executed, humorous, tailored to the location, or embracing new technologies, we want to promote great outdoor advertising.
Ms Moldrich said "As an industry we are aware that our creative has to meet community standards while being smart, slick and clever. Humour is something that binds us and we have chosen to make fun of ourselves with our slightly cheeky campaign. We hope the advertising community enjoys it.
She added "We have a great campaign for the Outdoor Awards this year, with further elements planned over the coming months which we hope the creative community will embrace."
The billboards direct people to the Outdoor Awards website http://www.outdoorawards.com.au/ which provides information on how to enter. The awards are free to enter and open to any Australian outdoor advertising campaign that has run between January 1, 2009 and 30 May 2010, but can't have been entered in the Outdoor Awards 2009. Entry closes 5pm, 11 June 2010 and winners will be announced at an event in September 2010.
The inaugural Outdoor Awards were held in 2009 and attracted over 220 entries over 11 categories. This year an additional category has been added for small budget campaigns under $150,000 after feedback from the creative community last year. In 2009, 25 Pigeon trophies were awarded - six gold, nine silver, ten bronze. The overall winner was Saatchi and Saatchi Sydney for their ‘Uses Less Gives More' Toyota Yaris campaign. The team took home the unusual prize of 10,000 $1 scratchies.
This year's winning creative team will receive a $10,000 prize to attend an International Art Show - with a choice between Art Forum Berlin, Art Basel Miami or Art Basel Switzerland. A panel of international Creative Directors will judge this year's entries with Jonathan Kneebone from the Glue Society as the non-voting chairman.
Outdoor Media Association
www.oma.org.au
