COLENSO BBDO TAKES OUT B&T’S NZ AGENCY OF THE YEAR TITLE PLUS AUSTRALASIAN INTERACTIVE AGENCY OF THE YEAR

Colenso BBDO won New Zealand Agency of theYear as well as Australasian Interactive Agency of the Year at the 2008 B&T Awards, which were held at Lunar Park’s Big Top in Sydney on Friday night.

The awards were presented to Colenso’s Adam Good (pictured left), Executive Director of Digital Innovation, who represented the agency on the night.

DDB New Zealand young creative team Simon Vicars and James Tuckerpicked up the Young Achiever Award, the only creatives to benominated.

Colenso BBDO executive CD, Nick Worthington (pictured below with Colenso creatives Lisa Fedyszyn and Karl Fleet) told CB: “A few weeks ago we traipsed over to Sydney to present our case for Colenso being NZ Agency of the Year and Interactive agency of the year. It was a surreal experience with half the agencies in Australasia sipping tea in the foyer of a hotel waiting to be ushered into a room full of  agency and client  judges, while another agency was ushered out. We were over the moon to be nominated for both and felt it was a true reflection of the work we’d done uniting and building the interactive and agency teams as one.

“On Friday night we won NZ Agency of the year. That was enough for me, then we went on to win Interactive Agency of the Year for the whole of Australasia with BMF taking second spot. People have long been predicting the demise of the ‘Traditional’ agency and specialist  interactive shops have popped up everywhere, but it seems the gap has closed, or  rather there is no gap. The best agencies are great at both, BFM in Sydney and  ColensoBBDO have now been now judged best in breed in digital and traditional media. At the end of the day it’s about great ideas, and the web is essentially just another fantastic new forum for those ideas.”

Therewere 27 awards handed out in total. BMF Sydney took out the Grand Prix, Advertising Agency of the Year and NSW Agency of the Year. Clemenger BBDO took out VictorianAgency of the Year, CumminsNitro won Queensland, while Clemenger BBDOAdelaide won SA/WA/ACT Agency of theYear. Ikon picked up Media Agency of the Year and PR Agency of the Yearwent to Zing. Marketing Team of the Year went to Commonwealth Bank.

See video of the awards.

See pics from the night.