It’s a Rapp on Yellow Pages Cannes competition
Patrick Murphy and Sue Young of Rapp have beaten 138 other entries from 22 agencies to win Yellow’s ‘Win a trip to Cannes’ competition for advertising creative teams.
Their winning idea focused on mobile tagging, an application which allows mobile phone users to scan an image containing a QR code in the phone book, causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL – in this case an advertiser’s website.
Judge Nick Worthington of Colenso BBDO said the judging panel was won over by the various layers to the campaign and the depth of thought put into it.
“This idea doesn’t just harness the latest technology. The layers ofcleverness and placement are genius, for example a listing for 24 hourtakeaways under taxis. The fact they created a Yellow™ icon to quicklyidentify the QR codes in the books and adapted QR codes so that theybecame an eye catching piece of design is stunning.”
Yellow Marketing Director Kellie Nathan said the aim of the competitionwas to encourage the agency world to see the phone books as outlets forgreat creative work for their clients.
“Our judges were looking for innovation and the all-important coolnessfactor, and they certainly got both of those. Based on the quality ofthe entries we received, New Zealand’s creative agencies are inextremely good shape.”
High-profile brands including Mitre10, Lotto, Air NZ, Whitcoulls, TowerInsurance, McDonalds and Vodafone were featured in the competitionentries.
The pair’s prize is a trip for two to the 2009 Cannes Lions Advertising Festival which is taking place from 21-27 June.
Yellow also decided to recognise Saatchi & Saatchi creative teamDave Mygind and Deb Gerrard, who alone contributed over 30 qualityentries to the competition. They were awarded a trip to Sydney fortheir efforts.
View the Rapp winning entry:
View the Saatchi & Saatchi entry:
Cannes competition fast facts
• 139 entries received from 45 entrants
• 22 agencies represented
• 30 entries were received from Saatchi’s creative team Dave Mygind and Deb Gerrard
• Judging panel: Nick Worthington (Colenso BBDO), Dave King (AIM Proximity), Toby Talbot (DDB), Kevin Bowler (Yahoo!Xtra)
• Top eight entries comprised three from Rapp, two from DDB and one each from AIM Proximity, Colenso .99 and Saatchis

7 Comments
Pat Murphy.
Very cool.
You beauty. Lunch at Whackyourmama to celebrate.
Well done Patrick and Sue, hats off.
I am baffled why QR codes haven’t taken off in NZ – allegedly home of the early adopters. They’ve been huge in Japan for years and they’re just brilliant – whack one on a flyposter and go straight to a ticket-booking site.
Worked on an Aussie telco last year and they were all about finding ways to integrate QR codes into outdoor, ambient, promos etc.
Maybe we’re just a bit behind on 3G.
One question – do those designs actually function? If so, brilliant, because that’s really fresh.
Enjoy Cannes.
Good to see all of Telecom’s agencies get behind it.
Good work.
Good effort Pat (and Sue).
You’re a bastard (not Sue).
Ok, had a look at both the Rapp and the Saatchi pdfs and despite the volume of work from saatchi, they were very old school, punny answers which wouldn’t look great standing alone. Safety in numbers.
Good application of new technology, nicely presented.
I like the idea of linking products within the book: it’d have to be limited to avoid the Yellow Pages becoming five volumes.
Speaking of quantity, the quality of the 30 ideas entry was embarrassing.. maybe their CD wasn’t around to point out a good idea.
But it turns out that using QR codes in yellow pages is not original – in fact Yellow Pages Australia do it already.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drewr/3077072664/
And in the UK:
http://2d-code.co.uk/yellow-pages-qr-codes/
And in Bermuda:
http://www.bermudayp.com/QRcodes