How To Win A Black Pencil

This blog from D&AD lists the complete winners of black pencils throughout the 2000s.

A breakdown of the winners by agency is as follows:
AMV.BBDO (double award)
Mother
BBH (Frank Budgen)
Wieden + Kennedy London
4Creative
Leo Burnett Canada (first ever digital black pencil in 2006)
Fallon
R/GA (digital agency)
Projector
The Partners
Droga5 (two in one year)

What's remarkable is that aside from 2 years in which AMV BBDO and Droga5 each picked up 2, no agency won on more than one occasion during the noughties.

Not that the D&AD judges have anything against handing out black pencils to the same people: Apple picked up 5 black pencils on four separate occasions throughout the 2000s- one for the ipod, the iphone, the 4th gen iMac, Apple's Cinema Display, and for the Pro Mouse.

That so many diverse agencies were recipients of black pencils reflects the vibrant landscape of advertising and the very healthy competition that takes place in the sector.  It suggests that to win a black pencil is an extraordinary achievement which, if you're a top agency and you're very lucky, you will be able to win only once in a blue moon.

Apple's crazy-successful 5 black pencils are certainly reflected by its crazy-successful business model.  If you're winning black pencils, you are doing something very, very right.  If you're winning 5 black pencils in a decade, well, you're probably going to go on to become the runaway success story of a generation.

AMV.BBDO won an unprecedented double black pencil for its Surfers for Guinness ad.

When this advert came out in 2000 I was only 12 years old. I remember the music, but not the visuals.  They are insane and stunning and totally gripping.  The ad is a fantastic piece of work which really flirts with the line between artistic representation and branding.

Creative director for the ad was Peter Souter.  He joined Abbott Mead Vickers in 1990, and took over control of the creative department in 2007 after founder David Abbott stepped down.  In 2008, he left AMV BBDO to pursue a career in television. In terms of his television career, he is most famous as the writer of Married Single Other.

Droga5 won a black pencil for the great schlep. Check out the Sarah Silverman led video at that link, and don't forget to look at the statistics towards the bottom of that page - the ad appears to have had a huge effect.

Fallon's drumming gorilla was a winner in 2008.

This ad was a sensation when it came out.  It's the reference point for my generation of insane advertising.  People would get excited when it was on TV.  For an ad, that's the dream.

More than any other ad being discussed here, Fallon's Drumming Gorilla shows that you win a black pencil by taking a risk.

If you want to win a black pencil you should do something no-one's ever done before, ideally never even thought before.  And you have to do it with outstanding execution - the idea itself is not enough.

In the coming weeks I'll hope to profile a few of the agencies in that list as well as some of the people behind the ads.  A shorter than normal post today, but there's some great content to be hunted down in some of the links I provided.  Tomorrow I'll be taking a look at the Compare the Meerkat campaign for Compare the Market - another fantastic example of insane advertising that has become a reference point for my generation.

Until then, ad fans.