‘It’s an exceptional honour’: We speak to ARIA’s first adland winners
72andSunny with Campfire X and INNOCEAN Australia took home Wednesday night’s inaugural ARIA adland awards, for their work on Google and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, respectively. The agencies spoke to Mumbrella, reflecting on the momentous win.
72andSunny with Campfire X / Google
Baker Boy – Helping You Help Others
Genevieve Hoey, ANZ creative lead at 72andSunny told Mumbrella:
“This inaugural ARIA win is a stunning honour for 72andSunny along with Campfire X and all our partners. A day after the win it all seems like a bit of a dream!
The ongoing Google ‘Helping You Help Others’ campaign is a celebration of community helpfulness, and how we can all help each other thrive, with a little help from products like Google Search and Maps.
Working with Danzal Baker, aka Baker Boy, on this film was powerful addition to the Helpfulness campaigns. Danzal is the role model of helpfulness. A multiple ARIA award winner and Australia’s first Yolngu Matha rapper, he’s been recognised as Young Australian of the Year for his efforts mentoring First Nations youth to overcome ‘shame job’. This film is really a celebration of his ongoing mission to help kids in community rise.
In remote Indigenous communities, ‘shame job’ is a real issue among youth and refers to perceived barriers that stop someone from pursuing their dreams. This is something Baker Boy (Danzal) has personal experience with and has had to overcome to get to where he is today. Baker Boy’s song, ‘In Control’, was a critical choice to reach this First Nations youth audience. The song’s empowering lyrics about overcoming shame – delivered in English and Yolngu Matha – were integral to reach the youth who need to hear this message the most.
As Danzal put it so eloquently in his ARIA acceptance speech: “This Ad is so much more than just Australian music in advertising. It is Yolngu music and Yolngu Matha. Thank you to Google for putting my language and culture at the forefront and sharing the concept of shame that affects so many young mob. Big love to the crew for bringing it all to life.”
A huge thank you to Danzal Baker and his management team, along with all our partners who helped make Campfire X, Pollinate, EXIT films, Stefan Hunt, Cristilee Houghton, and OTIS Studios.
INNOCEAN Australia Pty Ltd / Australian Marine Conservation Society
John Williamson – Voice of the Sea
Carolyn Cho, client partner at INNOCEAN, told Mumbrella:
“To win an inaugural ARIA for the Advertising category is an exceptional honour to say the least.
‘The Voice of the Sea’ is a beautiful love song for the sea, and how its love feels unrequited.
Everyone knows our oceans need protecting but not enough is done. We wanted to do something really powerful for the Australian Marine Conservation Society that would engage the future generation to become a ‘Voice of the Sea’. Music has the power to move us and we wanted to create a groundswell of action. We knew we needed the iconic John Williamson to write a song for us, effortlessly weaving in the lessons from the AMCS. And this is how our national anthem for the sea originated.
For us, a song was only the beginning, we needed the younger generations’ voices to amplify the message. Driving social change requires big actions and a lot of work, we mean a lot.
Together with the Australian Marine Conservation Society, we reached out to school teachers and the Department of Education so that it could be sung at school concerts. We got thousands of school kids to sing the song and got it televised.
But we didn’t stop there.
The powerful lyrics are the basis to get school kids to understand what’s behind them and provide the impetus to learn more. So, ‘The Voice of the Sea’ came along with educational materials, certificates, even visits from AMCS marine biologists.
‘The Voice of The Sea’ shows the power of song can spark change, it’s an ongoing platform for us to continue to drive action.
There is so much more to come. We are launching a whole curriculum next year and Penguin Books has published a storybook with the lyrics and beautiful illustrations from the lyric film we created which is being released in February for back to school.
We hope that ‘The Voice of The Sea’ truly becomes ingrained as the national anthem for the sea that surrounds us.
We can all be a voice for the sea. Please go to the Australian Marine Conversation Society’s website and if you’re a parent, aunty, uncle, godparent… spread the good word and get more kids and schools on board.
Thanks to John Williamson for writing the most exceptional lyrics that captured everything we wanted to say and more. And thanks to our incredible Australian Marine Conservation Society partners who trusted that this could be the start of something big. Plus Warner Music, Photoplay, Drop Bear and Andrea Innocent who all believed in this project too.
Lastly, thanks to the judges for recognising how we used music for storytelling and to drive culture change.
And apologies we couldn’t be there to accept the award in person!
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Lauren McNamara is a journalist at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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72andSunny
ARIA
ARIA Awards
Australian Marine Conservation Society
Baker Boy
Campfire X
Google
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