Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Photo: Outdoor Akzent Team
The poster with the message If you just observe, it’s like you abuse, signed by the agency Señor and made for Hrabri Telefon (Brave Phone), was declared the best in two categories at the OUTWARD awards for the best-designed posters. It won the award of the audience, and the award of the expert jury in the category of billboards, it was announced at the award ceremony in the crowded hall of the Music Academy in Zagreb. Selection of the best-designed posters was initiated 16 years ago by the agency Outdoor Akzent, one of the largest national providers of outdoor advertising in Croatia, which this year celebrates 20 years of business.
According to Gabriela Klarić, Managing Director of the company, at the time the award was initiated, the aim was to promote excellence and creativity in outdoor advertising, and the first time that both the jury and the audience awarded the same poster is the best confirmation that OUTWARD has achieved its goal. Competing for the award were 52 posters that adorned the official outdoor panels throughout Croatia, in the period from January 2014 to September 2016.
“The jury this year had a very interesting task, because of the way posters of some agencies were incorporated into the overall campaign, so it was no longer just about a poster, but it is connected with digital media, which indicates that the billboard can be an excellent basis for a complete story that allows communication with users. It turned out that posters can successfully engage young population. Particularly interesting are the posters that use specific media to further attract attention,” said the designer Izvorka Jurić, president of the jury at the 16th OUTWARD. One example of this is the winning poster from the campaign If you just observe, it’s like you abuse which was to warn that we must not remain silent if we see abuse, and which had an embedded motion sensor so poster lighting turned on whenever someone passed by it. Most passers-by stopped to see the message better.
“We are very happy about the award, and we know that an important factor are the number of clicks and votes that our poster received. But if one only person saw the poster and decided to take action against abuse because of it, then we truly achieved our goal,” said Anamaria Vujić, program coordinator of Hrabri Telefon.
Second place in the opinion of the jury won the billboard Slim Japanese Tablets, also signed by the agency Señor, and the client was Toshiba. Third spot went to the billboard of McDonald’s Croatia – 20 years, signed by agency INNOVO DDB. Chief Marketing Officer at McDonald’s Croatia, Ivana Šapina, frankly said that the winning ad was not her first choice, but she also admitted that the trust in the agency in the end yielded great results.
Poster Glow in the dark – HEP, signed by agency McCann Zagreb / Fahrenheit, was named the best in the category of Megaboards. Director of the department for market and marketing strategy at HEP, Vlatka Kamenić Jagodić, pointed out that HEP is satisfied because they achieved their goal. “We wanted to show the benefits of HEP and to emphasize the fact that our employees are always on site for our customers,” she said.
The best among the citylight posters was the one of the Istrian National Theatre, called Theatre for later, done by the agency Studio Sonda. Head of the theater, Gordana Jeromela Kaić, pointed out that the award went to a poster that is also a message delivered to your smartphone.
“We wanted to attract audience, but also to enable gifting of purchased tickets in an interesting way. This resulted in grandchildren buying their grandmothers tickets to the theater, or the whole class buying tickets for their teachers, and we are satisfied because the campaign boosted our sales,” Kaić said, thanking the agency.
In the category of best utilization of outdoor media, award went to the project Say it Loud, signed by the agency Señor for client Outdoor Akzent. With this project, Outdoor Akzent marked 20 years of operations, with the aim to show that posters can be an excellent basis for an interactive multimedia campaign.
The project took place in three phases, starting with the fact that people on the internet could propose messages for posters and vote for them. Then, 150 messages designed this way ended up on billboards all over Croatia. In just three weeks the campaign page recitoglasno.com had over 300,000 unique visitors from more than 140 countries. More than 10,000 posters were created, to which voters gave nearly one million votes, with a whopping 7.2 million hits. On behalf of the Outdoor Akzent, award was taken by sales director Krešimir Brlić, thanking the agency Señor on a great idea and realization.
Media sponsors of the 16th OUTWARD were Večernji List, T portal, 24 sata and Poslovni Dnevnik, while Vector Design Print sponsored the awards. Entertainment for the event was provided by the Detour band.