The Brill Building was the big winner at the annual APMC Star Awards which were held in Dublin on Thursday, April 18. The agency stormed through the awards picking up seven gold stars, a silver as well as the coveted Grand Prix on the night.
The agency picked up its haul of awards for two campaigns, “The AR Lens to Save Lives” for The Marie Keating Foundation. It also won a gold star, and the coveted Grand Prix, for “Paddy Irishman Project”, the agency’s collaboration with photographer Ross O’Callaghan which was sponsored by Tourism Ireland Both campaigns demonstrated “bravery, innovation and creative excellence,” according to the judges.
According to Roisin Keown, founder, The Brill Building: “The APMC awards are unique in the landscape for rewarding integrated real world activations – big ideas that can change the world. Bringing every creative and marketing discipline together from innovation to experience to PR and art is how we work across every project at The Brill Building – creating something of true value that consumers want to spend far more time with than a standard paid aid format.”
It was also a good night for a number of other agencies including CMS Marketing, Pluto, InSight, Allied Global Marketing, Mixed Tape, Goosebump and Verve.
CMS Marketing walked away with an impressive haul of Stars too for its work with Paddy Power – with both Cheltenham Fanzones and The Paddy Power Comedy Festival securing Gold Stars. The CMS work with Bank of Ireland also saw it secure multiple wins for its Money Smarts Programme and for The Bank of Ireland Carnival Quarter at All Together Now.
Other big wins of the night saw Goosebump secure ten Stars across a range of categories – including a Gold Star for Dairygold Veganuary in the Shopper Marketing category.
Among its haul of 10 Stars, Verve The Live Agency took a Gold Star for Diageo’s Lovely Day for a Guinness; Pluto won the Gold For Pieta in the Small Budget category and last year’s Grand Prix winner, InSight Marketing, took Gold for “Club Orange – Face the Fear” in the Non-Alcoholic Beverages category.
Elsewhere, Mixtape Marketing won several Stars across the board including for its Christmas campaign for Mondelez/Cadbury while Allied Global Marketing took Gold for its work with Heineken in the Alcoholic Beverages category. GroupM Invention’s Brennans Bread campaign Battle of the Bagels scooped a Gold Star and a Silver for Creativity.
The Belfast-based Elevator Promotional Marketing, meanwhile, took two Stars home for its work with Translink and Boost Drinks. Backup Marketing took stars for its Clubcard Try Now campaign for Tesco while Fifty Three Six and MACE took Gold for their work Team MACE takes on the World Cup with Johnny Sexton. A new face at the awards KPMG were awarded for their Women’s Irish Open: Inspiring the Future sponsorship.
This year’s APMC Rising Star award was given to Susan McGing from Pluto.
According to panel, Peter Kerr of MRM UK, The IPM and the IMPACT Council of the EACA: “It was an honour to be invited to judge the APMC Star Awards this year. I have been exposed to the incredible work being produced in Ireland through my role with the European IMPACT awards, but it was even more rewarding to review all of the submissions alongside a very impressive panel of judges. The standard this year is once again exceptional, and there are some campaigns in particular which will blow you away.”
“We are thrilled to see so many agencies participate and win Star Awards”, adds Anna McDonald, on behalf of the board of the APMC. “We once again broke our record for numbers of entries and we are proud to honour the campaigns which really deliver results for our clients. It shows the depth of talent and expertise in the Irish market, all the campaigns that were shortlisted and won Stars are worthy winners and we as an Association are thrilled to celebrate and congratulate them.”
The 2024 APMC Star Awards are sponsored by IMJ, Hayes Solicitors, Horizon Digital Print, Element, McCul Clothing and Return2Sender.
All winners are eligible to go on to compete against the best of the best in Europe at the European Association of Communications Agencies IMPACT awards which are scheduled to be open for entries in the summer.
A full list of winners is available HERE
