Advertising agency Droga5 has picked up two black pencils at the D&AD Awards, including one for a Sarah Silverman viral film, The Great Schlep, which aimed to get Jewish voters to back Barack Obama in the US presidential election.
Droga5, the agency set up in 2006 by Publicis's former worldwide chief creative officer, Dave Droga, won the first of its two black pencils in the writing section of the viral category.
The agency won its second for an ambitious campaign commissioned by the New York City Department of Education targeting its poorest performing schools.
A third black pencil at last night's D&AD Awards went to Matt Dent in the graphic design category for the redesign of UK coins for the Royal Mint.
The fourth and final black pencil, in the environmental design category, went to the German agency Art+Com for an installation called Kinetic Sculpture for the BMW Museum.
Droga5's four minute-plus clip featuring Silverman formed a central plank in an ad campaign, by the Jewish Council of Education and Research in the run up to last year's US presidential election, to get elderly Jewish voters to back Obama and quash attempts to smear him because of his Muslim roots.
This campaign targeted the key battleground state of Florida, home to many older Jewish voters, and has been described by Droga5 as an "online grassroots movement". The campaign aimed to get the grandchildren of elderly Jewish people to bridge the generation gap and push a pro-Obama message.
Silverman has become something of a web phenomenon in recent times. Her spoof video I'm Fucking Matt Damon became a YouTube mega-hit and last month won her a Webby award for "best actress".
The New York education campaign, called Million, involved giving out 1m mobile phones to students that do not work during class time, with the aim of improving attendance, class participation and homework. Every two weeks teachers awarded "Million points" based on the students' performance, which could be used to get free texts, calls and extras such as music downloads.
A black pencil is notoriously difficult to achieve – six D&AD ceremonies have seen none given out, the most recent being the 2003 awards.
"The breadth of creative work that has been awarded this year is exceptional," said the D&AD president, Garrick Hamm. "We are in the midst of a challenging time and this work shows what the industry is capable of."
A total of 54 yellow pencils in around 30 categories were awarded by D&AD juries this year.
In 2006 Droga5 won the top digital media award at the Cannes Lions ad festival for a spoof viral, for retail brand Ecko, apparently featuring a graffiti artist breaking into Andrews airforce base and tagging Air Force One. The spoof film attracted so much media attention that the Pentagon was forced to issue three denials that it was real.
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