Kinsale Sharks 2014 Results Announced

Ireland’s only international creative festival took place 11th – 13th September 2014. International delegates from London, France, Italy, New York, California, Qatar and of course Ireland were impressed with a gloriously sunny Kinsale Town and are sure to return home with Tourism Ireland’s 2015 campaign already sorted.

There was a 20% increase in entries to the festival this year, no doubt because this little festival is starting to take itself very seriously. An impressive education day on Friday saw talks from Paul Burke (a prolific radio award winner!!), Alex Matthews from BBH London, Joel Templin founder of The Hatch design agency in San Francisco, Donald Gunn displaying The Power of Print, Warner Chappell and Osama Saeed head of PR at Al Jazeera. 

Kinsale Shark Awards prides itself on the quality of their jury and judging process. Every year the festival manages to pull in some of the biggest names in the creative industry and this year was no exception. Jury members included Gerry Human from Ogilvy London, Joel Templin from The Hatch Design Agency, Katrien Bottez from Duval Guillaume Belgium and Liam Wielopolski from DDB South Africa. 

The Grand Prix Award was won by Forsman & Bodenfors for Volvo Trucks ‘Epic Split’ and proved to be a very popular win on the night, getting a huge cheer from the audience. 

Two of the other big awards on the night went to Leo Burnett. They picked up Network of the Year with their French office also being rewarded with Agency of the Year. The network encourages a high standard of creativity across the globe and is reaping the rewards for their efforts. Contributions from Leo Burnett London, Chicago, Toronto, France, Italy, New York, Melbourne and Leo Burnett Tailor Made ensured the network defended their 2013 title. This is the first time a French agency has won the Kinsale Sharks Agency of the Year Award. Gold, Silver and Bronze awards were handed out for their work on The Mimi Foundation, Theatre de la Bastille and Jeep across Ambient, Design, Film, Print and Digital categories. An incredible achievement.

In total the network received 19 Gold Awards along with numerous silver and bronze trophies.

The BBDO network demonstrated their creative talents with some innovative creative solutions. A brilliant piece of work for Pepsico received a Gold Award in the ambient category. A third Gold was also won for Lowe’s. The most impressive demonstration from BBDO has to be the networks ability to set such a high creative standard across such a large variety of clients. 

They picked up numerous Gold, Silver and Bronze awards for Anheuser-Busch, GE, Monster.com, AT&T, Hewlett-packard, Diageo, Mars, FedEx and Eurostar.

Other Gold Award wins went to an emotional piece of film from Sonny London for Thomson, titled ‘Simon the Ogre’. M&C Saatchi won two golds for a very clever digital solution for Optus titled ‘Clever buoy’. Gold awards were given to several emotional ads that impressed the jury. One to Lowe/SSP3 for Ministry of Defense ‘You are my son’ ambient, another to Publicis London for Depaul UK ‘Street Stories’ posters, Publicis Conseil secured two golds for a stunning print campaign for Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle. AIS London also received two golds for Harrison’s Fund ‘I wish my son had cancer’ print.

Irish agencies are most definitely holding their own when it comes to high creative talent. Publicis Dublin won 11 awards on the night, five of those in international categories. The Publicis Dublin wins were spread out amongst TG4, IDA, Philanthropy Ireland, No Nonsense and Renault winning 5 Bronze, 4 Silver and 2 golds. Rothco also won 11 awards for Heineken, Dublin Bus, Meteor, Tiger and HailO taking home 6 bronze, 4 silver and 1 gold . DDFH&B also put up a strong showing and received 7 Shark Awards – 5 bronze, 1 Silver and 1 Gold with great work for the National Lottery, Google Ireland and Lucozade. Owens DDB featured on the night with 3 bronze awards for Volkswagon. Ogilvy picked up two awards for their work on the ISPCC – a silver and a bronze. Havas Dublin, The Social House, Irish International, ICAN, Reelgood, Red Rage, Butter and ZOO also picked up awards

In the Media Excellence categories Starcom had a great show and won two golds and two silvers for their strong work on Heineken and Coors Light. Les Gaulois won a silver and gold for Ebay. Vizeum and PHD picked up a gold award each for IKEA and Fáilte Ireland. The Leo Burnett network shared several media excellence wins with France, Toronto and New York winning two Golds, Silver and two bronzes. JWT, Publicis Conseil, Carat and Largo Foods each picked up one Media Excellence award.

The promo categories were dominated by NBC Universal, Antenna Creative Services, Framestore and Universal Networks. 

The International New Director was awarded to Oliver Briganshaw for a captivating film titled ‘What goes around’. It silenced the audience at the Awards Show on Saturday night making a massive impression on the room. 

The Irish New Director was awarded to Ciaran Foy. The Young Shark Award was won by Victoria Lench and Joshua Cunningham from Publicis London.

The festival is open again for entries on the 17th of March and promises to have an even bigger educational side to the festival. The 2015 festival will take place on the 10th - 12th September 2015