Never Have I Ever a winner at ORCAs

AUT Advertising and Brand Creative students have won this year’s TRB student competition at the ORCAs.

The ORCAs, or Outstanding Radio Creative Awards, include a student competition every year. Students were given a live brief from the Mental Health Foundation and had to submit a three-ad campaign to be judged by a panel of industry experts.

AUT has three of the five finalist teams:

• Mac Winiata & Tegan Cooke with "FART", an ad campaign encouraging 13-23 year olds to access the MHF's online COVID wellness tips.
• Amie Kaufman & Holly Grant with "What are you thinking about now?" prompting people listening to the radio in their cars to donate to the MHF
• Louis O'Brien & Hannah Nguyen with "Never Have I Ever", a campaign encouraging 13-23 year olds to access the MHF's online COVID wellness tips.

“Never Have I Ever”, by Louis O’Brien and Hannah Nguyen, went on to win, winning a $700 cash prize and a radio advertising schedule. “What are you thinking about now?”, by Amie Kaufman and Holly Grant was named runner up.

The 2022 Student ORCA judging panel was made up of Rory McKechnie (DDB), Freddie Coltart (DDB), Matt Williams (DDB), Hadleigh Sinclair (Colenso BBDO) and Hayley Marks (FCB).

Jo Page, Lecturer in Advertising and Brand Creativity, who worked with the students to develop their ads, said it was great to have so many strong ads presented. “The great thing about working on a live brief for the ORCAs is that the students get to experience the full process of receiving, interpreting and responding to a client brief, complete with taking feedback on board.”

Each team presented three scripts in response to the brief, which were judged and scored by the TRB panel. The best scripts were then presented to the client, and the final ads were recorded following tweaks.