TBWA\Hunt Lascaris won a clutch of Pencils at the globally renowned D&AD Awards, which are deemed to be the world’s most prestigious benchmark for commercial creativity.

It is this year’s most awarded South African agency at the D&AD show.

A celebration of creative excellence in design and advertising, the D&AD Awards showcase the world’s most exceptional creative work generated in the disciplines of commercial design, advertising, production and craft.

Winning a D&AD Pencil is a crowning achievement for any agency not only because these awards represent the very best in design and advertising, but because they are adjudicated by an elite, high-profile international team of creative minds.

The D&AD Awards Ceremony took place on Wednesday, 22 May in London, where 652 Pencils were awarded in a contest that attracted 30,000 individual pieces of work and 12,387 total entries from 78 countries.

Hunt Lascaris was recognised for three campaigns, making it South Africa’s top performer at this year’s D&AD Awards, with one Wood Pencil and two Graphite Pencils.

The Wood Pencil was awarded for the powerful Stronger campaign for the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism. The campaign was aimed at not only to keeping Riky’s legacy alive, but to bring awareness to mental health issues and give everyone the opportunity to contribute to this effort.

For its long-time client City Lodge, Hunt Lascaris’ “Bedtime Stories” won a Graphite Pencil. The Bedtime Stories for Business People playlist of guided meditations is offered to guests who can access it by scanning a QR code on their phone or tablet.

The second Graphite Pencil was presented for the Nissan radio campaign, “What You Mean”, premised on South Africa’s diversity of languages and accents, “What You Mean” notes that our accents aren’t easily understood by voice-command technology but the Nissan Magnite Range addresses this challenge with Voice Connect.

Karabo Denalane, CEO of TBWA\Hunt Lascaris is proud of their showing at the D&AD Awards, saying: “We strive for excellence in all that we do. We are delighted to partner with amazing clients who share this restlessness for producing not just good work, or even great work, but strive to achieve that which is iconic. I am delighted to see three of our clients recognised for their incredible efforts.”

TBWA\Hunt Lascaris chief creative officer, Carl Willoughby, says gaining recognition at the D&AD as the number one South African agency is a massive accomplishment. “We entered a body that we are proud of, and it will carry us into Cannes which is coming up next month.

“Hunts submitted eight campaigns — we had four wins and four shortlists. That’s a phenomenal achievement.”