Award winning radio ad highlights homelessness

Wunderman Thompson, Perth, has won Round 5 of the 2022 Siren Awards for a radio ad highlighting homelessness to raise donations for the Anglicare WA Christmas campaign.

‘Home for the Holidays’ was the overall and single winner of Round 5.

Sound engineer, Brad Habib from Soundbyte Studios also won the craft category for ‘Home for the Holidays.’

The radio ad conveys a powerful story, using as few words as possible to create the scene.

The creatives – Jordan Ellis, Meg Watson and Tim Newton – say their goal was to put the audience in the “uncomfortable and uncertain position of living in their car while other people are experiencing the joy of Christmas Day.”

CRA chief executive Joan Warner says “Once again the Wunderman Thompson creative team has skilfully used the power of radio as an effective call to action mechanism for the charity sector.”

Special Group Australia was the campaign winner, with Jeff Seeff and Joel Grunstein receiving recognition for their radio ad ‘This Calls for Uber Eats.’

SCA’s Thom Wood and Matt Dickson picked up the winning spot for Audio Innovation for their radio ad ‘The Soundtrack that Gives Back’ for Australian Ethical, which was also highly commended in the campaign category.

Creative Matt Dawe from Enigma was highly commended in the campaign and single ad categories for radio ad ‘Not bad – Bogey Hole’ for Newcastle Permanent.

Cody Naetzker and Zenon Predecki from independent agency The Monkeys were highly commended in the single ad category for ‘You Can’t Tame a Goat – Litter Box’ for Mountain Goat Beer.

Creative Alida Henson from Rare was highly commended in the campaign category for radio ad ‘The Festive Fare’ for The Good Grocer brand.

There were three highly commended in the craft category which included Derek Allen for ‘Hot Lap Radio’ for Repco, Otis Studios’ Alex Gomez and Jack Dawson for radio ad LDV T60 Max Kilowatts Trilogy ‘For A Few Kilowatts More’ for LDV Automotive Australia and Chris Gates from The Studio at SCA for T2’s ‘Tea’s The Season.’

Thinkerbell creatives Cale Berry and Josh Parmenter were highly commended in the Audio Innovation category for ‘Hot Lap Radio,’ as were The Brand Agency’s Niall Stephen and Lachy Banton with their radio ad ‘PETVERTISING: The 20,000 Hz Radio Ad’ for RAC Insurance.

Ms Warner says the winners of all five rounds demonstrated remarkable creativity and craftsmanship this year and the judges have a difficult task ahead of them, in selecting an overall winner.

The winner will be announced at a special event at Upstairs at the Beresford, Sydney on Thursday May 5.

Listen to the latest winning ads here.