Colenso Bbdo: The Axis Awards 2021 | The Conference Company | 19 January 2021 | Online

The awards presentation will also be broadcast to the rest of the world, and international agencies are invited to book a place at the “world’s table”. The empty table will be fitted with a camera in the middle, live streaming the party to all those who have.

Maria Devereux, executive creative director at Colenso BBDO and convenor of judges for Axis-21, stated, “An IRL advertising award show is a luxury our colleagues overseas can’t enjoy. We wanted to invite them. Hosting the first IRL ceremony is testament to New Zealand’s resolve in tackling Covid-19, and the local industry’s resolve to continue making great work in what has been an incredibly hard year.”

Devereux leads executive judges, Christie Cooper, creative director, DDB; Shane Bradnick, chief creative officer, TBWA; Steve Cochran, chief creative officer, Saatchi & Saatchi; Nina East, creative director, Wunderman Thompson; and Heath Lowe, executive design director and founding partner, Special Group.

Including the introduction of the new Pivot Category, the special category for brand campaigns and business innovations created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, work that would not exist if it had not been for Covid. This work will be judged on its creative solutions that genuinely helped to solve unexpected business problems by any of the following – pivoting to amplify or reposition a brand, creating a new revenue stream, contributing to overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic through corporate social responsibility initiatives, contributed to positive economic growth.