This Pedestrian Council of Australia ad was made by Saatchi in 2001. That same year, a TV ad for the PCA won the famed Gold Film Lion in Cannes! The piece above, however, didn’t.
Look at the nice the things the PCA said about Cannes way back when, “The International Advertising Festival…features the most prestigious advertising awards. Around 9,000 delegates from the advertising and allied industries gather each year at this famous event to celebrate the crème de la crème of creativity in all major media. The Gold Lion award was won in a field of over 6,000 entries from all over the word.”
We’re fairly certain they meant “world” but it was the Wild West back in ’01. And we all lived through it.
The ad that did win that year is pasted after the jump. It includes Mark Chopper Read, an Australian ex-con and complete badass, who talks about all the wounds he picked up in prison. There’s a lot, because from the age of 20-38 he was only out of jail for a total of 13 months. Compelling dude.
The long and short of it is the only reason I learned any of this is because this guy tweeted me and then I looked at some other things he said when I came upon this quote, which I found particularly lame at the time: “Seriously, but seriously, check out the movie ‘Chopper’, with Eric Bana. Then check out the Wikki on Mark Brandon Read, the dude it’s about.”
Who was said tweeter? Click continued to find out!
More: “Australia’s Ad Execs Are High On Drugs. All Of Them.”
Campbell Mithun CCO Jonathan Hoffman (according to the Twitter account!). So, thanks Jon. We don’t think you’re lame, that was just a gut reaction. “Chopper” is legit someone to know about. How did I miss this?
And a bonus anit-drunk-driving poster!