This years Grande ORCA Ceremony was held at Auckland's Ginger Minx in Mount Eden.

For those of you who couldn't join us, here's a brief run through of the event and details of both the Grande ORCA and Peoples Choice winners. 

Click here to go to the Grande ORCA photo gallery.

The MCs

Paul Ego and Dave Fane were so popular last year that we got them back again to amuse, enthuse and (good-naturedly) abuse the audience.

The audience egged them, ably assisted by the excellent food and drink provided by the Ginger Minx. Somehow, in amongst all the revelry, Paul and Dave managed to welcome faces old and new, take us through the entries, recount the judges' comments and, at the end of it all, revved everyone up for the winners.

The 2010 People's Choice

Each year, the Grande ORCA finalists have the opportunity to win two awards. The first to be announced is always the People's Choice award, voted for by people across the advertising and radio industries. There are no criteria, people just vote for the ad or campaign that presses their buttons.

This year, to resounding applause, Paul and Dave announced that the people had voted for the New Zealand Transport Agency ad 'Sliding Doors' by Anne Boothroyd and Brigid Alkema who had flown in especially from Wellington's Clemenger BBDO, along with Creative Director Paul Nagy and Account Director Linda Reuvecamp.

A giant cheque for $1,000 was handed over to Anne and Brigid, but the trophies, certificates and congratulations were shared by the whole team.

The Grande ORCA 2010

So then it was on to the Grande ORCA. To their surprise (and everyone elses' delight) Brigid and Anne were once again called up to the stage - this time to receive the Grande ORCA for Sliding Doors. 

For the first time since 2003, 'the people' and the Grande ORCA judges had both voted for the same winning team. The cheering and applause of the audience lasted almost as long as the grins on Anne and Brigid's faces...almost!

(The last time we had a double winner was back in 2003 when Darryl Parsons & Jeneal Rohrback took the Grande ORCA and the People's Choice for their 42 Below Vodka campaign.)

This was a true, double-whammy win; Sliding Doors was a clear winner in both Awards - it was marked highly by the judges in every judging criterion and took over a quarter of the People’s Choice votes.

Our Grande ORCA judges praised Anne and Brigid's work as “A great idea, great use of radio and great production!”; “Great use of the medium to really bring this idea to life”; “a great idea that has real cut through”and “A fine idea, expertly refined.”

Anne and Brigid’s prize will see them both flown out to France to attend the Cannes Lions and as the winning client, the NZ Transport Agency will receive a radio campaign to the value of $50,000.

The Judges

Our sincere thanks to this year's panel of Grande ORCA judges - Peter Ogden, Executive Creative Director at JWT; Tony Bradbourne,  Creative Director at Special; Harriet Crampton, GM Creative Services at The Radio Network; Carlos Savage, Award-winning Copywriter at Barnes, Catmur & Friends and Tom Davidson, National Creative Director at MediaWorks Radio.

Links

To listen to Anne and Brigid's winning ad, click here.

To hear the 11 finalists, click here .

To find out more about the ORCAs, Conditions of Entry and the Judging Criteria click here.