Witty writing, stand-out voice talent and wild SFX stole the show at Wednesday's Grand ORCA lunch, as creative agencies, clients, radio networks and students joined The Radio Bureau for a sun‑lit celebration of Outstanding Radio Creative.

THE GRAND ORCA
This year's winning entry was a universal favourite amongst the judges, who praised this "consistently funny" "simple and oh so true campaign," singling it out as "a great reminder that radio is awesome!"

Grand ORCA Winner
Delivereasy & ColensoBBDO – Get Takeout Without Going Out (click to play)
Simon Vicars, Andrew Hathaway and Kelly France
$5,000 cash prize and a $5,000 radio advertising schedule.

Andrew and Kelly pictured below, Simon was there in spirit!

THE STUDENT ORCA
Every year, we expand the ORCA to include a student competition that runs across AUT University and Media Design School’s Advertising Programmes. For 2025, we introduced two briefs from our network partners: the hit Sex.Life Podcast from NZME’s ZM Podcast Network, and MediaWork’s fresh rova app re-launch.

These two great briefs gave the students a fantastic opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of radio and audio! A big thank you to NZME and MediaWorks for making this possible.

The Student ORCA Winner
Media Design School & Sex.Life – Onosexopoeia (click to play)
Tea-Maria Riihimaki & Chanel Poomphuang
$700 cash prize.

The judges loved the wild SFX in the clever, cheeky 'Onosexopoeia' campaign for Sex.Life by Media Design School's Tea-Maria Riihimaki & Chanel Poomphuang.

“Love everything about these…to know that if you're someone who hears sex, you're more likely to listen to the podcast than some innocent soul who doesn't hear sex. It's like getting warm leads to the podcast."
Matt Watts, Chemistry

“Funny and super engaging use of the medium of radio. The simplest and strongest message of all the finalists for this brief."
Kristal Knight, Creative Consultant

“Clever, naughty, and audio led. Nice work.”
Ashwin Gopal, TBWA\

Tea & Chanel pictured below with Sex.Life's Morgan Penn.

The Student ORCA Runner-Up
Running a close second, were fellow Media Design School team Aidan McNeillage & Liza Plyshevsky, with their scary, witty and clever ‘Playing You’ campaign for rova.

This year's Grand ORCA Judges were Kristal Knight (Creative Consultant), Matt Watts (Chemistry), Ashwin Gopal (TBWA\), Matt Williams (DDB) and Freddie Coltart (DDB), with Kristal, Matt Watts & Ashwin doing double duty as Student Judges. Huge thanks to all of them, we couldn't do it without them!

We'd also like to extend our thanks to the everyone that entered, the clients that support such great creative work and to our network partners NZME & MediaWorks.