GRP

Last year’s grand haul of awards for the phenomenally successful Be Books is a hard act to follow, but we’re keeping up the trophy-winning habit with the invitation to our Lighthouse Agency Party.  After winning two silvers at the Roses, we’re nominated in two categories at the Scottish Advertising Awards - namely best illustration and best self-promotion.  Martin will be at the event on 24th October to pick up the awards if we win.  The rest of the agency will be elsewhere, enjoying some aprés-awayday refreshment.

One Glasgow team picked up a couple of trophies in Manchester earlier this month, though sadly it was nothing to do with football. GRP won two Silvers at The 2008 Roses advertising awards – Best Use of Illustration and Best Self-Promotion - both for our invitation to the agency’s birthday party last October.

With the Grand Prix at The Roses, Client of the Year at the Scottish Advertising Awards and the industry holy grail of a D&AD pencil (plus another ten or so other significant awards), our Be Books for NHS Trusts have picked up just about all the gongs they’ve been eligible for this year. Now there’s one more - it’s “only” a bronze for Best Publication, but it’s from Epica, the Paris-based, Europe-wide awards scheme. We’re up there with Cadbury’s Gorilla and Guiness’s Tipping Point. Now we just need to find the air fare to Stockholm in January to pick up the trophy…..

We’ve won an impressive haul of awards for our NHS Be Books this year, including the industry gold standard – a D&AD “Pencil”. Last week we also picked up best copy and best art direction at the 21st anniversary Scottish Advertising Awards. Even more exciting was the fact that our client – NHS Ayrshire & Arran, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Lanarkshire, represented on the night by Nicky Coia and Jo Zinger – won Client of the Year.

BE Books for a partnership of NHS Boards in the West of Scotland (Ayrshire & Arran, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Lanarkshire) have been nominated for more awards - and this time the gongs are being handed out in Scotland. GRP has nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Copywriting in The Scottish Advertising Awards, and we’ll find out if we’ve won at the awards dinner at the Hilton in Glasgow on 26th October.The BE Books have already picked up a Pencil at D&AD and the Grand Prix at the Roses, along with several other international awards. But there’s nothing like getting a bit of recognition from the home crowd, so we’re delighted to be in the running for the Scottish Awards in their 21st year.

Our entry into this year’s Chip Shop awards show – a viral film we made to celebrate The Drum’s 21st birthday – enjoyed an appreciative reception when it was shown to a lively crowd at The Underbelly on the Edinburgh Fringe. Sadly we weren’t awarded one of the coveted “Chip” awards - but we did get a consolation bottle of vinegar for our efforts.

At this summer’s IPA Best of Health Awards, we picked up an impressive four bronzes and two silvers for our “Be Book” and “Equal” NHS projects. Included in our award tally were prizes for best website and best integrated campaign – as well as posters and print. Best of Health is run by the IPA in London, and this year attracted entries from as far afield as Australia and Germany.

There are award schemes aplenty in the advertising industry, but there’s only one D&AD. For the uninitiated, Design and Art Direction is a non-profit organisation promoting excellence in the creative industries. For the past 42 years, the D&AD annual and awards have celebrated the very best work from around the world. And this year, that includes us.

D&AD got around 26,500 entries this year, and they handed out about 30 yellow pencils. It’s very, very hard to get one, and this year we were the only Scottish agency to do so. So as you can imagine, we’re positively glowing with pride. You can view the work on-line at www.bebooksonline.co.uk

We’ve been picking Roses again this year at GRP - and 2007 has produced our best haul ever.

Our Be Books - a pair of illustrated story books on sex and relationships for kids that we produced for NHS Glasgow and Partners - were awarded Gold for Art Direction, Gold for Copywriting and Silver for Illustration. The icing on the cake came at the end of the ceremony - the judges awarded our work the Grand Prix as the best piece in the whole show. And given that The Roses is open to all agencies in the UK outside the M25, that’s pretty good going.