The Brief

Unlike most other awards shows, D&AD is not for profit.  So how does it survive? Masterclasses. Run by the best, to teach the next gen of award winners. But we had a massive problem. The budget to promote D&AD Masterclasses wasn’t just small. It was tiny.

Our Thinking

Yes there are Cannes Lions. And of course the DMAS.  But every purist creative knows that D&AD is the toughest creative awards show to win. Everything that wins a coveted D&AD pencil has to be flawless. Perfection is expected.  

Yet as we all know, creative perfection is very, very hard. And it doesn’t start with the creative solution. It starts with a whole agency, from the person who took the brief, the person who wrote the brief, the people who create the idea, the person who sells the idea, the client who buys it and the whole wonderful production process. Oh and timing. And of course, results.

So it can be pretty frustrating if you’ve achieved this excellence once, to not achieve it again. After all, you now know what it takes. But does the rest of your agency?  

Masterclasses are D&AD’s lifeblood. Pencil winners are invited to teach the next generation of pencil winners how it is done. We needed to reach our creative budget holders – senior creative leaders who have more than likely won a D&AD pencil – in a dramatic, creative way. Well, they would expect no less, right? But we had the tiniest budget.

The Creative

We committed sacrilege.

For the past 57 years, the D&AD annual of winners has been a bible for creatives.

Most will have at least one of the hardback copies on their bookshelf.  Few will have made it into one of those copies.  

These books are cherished. Worshipped even. 

So we ripped them up.  

We targeted ECDS and CCOs who had won a D&AD pencil and had made it into an annual.

Then we ripped their work out and mailed the brutally torn page directly to them with the message:

"You know where great work ends up. But does the rest of your agency know where it begins?"

The Results

We sent direct mail two weeks before lockdown.

Two weeks before budgets started being slashed; training budgets being amongst the first to go. Despite that, we managed to get a 9.1% response.