Parker Jotter Pens + A Kingdom of Animals: Advertising Winners and New Entries

The deadline for our Advertising 2023 competition is midnight tomorrow. Check out your competition and discover past Platinum winners with this week’s blog!

First up is a 2019 Platinum-winning poster advertisement, devised by the British creative technology agency Splash Worldwide to promote a new range of pens for Parker Jotter in “Parker / Jotter London” (above, left). Heralded for its beautiful craftsmanship and sleek design, the company focuses on providing quality pens to consumers who value fine writing utensils. However, as Parker Jotter continues to expand, it began to seek ways to target the UK market, specifically the “young, lively, individual, and quality mindful consumer, looking to take their first steps into the good writing category.” As part of their task, Splash Worldwide needed to find a way to amplify the reach of Parker Jotter that increased impact and drove awareness in consumers between 18-30 years old. For their approach, the agency’s creative team played on the fact that each pen was named after a different London address, and combined them together, resulting in a Union Jack image made up of the writing utensils. With the image came the brand’s new ‘Just A Click Away’ slogan became a simple sign-off that alluded to the famous Jotter pen ‘click.’ Splash Worldwide’s concept was so successful that Parker Jotter changed all of its packagings to match the design, including print, point of sale, and a TV commercial based on ‘Just A Click Away.’

Animal Kingdom is a drama series created by Jonathan Lisco that first aired on TNT in 2016 with great success. Set in a small beach town, the show follows the main character Joshua “J” Cody who is taken in by extended family, only to enter a world of crime and violence. To promote “Animal Kingdom S3” (above, left), American firm and Graphis Master ARSONAL developed their 2019 Platinum-winning poster ad that takes a slightly different approach to the visual theme from previous seasons to convey the constant threats looming just behind the characters. When past posters typically used fire motifs to communicate the show’s literal and figurative combustive nature and danger, this time the agency utilized water, showing a character screaming underwater. While the murky image is ambiguous in identity and nature, it’s clear in its volatility, and with a sharp contrast between the yellow and orange of the person’s skin with the cool blue of the depths below, the poster implies fire without actually showing it, creating a unique continuation while warning viewers about what’s to come. 

Next is a new submission to our Advertising Annual 2023, “Monster Melanoma” (above, left), made for HCB Health during their campaign for National Skin Care Awareness Month this past May. With over 5 million diagnoses a year, skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, and HCB Health understood its responsibility to broaden awareness of this illness by boosting different methods of prevention during the sunny summer months. To do so, the agency decided to transcend the online sphere and head straight to where people spend a lot of time in the sun: the beach. They asked Craig Mikes of Whiskey, Texas for help, who teamed up with local artists in and around Texas before heading to South Padre Island, AKA “the sand castle capital of the world”,  where they created a menacing melanoma monster emerging from the sand. In front of the monster and held between its claws, a sign reads, “#Beware and be safe.” For two days, a team from HCB handed out sunscreen and t-shirts while providing beachgoers with valuable information on skin cancer and how to prevent melanoma. The campaign was further teased with rogue social media postings and mini sculptures all along the beach. In just one day, HBC was able to reach over 50,000 people, with thousands of people sharing their messages on social media. 

If you love fashion, you need to check out “Azzedine Alaïa: L’Art de la Mode” (above, right). Hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design’s FASH Lacoste Museum in Paris, France, the exhibit examines the career of the late fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa, known as one of the greatest garment designers of the 20th and 21st centuries for her regal creations impeccably tailored to the female form. The haute couture creations have been worn by some of the most glamorous women of all time, including Greta Garbo, Namoi Cambell, and Michelle Obama. Within their exhibition, SCAD presents more than 20 career-defining gowns, sleek suits, and other exquisitely made clothes from the designer’s archives that “evoke his timeless aesthetic and evidence his artistic triumphs.” To promote the exhibit, SCAD designers developed a creative campaign that embraced the Parisian couturier’s legacy and elevated the museum’s international presence, utilizing an image of Alaïa’s white hooded gown as the exhibition’s key promotional image. They paired it with a customized sans-serif typeface that complements the elegant design and the form of Alaïa’s gowns. This captivating exhibition is part of SCAD Lacoste’s 20th-anniversary celebration and is currently on view through Oct. 29, 2022. Check it out if you can!

To see more incredible designs from our 2019 Advertising annual, click here. To learn more about submitting your work to our 2023 Advertising Annual, click here!