Colenso BBDO named Cannes Lions Pacific Agency of the Decade

While the official Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is on pause this year, it's virtual replacement, Cannes Lions Live is still passing out some important recognitions this week.

Among them was naming Colenso BBDO as the Agency of the Decade for the Pacific region. 

The New Zealand-based creative agency, which turned 50 last year, has enjoyed enormous success at Cannes over the past decade. It has collected no less that 99 Lions in that time, including a Grand Prix, Titanium, 29 gold, 31 silver and 37 bronze awards across 58 campaigns for 30 brands.

Colenso's work for Pedigree has been highly recognised during this time including its Pedigree SelfieSTIX efforts and The Pedigree Child Replacement Programme, the agency's most awarded campaign historically. Its Brewtroleum campaign for DB Export was another standout, winning the agency's second highest awards haul at Cannes. 

"Colenso has an incredible history of extraordinary creative work," said Levi Slavin, who returned to Colenso in 2017 as chief creative officer. "It’s wonderful to have that history formally recognized."

Scott Coldham, who joined Colenso in 2006 and has been managing director for the past five years, said this award is a career highlight.

"Looking back over the last ten year’s work, the people involved, the brands we’ve had the privilege of representing and the audacity of some of our work is a wonderful reminder of how special this agency is, and how lucky I am to be a part of it," Coldham said.

Colenso BBDO clients who have seen award-winning work include:

Pedigree
DB Export
Bank of New Zealand
Spark
M&M’s
Monteith’s
Heart of the City
New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation
Amnesty International
Volkswagen
Samsung
Burger King
Levi’s
Vodafone
Mountain Dew
Vespa
V Energy Drink
The Pacific
Yellow Pages
Westpac
Fisher & Paykel
Go Girls
Tip Top
Anchor
Frucor
New Zealand Book Council
Alzheimers Foundation NZ
Multiple Sclerosis NZ