A campaign created by the Golley Slater advertising agency and
the British Army has struck gold at the international marketing
industry's most famous festival, beating off competition from over
3,000 other entries from across the world.
Golley Slater was one of only three agencies in the UK - and
only 16 in the world - to be awarded a coveted gold film award at
the prestigious Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards 2009.
The company, which has offices based in Birmingham, and nine other
offices around the UK, was recognised for its work on a life-saving
road safety campaign for the British Army and commissioned by the
COI.
The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival has been
running since 1954 and is renowned within the communications
industry as the world's only truly global meeting place for
marketing professionals.
With military personnel twice as likely to die in fatal road
traffic accidents as civilians, the COI commissioned Golley Slater
to create an integrated TV, radio and poster advertising campaign
to highlight awareness of road traffic accidents involving British
troops for the internal Forces media, which would be highly visible
around British Army garrisons in the UK and abroad.
Since its launch, the hard hitting campaign has been successful
in dramatically reducing off-duty road deaths of members of not
just the Army, but the Armed Forces.
Andy Walton, managing director of Golley Slater Advertising in
Birmingham, said: "To win a gold award at the Cannes Lions
Festival, when only 16 were awarded worldwide, is an absolutely
fantastic achievement and wonderful for the creative team who
worked on the campaign. The festival is a showcase for work from
the best advertising agencies from across the world so to be named
among them is a real honour."
Col. Chris Manning, Head of Safety for the British Army,
added: "This award gives due recognition to the outstanding
quality of creative inspiration provided to this project by Golley
Slater and COI. The underlying benefit, though, goes to those men
and women of the Armed forces whose lives have been saved as a
result of this groundbreaking campaign."