M&C Saatchi wins global Animal Spot Award

Sydney agency M&C Saatchi has taken home the top prize in the Ethical Value category at the Animal Spot Awards in Rome.

The agency won the award for Getting to Zero, a campaign for Sydney Dogs and Cats Home.

A panel of judges from the Italian cinema, culture and advertising industries chose M&C Saatchi's entry ahead of a global shortlist for its technical excellence and ethical value.

In its eighth year, Animal Spot is the world's only creative awards program for advertising that uses animals as protagonists.

Getting to Zero is a short film shot by Damien Toogood as part of M&C Saatchi's Limited Edition campaign that gathered 21 of Australia’s finest photographers to shoot portraits of 63 homeless pets. The one-of-a-kind prints, signed by the photographers, were displayed all over Sydney.

The posters directed people to the Sydney Dogs and Cats home website where they could view the collection, bid for prints, adopt an animal or make a donation – all to help the charity in Getting to Zero by eradicating all unnecessary euthanasia of healthy domestic animals.

A huge success, the campaign saw all the featured animals adopted, all the posters sold and thousands of dollars raised.

M&C Saatchi ECD Ben Welsh said the Animal Spot win is a nice endorsement of the work that made a huge difference to lots of animals' lives. “If I was a dog, my tail would be wagging,” he said.