RT’S controversial advertising is ad of month in UK

03 March, 2010, 19:48

One of RT’s ads, which had been rejected by US airports and later caused a heated discussion among bloggers, has been named the best commercial of the month by the British press.

The decision to give the January “Ad of the Month” title to RT billboard advertisement was made by referees from the prestigious Awards for National Newspaper Advertising (the ANNAs).

“Some powerful, thought provoking work to start the year off from RT.com,” was the verdict of one of ANNAs judges Nik Studzinski, Creative Director at Mother.

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The ANNA award is the most prestigious and universally recognized in the British press. The competition marks creativity in national press advertisements.

The ANNAs are administrated by the Newspaper Marketing Agency (NMA), which was set up by the national newspapers, including the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Independent, The Sun and other major publications.

An independent council of experts, comprising the heads of major media and advertising agencies, selects the winner of the Ad of the Year among the winners of the Ads of the Months.

RT’s advertising campaign is based on the juxtaposition of several symbols and appeals to the viewer to “question more.” The winning piece features overlapping pictures of a police officer and a protester posing two questions – “Who is more dangerous?” and “Should a democratically elected government use violence to control a demonstration?”

The advertising campaign for RT was developed by McCann Erickson specialists. All in all, five different ads were used in it, sharing the same “question more” and blending images theme.

You can learn more about the campaign and share your opinion on it here

Sharing his views on the ads, Studzinski said: “Of course we've seen press campaigns that 'challenge' us to think about things in a different way before. Everything from political advertising to oven chips. I suppose it's a perfectly legitimate strategy for a website devoted to current affairs, especially one that seems to put an emphasis on generating debate. But there's such confidence in the visual treatment here that make these ads really stand out from the rest of this month’s work, but also from campaigns that have walked the same path. Great use of photography make them difficult to ignore. They feel big. Just like the space they've taken in the newspapers.”

The winner of the January “Ad of the Month” contest was chosen from among thousands of ads appearing in British newspapers and had to compete with advertisements from Volkswagen and social ads from the CWDC, as well as another RT ad (“Terrorist”).

“It’s an excellent result of our advertising campaign. After a huge response in Western media, thousands of positive comments in the English-language blogs from our viewers, now we have a recognition from advertising professionals,” said Margarita Simonyan, Editor in Chief of RT.

The ads, which turned heads in the UK, were rejected by US airports. Instead, blank billboards appeared there with the text: “Our ad. Politically correct. For original version please visit rt.com”.