Meerkats’ creative team Luke Williams, Maya Halilovic, Rikki Burns and Josh Edge have taken out the single, campaign and overall win in round 1 of the 2020 Siren Awards with the ad, ‘Ancient Medic’, for St John Ambulance WA as part of the ‘First Aid – Essentials’ campaign.
 
The winning ad, which was also a part of the campaign win, reminds listeners to keep their first aid skills up to date, and depicts a battlefield scenario like that of Game of Thrones, where a medic, whose first aid skills are hilariously out-of-date, struggles to save an injured man so he instead waits for the healing Gods to help.
 
Meerkats’ winning campaign, ‘First Aid – Essentials’, includes the ads: ‘Victorian Doctor’, ‘Witch’ and ‘Ancient Medic’. All three amusingly call out the real effects of administering outdated first aid.
 
Williams, Halilovic, Burns and Edge said: ‘It was fun to create these fantasy worlds in the studio. If you’re not going to make something that helps your audience, at least make something that entertains them. Something that makes them laugh or smile.’
 
The winner of the craft category was sound engineers, Michael Fragomeni & Lucy Messenger, from Cue Sound, with the ad ‘Roman’, again for St John Ambulance WA as part of the First Aid – Essentials Wizards campaign.
 
CEO of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner, said: “The Siren Awards continue to showcase the excellence in radio advertising, winning round one is a great achievement for Luke, Maya, Rikki and Josh.” 
 
A further three ads from Meerkats for St John Ambulance WA, were also highly commended in the single category, these included ‘First Aid – Essentials – Victorian Doctor’, ‘First Aid – Essentials – Witch’ and ‘First Aid – Workplace’
 
Highly commended in the campaign category were Deloitte’s creatives: Charles Baylis, Matt Lawson for the Suzuki ad ‘Passing Time’ and NOVA Entertainment’s creative John Curran for the Magain Real Estate ad ‘Magain Again’.
 
Michael Fragomeni & Lucy Messenger, from Cue Sounds, were highly commended in the craft category with the ads ‘Victorian’ and ‘Medieval’, as part of the ‘First Aid – Essentials Wizards’ campaign for St John Ambulance WA. Paul Le Couteur from Nylon Studios was also highly commended with the ad ‘Home Alone Xbox’ for RACV.
 
The Siren Awards, run by CRA, are judged over five rounds and celebrates the best of radio advertising.
 
The 2020 Gold Siren winner will be announced in May 2020.
 
Round 2 of the 2020 Siren Awards is now open. Entries close 6 July 2019.