Good as Gold…For a Week
You could be a winner…if you’re willing to pay shipping and handling and give up the honor seven days later.
The One Show is offering creatives the chance to “test drive” the Gold Pencil award a week.
Charlotte, NC-based agency Boone Oakley created the campaign to help promote the call for entries for the 2009 competition.
Potential entrants can experience the “unending bliss” (their words, not ours) of having an award. If they’re willing to put down a deposit and pay for shipping and handling both ways, they can have a Golden Pencil of their own to have, hold and show off for a week.
Applicants can register at oneshowtestdrive.org. Each week for the next 12 weeks, up to 40 creatives will be invited to do a test drive.
The deadline for entries to the competition is Jan. 30, 2009; the awards will be presented during a weeklong celebration in May in New York.
“It’s such a fantastic award, so why not get it in the hands of people so they can test drive it?” says John Boone, creative director of Boone Oakley. “This is unprecedented for an awards competition.”
He admits there is a level of concern that people won’t return the awards after a week. “But they probably will, because they don’t want to be blacklisted by the One Club,” Boone said with a laugh.
And are those pencils real gold? Nope. “But they’re worth their weight in gold,” says Boone.
The test drive will be promoted with a 30,000 piece postcard mailing in English, as well as a 20,000 piece Chinese language mailing.
