After 35 weeks of submissions from around the globe, the Australian Brewery has named the winner of its Canbassador competition.
Couple Murray Wilkinson and Suganya Suppiah from Neutral Bay in Sydney are the grand prize winners, walking away with $20,000 for their video submission.
Submissions were open to amateur and professional creative types alike from around the world, with entries coming in the form of photography, posters, films, documentaries, art and TV commercials. All the entries simply had to feature any Australian Brewery can.
Of all the entrants, the newly wed team of Murray and Suganya were chosen as the overall winners with their documentary style video detailing the brewing and canning process at the brewery.
“The Australian Brewery has a real community feeling,” Murray said. “We wanted to capture all sides of the brewery, which were the local ingredients, the brewers and the people who drink the beer.”
The couple already has big plans for the $20,000: “This is only our second project together, but our first one was a comedy show we created together. The money is going to go towards getting the project off the ground.”
L-R: Winners Suganya Suppiah and Murray Wilkinson with AB brewer Neal Cameron
David Ward, beer ambassador for Australian Brewery, said the quality and quantity was up on last year's competition.
“The enthusiasm from the creative types who entered this year made judging extremely difficult,” he explained. “We had over 1700 entries skewed towards film as opposed to images this year. There were some great concepts that we will incorporate into our next generation of point of sale.”
The competition has significantly raised the profile of the brewery in the competitive Australian craft beer market, as well as boosting sales and increasing export interest in the brand. The brewery is now receiving orders from India and Japan, and there is strong interest from the United States.
Watch Wilkinson and Suppiah's winning entry by clicking on the video below.