The winning combo of Leo Burnett and Another Country sound designer David Gerbosi, who has mixed every Allstate Insurance “Mayhem” spot since the agency introduced the concept in 2008, scored still another set of honors for their work.
They won two cash prize awards out of 15, presented by the 24th Radio Advertising Bureau’s annual Radio Mercury Awards, held in New York.
“Mayhem’s All-Time Greatest Hits” won Best Integrated Radio Campaign, and “Chicago Mayhem” — the Mayhem guy (Dean Winters) getting off on accidents around Chicago — won in the Radio Campaign category. The agency received the cash awards of $3,000 and $1,000, respectively.
Busy actor Winters, best known as Det. Cassidy in “Law & Order: SVU” works non-stop on TV series shot on both coasts. He goes to Cutters’ New York and Santa Monica studios to voice his Mayhem guy for radio spots, via ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) which is recorded at Another Country Chicago.
Burnett CD Britt Nolan, who heads the Allstate creative team, directs the sessions that Garbosi mixes with music and special effects.
Award-winning “Mayhem’s All-Time Greatest Hits,” is a wildly creative radio concept. Allstate bought two hours of prime 4-6 p.m. drive time, on four radio stations in nine markets. The Mayhem guy plays the all-time greatest music hits on the faux radio show, with short integrated segments of him plotting to take over the station.
Gerbosi says the challenge was sound designing so many different scenarios throughout the two hour show: “1970’s style background singers, the sinking of the Titanic, the Trojan horse, silent movies, and much more.”
Gerbosi, who joined Another Country in 2008 after 16 years with CRC, is a multi-honored sound designer, with a slew of awards for Bud Light’s “Men of Genius” campaign and other A-B brands.
He estimates he has mixed 85 TV spots for the Super Bowl over his career, including many for Bud Light, and Cars.com and Esurance with Brian Cranston and Lindsey Lohan for the 2015 games.
Other Chicago Mercury Radio winners were DDB for Mars/Juicy Fruit and Mars/Skittles and FCB for Meredith’s Miracles Colon Cancer Foundation; the two agencies taking home $1,500 for each spot.
Listen to the winning Allstate spots here.
