While Canadian agencies were busy racking up the hardware in the Cyber Lion competition Wednesday night, its design community was performing equally well at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Leo Burnett led the charge with three awards, including two silver Lions. The first came for Bell’s “Canadian CEO Olympic Invite,” an artistic take on Russian nesting dolls sent to Bell and Air Canada executives, inviting them to the Sochi Winter Games.
“People unanimously loved it,” said jury member Lara Palmer, creative director at Lara Palmer Advertising in Vancouver. “There was a bit of a discussion around Russian dolls having been done before and whether that was unique enough to get a gold. It got a really strong silver because people loved the interpretation and that it formed the Olympic rings in the end.”
“The Street House,” Leo Burnett’s cardboard out-of-home installation to drive awareness of homelessness for Raising the Roof, also won a silver. The agency also brought home a bronze Lion for its self-promoting “Cook Without The Book,” an apron covered with printed cooking tips to replace the conventional cookbook.
Cossette found itself back on the Design podium for Enablis, the financial support non-profit that helped the agency win Design gold in 2011. This year, its 2012 report – “The Enablis Effect” – won a silver Lion, though only after the jury made some adjustments to its entry.
“It was one of the last pieces we judged last night,” Palmer said. The jury noticed how strong the typography of the project was, especially compared to the overall weakness of entries in the typographic categories. Enablis had initially been entered into an overall branding category, which the jury didn’t feel was a proper fit. Instead, it felt it was better suited to the Design Typography group, so moved it and awarded it silver.
Lowe Roche rounded out the silver winners with its MakeHealthLast.ca website for the Heart & Stroke Foundation, entered in the Online Digital Design category. The site visualizes lots of data relavent to the target audience, and offers a risk assessment tool.
In the Posters category, Baillat Cardell & Fils, a Montreal-based firm, won Bronze for Bian Posters, which introduces the new visual identity for Quebec art organization ACREQ’s new international design arts publication.
LG2Boutique also won for F. Menard’s new visual identity (below) – a rebranding of a Quebec pork supplier that won at the recent Marketing Awards as well.
Palmer said, unlike other Cannes jury environments where jurists often have to explain regional relevance to international jurors or even fight for work from their home country, she didn’t have to fight for any Canadian entry that won. “It was universally liked,” she said.
When it came time to award the Design Grand Prix, the 21-person jury chose an annual report (which is not unusual in this Lion contest) printed on a grocery store receipt (which is unusual). Serviceplan Munich digitized grocery chain Auchan’s annual report, designing it to work best on mobile screens. Consumers can get the report at check-out as a receipt with several bar codes to be scanned.
The report also integrates smartphone functionality such as email, so consumers can get in touch directly with the company about specific aspects of the report.
“It’s highly innovative within its category,” said jury president Mary Lewis, founding partner of Lewis Moberley. “It was also active at point of purchase, which is the moment of truth – a very important role for design to play. It’s integrated, it’s well-paced and it’s accessible.”
