Grey grabs two trophies in two Lions competitions
The Media Lions, one of Cannes’ most competitive contests, saw two Canadian entries win Bronze Lions Tuesday night as Montreal’s Touché PHD and Toronto’s Grey Canada won for out-of-home innovation.
Touché’s “Your Better Start’s Here” for FGL Sport, which operates the Sport Chek retail chain, won in the Retail and E-Commerce category. It placed ads resembling starting lines on actual running tracks, in gyms and other areas where ambient ads would target runners specifically.
“The data suggested they had a very good conversion rate to runners,” said Melanie Varley, global chief strategy officer at MEC and a media jury member. “It was extremely well-targeted, and they invented new media.”
Grey’s work for Diageo’s Guiness beer brand brought them to downtown Toronto buildings where blinds were visible from the street. The blinds were partially drawn and a Guiness label was put on the window to make it resemble a pint of beer with Guiness’ distinctively frothy head.
“It was a very simple, smart solution for St. Patrick’s Day,” Varley said. “It’s media that’s completely invented. It may never exist again.”
Grey won in Best Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale.
This year’s Media Grand Prix went to “Why Wait Until It’s Too Late?” from Ogilvy & Mather Amsterdam. The project for Dela, a funeral insurance company, was a consumer-led program meant to develop content for a targeted media buy.
Based on an insight that words spoken at a funeral are those that people often wished they’d said while a loved one was alive, campaign participants did just that. Ambushing loved ones with hidden cameras and a prepared speech, Dutch citizens told parents and spouses how they felt about them.
That content turned into online documentaries and TV ads. The print portion of the campaign was an ad that simply said “Dear,” inviting citizens to write a brief letter to a loved one and photograph it for the campaign. Submitted photos were turned into further print and OOH ads that ran in areas close to where the intended recipient would see it.
“For me, it’s obvious here that media was the… bridge-builder between the ‘what’ and ‘where;’ that’s what I believe media professionals need to be accountable for,” said Jack Klues, chairman at VivaKi and media jury president. “This is a great illustration of the connectivity of message with media distribution.”
Mobile
With a bronze already under its belt, Grey then picked up a Silver Lion in the Mobile competition. Its “Most Valuable Check-In” tool for Missing Children Society of Canada adds a Foursquare implementation to the growing Most Valuable child-finding platform. Messages are sent to participating Foursquare users based on their proximity to where an abduction takes place, expanding that region of alerts over time in the hopes someone will spot the missing child.
Justin Baird, a partner at Australia’s Jumptank, said the jury discussed the product at length and was in awe of the idea. “They used a technology platform in a way that’s innovative; it’s change that adds value,” he said. Rather than build a new app from scratch, Baird said the choice to use an existing and widely used platform leap-frogged the project over the typical obstacles of building awareness and adoption.
“I think the idea was great,” said Baird. “What I love about it is it’s totally scalable. Instead of just leaving it in Canada, these are the guys I want to talk to about bringing it to Australia and other countries. It’s such a great utility.”
DDB’s office in the Philippines won the Grand Prix for “TXTBKS,” a project to put school textbooks on used or overstock SIM cards for feature phones—the predominant mobile technology in many poorer areas. This made school books lighter and easier for students (many of whom walk long distances in rural regions) to carry many texts to school simultaneously.
The project was undertaken for the client Smart Public Affairs.
“It’s an unexpected Grand Prix and may be controversial. It’s not the most technologically advanced entry; in fact, it’s a little bit backwards,” said Rei Inamoto, chief creative officer of AKQA and the Mobile jury president. “But that’s one of the reasons why I like it—the simplicity of it.”
Xavier Laourexux, the jurist from Belgium’s TBWA/Digital Arts Network, said “It’s the best way to show that you can have a great mobile idea without pushing the technology side of it. It was an idea solving a business problem, but not using technology as an end.”
