Two bronzes for simple executions that won the jury’s admiration
Montreal agency LG2 won two Bronze Lions at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity Tuesday night in the Outdoor competition.
The agency’s poster concept for Sanofi Consumer Health’s Allegra allergy medication brand won in Cosmetics & Beauty, Toiletries & Pharmacy category. The design involved an allergy sufferer using the bottom half of his wild posting as a tissue to blow his nose.
Sarah Barclay, executive creative director at JWT, called it an “extraordinary use of the outdoor medium… it was very strong and well-liked.”
The second trophy was for the agency’s road safety campaign for the Quebec Automobile Insurance Corporation, which has already earned accolades at the recent Marketing Awards. Simple OOH ads showed drivers’ date of birth and death, except the date of their death was covered by a seat belt.
“Very strong as a poster – graphic, simple, eye-catching and really kind of emotionally jarring. ‘If not for that safety belt, that could be the year I die.’ It was really liked.”
Traffic safety ads have been among the most evocative and controversial ads of modern times with more public safety organizations filming hyper-real, graphic car crashes to get attention. LG2’s concept seems to step back from that and opt for something far more down-beat.
“It’s provocative in a non-assaultive kind of way,” Barclay said. She said using violence and horror for charity work is often “the easy way” to cut through the clutter. “I think you need to find a cleverer way to do that because people can be desensitized… This was very clever.”
The Quebec Automobile Insurance Corporation ad won in the Fundraising, Charities, Appeals, Non-Profit Organisations, Public Health & Safety, Public Awareness Messages category.
The Grand Prix in this contest went to IBM, which turned outdoor ads into helpful and practical infrastructure elements as part of its Smarter Cities initiative. Ogilvy France’s billboards were moulded and curved to serve as functioning benches, rain shelters and ramps next to ad copy that said “Smart Ideas for Smarter Cities” and a call-to-action website address.
“This work is extraordinary in a category that’s really diverse,” said jury president Tony Granger, global CCO of Y&R. “This [idea] could only have been outdoor. This is a campaign of three pieces of art that that bring a global strategy to life for a really big client. We love the way the creative brought the strategy to life.”
