This story was updated on June 17 @ 11:10 a.m.
It’s early, but this has already been a very ice week for Canadian Tire.
While everyone wants to bring home trophies, the adage that just being shortlisted in Cannes is an honour is more than a hollow platitude – it is a big deal. And Canadian Tire‘s “Ice Truck” was shortlisted two more times Monday morning at the 61st International Festival of Creativity in Cannes when four lists were released (read about the Press and Outdoor shortlists here).
In the Media Lions, Canada has six shots at winning a Lion with “Ice Truck” earning two nominations. The work was entered by Touché PHD, the media agency, with Taxi Toronto and Fuse Marketing down as agencies on the work. Ice Truck was also shortlisted in the PR competition Sunday.
Like “Ice Truck,” Saatchi’s “Surrender Your Say” for the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada has also been shortlisted three times now after making it to the Media list. It was on the Outdoor, PR and Promo & Activation lists as well.
JWT’s idea to recreate a test drive experience in movie theatres (“Massive Test Drive”) earned the agency and Mazda Canada a spot on the Media shortlist with Mindshare down as the media agency.
The recent Best of Show at the Marketing Awards – Molson’s “Passport Beer Fridge” – is on the Media list for Rethink with MEC as the media agency. Finally, “Missing Kids Stamps,” which let Canadians create their own customized Canada Post stamps featuring the faces of missing children, earned Lowe Roche and the Missing Children’s Network a spot on the Media list.
Canada had 79 entries to the Media competition this year, down from 94 last year. In total there were 3,126 entries up from 3,031 last year.
Mobile Lions
In the Cannes Lions’ Mobile competition, two apps developed by Canadian agencies have been shortlisted: one to build buzz for a new videogame franchise, and one to promote a little holiday charitable giving.
Zulu Alpha Kilo has been shortlisted in the contest’s “Content created for mobile” category for its Kringl app. Developed for Make-a-Wish Canada, the app allows parents to impose stock video footage of Santa into photographs inside their home.
While Kringl was free to download, it asked for donations to Make-a-Wish.
Publicis Montreal earned a nod in the “Media, Entertainment and Leisure” category for the app it developed for Ubisoft Canada promoting the launch of Watch_Dogs, a new game property that recently launched across multiple gaming platforms.
The app, downloaded by 202,000 Canadians, rolled out unique content in four stages in advance of the game’s launch. At each iteration, participants were asked to enter codes into the app to “unlock” real-world events that they could then watch in real time. The events included an ATM “hack” that spewed real money into a shopping mall, blowing up a car and “taking over” the broadcasts of two sport talk shows.
Canadian agencies submitted 34 entries to the Mobile contest this year (up from 25 last year) to compete in a field of 1,187 total entries (up from 1,061 in 2013).
Want the latest news and winners from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity? Visit Marketing @ Cannes.
This story originally said the Watch_Dogs app had been downloaded 27,000 times. The real figure provided by Ubisoft is 202,000 unique Canadian downloads. Marketing regrets the error.
