The Cannes International Advertising Festival doesn’t award a Best of Show. That “honour” has always gone to the winner of the Film Grand Prix—the last award given at the closing gala Saturday night.
This year, BBDO New York’s HBO Voyeur Project may already be able to lay claim to the award—two days before the final awards are given out in the Film and Titanium & Integrated competitions.
The multimedia campaign has already won two Grand Prix honours in the Promo and Outdoor competitions as well as Golds in Design and Cyber. And when jury members are given a chance to talk about the campaign, they positively gush. A remarkable performance already, but it seems likely the campaign will win a Film Lion and is the betting favourite for the Titanium & Integrated campaign.
The multi-platform campaign, overseen by BBDO executive creative director Greg Hahn, was designed to reinforce HBO as the leader at “cutting-edge, innovative storytelling” among existing fans.
But rather than just tell that message, BBDO and HBO decided to turn fans into voyeurs as stories unfolded online, on TV and outdoors.
The Voyeur Project began with a life-size projection on the side of an apartment building in Manhattan. The film created the illusion that the apartment wall had been cut away and passersby were watching the residents. The campaign extended to HBOVoyeur.com, HBO On Demand and HBO Mobile.
More than 3,200 people visited the wall projection. Over one million users visited the website in the first three weeks and it became a hot topic on over 500 blogs.
