Does ‘Dumb Ways To Die’ reveal a weakness in the Cannes Lions system?
The Cannes Lions’ press room is not always a cheery place. Most days, weary reporters file into this darkened room for back-to-back-to-back press conferences with hungover juries. The jury president says a few words. The Grand Prix is revealed. Jurists answer questions. Everyone’s tired and grumpy. It has been this way for years.
But on the very first day of this year’s festival, the Direct Lions presser brightened considerably when several members of this dour ensemble began swaying to a cheery tune from Australia that had won Grand Prix: “Dumb Ways To Die.” (If you need this earworm stuck in your head again, the video is below).
The song led a rail safety campaign for Metro Trains that included mobile and web content, out-of-home executions and broadcast media buys, though most people around the world know it as just a catchy YouTube vid that burned through their social networks.
Over the course of the week, however, the swaying stopped. Reporters heard it multiple times every day as more and more juries awarded it. For six days straight, we sang it in the halls and hummed it while we typed. By Saturday, when the Film jury awarded it a record-breaking fifth Grand Prix, there were actually one or two groans from the press gallery.
The campaign dominated Cannes like no other has in Lions past. While every year there are one or two campaigns that win across multiple competitions, this work by McCann Melbourne won a staggering amount of hardware: five Grand Prix, 19 gold, three silver and one bronze.
It’s made many wonder if the festival needs to rethink how it operates its award programs.
Scanning the category lists across the 17 Lions awards, there certainly seems to be a lot of overlap. Ian Schwey, creative director at Doug & Serge, said he likes “Dumb Ways To Die,” but thinks other great work is being denied the spotlight because of an overabundance of categories and a dearth of restrictions on entering those categories.
“In Cyber alone… [Dumb Ways To Die] won for both Online Video and Viral Advertising. Are those two really different? It also won gold at the Cyber Lions for Craft Best Video and Craft Music. Is that not covered in the Film Craft Lions? Then it went on to win Film Lion gold in the Viral Film category. Wait, didn’t we just cover that in Cyber, or can spots on TV now go viral as well?
“I think it’s great that this piece won big, as it is deserving, but when you break it down and see the number of categories one piece can win in, Cannes is clearly out to make as much [money] as possible,” says Schwey.
The cost complaints are perennial, but they perennially get louder too as entry fees become more onerous (current fees range from about $600 to $1,700 per entry). Cannes gets bigger every year, and new contests like the Innovation Lions are generally seen by the industry as cash grabs. But this doesn’t keep anyone from entering; Canada’s total entries have gone up each of the past four years. So have entries from Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the U.S. – the four most active nations in competition. Why are they all willing to pay more? As Dan Pawych, chief creative officer at KBS+ Canada, puts it, “The Lions are the Oscars.”
That’s why simplifying the category structure won’t necessarily mean fewer entries. No one cares if a Film Lion was won in “Household: Cleaning Products” or “Household: Other.” While this does decrease the chances of one campaign winning multiple golds in a Lion competition, winning multiple golds in one competition is pretty rare anyway. It’s really the trophy that’s coveted, not its category. If that means fewer opportunities to award the next “Dumb Ways…,” it may be worth it to keep the agencies happy.
Juries report many submissions are mis-entered anyway, and find they must move work into categories where they stand the best chance of winning. Design jury member Lara Palmer says Cossette’s Enablis brochure, for example, was moved from a general design group in the Design Lions to a typography category to give it a medal. Pawych says it would help the festival if juries had more power to make such decisions. “It spreads the wealth a little bit.”
Here’s another thing to consider. As the industry builds a better understanding of new media – and how they function within the wider media universe – more campaigns are becoming capital-I Integrated. Big ideas are working well as radio ads, activation events, web projects – in effect becoming relevant in just about every Cannes Lions competition. This is partly why “Dumb Ways…” did so well.
Presently, a large part of Cannes’ value is exposing attendees to smaller, regional ads from foreign markets that often win for sheer simplicity. The gallery of print, direct and design submissions is always a busy place in the Palais. If the Lions become a contest to see which big idea will top all the award lists, will agencies see any point in submitting a beautifully illustrated print ad with no film component? The Titanium and Integrated Lions may be the most coveted, but the festival is at risk of reducing its entire award program to this coveted—and very small—list of entrants.
Why “Dumb…” was smart
Despite the reporters’ cynicism, Metro Trains’ campaign certainly deserved a lot of awards. “Dumb Ways…” worked on many levels, and showed real results.
• an original song uploaded to iTunes and SoundCloud charted in 28 countries
• while radio time was bought for the campaign, stations played the song for free due to its popularity
• the original animated video earned more than 20 million views in one week
• more than 200 cover versions and parodies of the song exist online
• the iconic characters appeared in Instagram and Tumblr content for easy sharing
• in six weeks, the campaign received $60 million in earned media
• mobile users could download mobile games re-enacting scenes from the video
• a storybook featuring the ad’s characters and message was produced
• everything drove to DumbWaysToDie.com where nearly one million visitors had taken a safety pledge by mid-June
• Metro Train reports a 21% reduction in train-realted accidents
