Lowe Roche and Johnson & Johnson proved in Cannes on Monday night that it never hurts to apologize.
The pair landed a Bronze Lion in the PR competition for “A Personal Apology (Just For You).”
A recent winner at the Marketing Awards, “A Personal Apology” was launched after J&J’s O.B. tampons disappeared from store shelves due to a “distribution problem.”
Lowe Roche wrote and recorded an apology song and video along with thousands of female names.
The song was then sent to 65,000 women from J&J’s database. Each recipient could type in her name and, assuming it was one of those thousands that Lowe Roche considered, the song and video would play just for her.
Lowe Roche was the only one of 27 Canadian entries to be shortlisted, though clearly interest has increased in the competition. Just three Canadian submissions were made last year.
The Grand Prix also went for a song, this one from Puerto Rico—a win that marks the first Grand Prix for the country.
JWT San Juan and Banco Popular de Puerto Rico took one of the country’s most popular songs and rewrote it, released it and then saw it rise to the top of Puerto Rican charts.
The original tune, “No Hago Más Ná”—which translates to “I Do Nothing”—celebrates life on welfare. About 60% of the country lives on government support.
Concerned about the impact on the economy and therefore its own reputation as a financial institution doing business in Puerto Rico, Banco Popular and JWT asked ultra-popular salsa band El Gran Combo to rewrite the song with lyrics that extolled the virtues of getting up and going to work.
In the press conference with the PR jury on Monday morning, reporters quickly turned to the prevalence of advertising agencies on the winners list rather than PR agencies—a recurring theme since PR was added to Cannes four years ago.
Several of the judges said PR shops aren’t as familiar with industry awards show expectations as creative shops, and need to do a better job of presenting their submissions.
There was also a call from several judges to be less focused on tactical solutions and invest more on “insight development” within their agencies—again mirroring creative agency operations. “To compete more fully with ad agencies, we perhaps need to take more learnings from them,” said Joe Sinclair, U.K. creative director for Burson-Marsteller.
But PR shops also need to be more ambitious in terms of the work they do, said Matt Neale, president of GolinHarris’ international operations.
Too often clients still only task the PR agency with earning print media coverage, whereas advertising agencies work on brand exposure across channels. “You need to move out of owned media as quickly as possible,” said Neale.
