PR agencies are slow to get on board
While Canada was shut out of Monday’s PR Lions competition in Cannes, the jury offered thoughts on the award’s value to the PR industry and tried to stoke interest in the competition for future events.
Canada had only three entries in the competition submitted by two non-PR agencies: Grey Canada and Cloudraker. Indeed, most of the Lion winners appeared to be full-service ad agencies.
Neither Cloudraker or Grey made the shortlist.
The PR Grand Prix went to Clemenger BBDO Melbourne for its “Break Up” campaign for the National Australia Bank (NAB). The program, which launched with a single tweet and grew to a massive public event and media blitz, encouraged Australians to break up with their banks. Full-page “Dear John” ads in daily newspapers and a series of online videos portrayed such a break-up as the end of a romantic but dysfunctional relationship.
When asked why the list was so dominated by ad agencies, PR jury president Dave Senay, CEO of Fleishman-Hillard, said good PR “doesn’t have an address” and could come from anywhere.
However, Senay did say PR agencies may be at a disadvantage competing against ad agencies that have been submitting to Cannes for more than 50 years. He saw a need for PR agencies to “grasp hands” with other disciplines to learn how to package their work in ways suitable for a Cannes jury.
Many of this year’s submissions, he said, failed to present their results properly. Many included “buzz” or “awareness” as their key metric. Such things “are like brushing your teeth” in PR, Senay said, and should be a standard part of any PR effort.
The jury was, instead, looking for changed behaviour and business results to judge effectiveness. Senay asked jurists to look past emotional pleas that, despite being well-crafted, have nothing to do with hard results and sound strategy. “It’s about the head, not the heart,” he said.
Richard Miller, CEO of Hill and Knowlton in the U.K. and another jury member, said he was also keen to see whether campaigns were based in brand insight. He cited Mercedes-Benz’ “Tramp a Benz” campaign, which focused on a hitchhiker making a trek across Europe but refusing to ride in anything except a Benz. Miller said the gold-winning campaign was in keeping with the automaker’s “the best or nothing” position.
Senay also noted a dearth of entries on several key corporate PR disciplines: internal communications, public affairs and crisis management.
The PR competition, only in its third year, received 819 entries overall this year, an increase over last year’s 571. Forty-four medals were awarded in total, including 11 golds. Sweden led the medal race with seven wins, including one gold.
Canada was also shut out of the Direct competition after being shortlisted four times on Sunday.
Canadian judge Antoine BĂ©cotte of Cossette said “it was a tough year” for Canadian entries, but just making the shortlist should be considered a tremendous accomplishment. He said Leo Burnett’s James Ready work was close to winning a bronze, but came up a few votes short.
“It’s a tough year for Canada but I think we have to work harder,” he said. “I think the Canadian work is good, but when you arrive at Cannes it has to be really, really, really good.”
The Grand Prix went to BV McCann Erickson and Kandia Dulce for American Rom. The campaign saw Rom chocolate bars wrapped in American flags instead of the usual Romanian flag packaging, ostensibly to attract young consumers who preferred American brands, though in reality to generate huge consumer interest and reignite latent feelings of patriotism across the country. The same campaign also won the Grand Prix in the Promo & Activation competition.
Direct jury president Alexander Schill said he gave each member of the jury a gold bullet to keep with them during judging. It was to remind them to look for work that hits the heart of the consumer. “Not the head, the heart,” he said. Winning work should have an emotional impact on consumers without them having to think about it.
Asked about Rom’s Grand Prix win in Promo & Activation and what made it great Direct work, Schill said there is a “thin line” between activation and direct. “They forced the customer to react and interact,” he said. “If the consumer had not reacted, it would have been a big mess.”
In total, 57 Direct Lions were handed out Monday night, 10 of which were gold, including Droga5‘s “Decode Jay-Z with Bing” effort, as well as Weiden + Kennedy‘s Old Spice “Response Campaign,” which saw its popular spokesperson fielding requests and answering questions in videos posted to YouTube.
