“The Best Job in the World” has proven to be one of the best advertising campaigns in the world as the Tourism Queensland campaign from Australian agency CumminsNitro took home two Grand Prix awards at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes today.
The Canadian agencies shortlisted for today’s awards—Zig and Proximity Canada—did not make the winner’s list.
The “Best Job” campaign was a competition to find a caretaker of Hamilton Island, a tropical paradise off the coast of Australia. It took top honours in both the Direct and PR competitions.
The campaign garnered worldwide media attention as 3,500 people entered the contest that started with simple want ads in newspapers and online job search sites in eight countries.
With a budget of only US$1.2 million, the campaign garnered over 8.4 million views online and more than $100-million worth of unpaid global media coverage.
PR jury chair Tim Bell, chair of Chime Communications, called the work “a classic campaign. It’s a very single-minded idea. It’s very simple and it catches the imagination.”
Because PR is a new competition this year, no Gold, Silver or Bronze Lions were awarded. From the 431 entries (including six from Canada), 18 were selected to win a PR Lion.
To the surprise of some, PR agencies were a rarity among the submissions.
“Cannes Lions is pervasive in the ad agency world,” said Nancy Seliger, jury member and president of the Fleishman-Hillard’s eastern U.S. region. “The PR industry isn’t as familiar [with the festival]. We had almost 450 entries this year. Next year, that will probably triple.”
In the Direct competition, jury chair David Sable, vice-chairman, chief operating officer, Wunderman, said the “Best Job” campaign met all the criteria the jury set for awarding good work: it had results, was moving, “fresh,” simple and showed consumer understanding in its targeting.
“It began with the most basic DM placement of all: a want ad,” said Sable. “It had a clear offer, a clear method of response and then began the… best-practice part of modern relationship management—if somebody answers your offer, you send them something back and start a dialogue.”
Canadian judge and Sid Lee creative chief Philippe Meunier said the double Grand Prix winner showed how the Internet can make any campaign global.
“For me, what’s really impressive is the media reach. It’s impossible to buy every country in the world, but because of the web it went viral. From just one little ad, it became huge. And that’s tricky. We saw a lot of pieces that tried to do that, but to be viral, you have to have a good idea.”
Notable Gold Lion winners in Direct included Saatchi & Saatchi London for T-Mobile’s “Dance” in a London transit station, and Droga5’s “The Great Schlep” for the Jewish Council for Education and Research.
There were 11 gold Direct Lions in all, with four going to agencies in Australia.
The day’s third Grand Prix, for the Promo competition, went to Beacon Communications in Tokyo.
Its resuscitation campaign for the Japanese city of Yubari won over judges’ hearts, taking the top prize in a unanimous vote.
Yubari faced a dwindling population and a $330 million debt after the decline of the local coal mining industry and failed attempts to draw tourists. In 2007, the city declared bankruptcy.
In researching the city, Beacon discovered it had the lowest divorce rate in Japan. Playing off the Japanese word fusai, which means both “debt” and “spouse,” the agency created a city logo of a married couple and promoted Yubari as the happy marriage capital of Japan—a place with “no money, but love.”
Yubari then created a department of happily married couples that handed out official Happily Married certificates to locals and visitors. More than 3,000 newlyweds have traveled to Yubari to have their marriages blessed by the city, which has re-started its economy with Yubari fusai-branded beer, candies and music CDs, among other items.
In the two years since the program began, it has generated US$31 million in revenues, and tourism has increased by 10%.
“It’s a wonderful case that really won over the jury,” said promo chair William Rosen, North American president of Arc Worldwide. “We felt they hit at a core, human-centred idea.”
“It was an easy decision,” said Janice Diner, vice-president, strategy and creative at Toronto’s Syncapse Corp. “It was a promo that moved people the most. It promoted a city and changed human behavior. It really showed how the category can have the power to move a whole country.”
Zig’s sound cannon project for Corus Entertainment was shortlisted in this category, as was Proximity Canada for “Doritos Guru.”
