Canada made a modest showing in Cannes Monday morning with four agencies earning spots on the PR and Media shortlists at the 62nd International Festival of Creativity.
In the Media Lions, Canada has three shots at winning with Rethink Toronto, Jungle Media and John St. making the shortlist.
Rethink Toronto earns its second nomination at Cannes this year for its work on Molson Canadian’s “Hockey Heaven,” while John St. makes the shortlist for Canadian Safe School Network’s “Kids Read Mean Tweets.”
Jungle Media adds to IKEA’s nomination in the Direct competition, making the Media list for the “#ShareTheBathroom” campaign. With creative from Leo Burnett, the effort allowed consumers to target online banner ads at family and friends in an effort to correct their nerve-grating bathroom habits.
Like many of the other competitions this week, Canadian interest in Media competition dropped this year with just 63 submissions compared to 79 last year, while overall interest was up: 3,179 compared to 3,126 last year. New for 2015 was the introduction of a category for digital programmatic content.
Unique to the Media competition is a two-tiered jury system with a larger jury divided into three groups for a preliminary round of judging to determine the shortlist.
Those entries are then judged by a smaller “awarding jury.” Media Experts’ Penny Stevens represents Canada on the awarding jury this year.
Adding to its appearance on Promo & Activation, Press and Direct shortlists, Grey Canada Toronto was the only Canadian agency to make the PR shortlist this year. The agency earned yet another nomination for its “Groceries Not Guns” campaign for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. (It also shows up on the Outdoor shortlist.)
The PR Lions were launched in 2009 and, like the Creative Effectiveness Lions, results matter with documented results representing 30% of the judges marks for the work. According to the Festival organizers, “PR… is the creative use of reputation management by the building and preservation of trust and understanding between individuals, businesses or organizations and their publics/audiences.”
Interest in the competition has increased significantly the past two years. In 2013 there were 1,296 entries, 1,850 last year and 1,969 this year.
However, with just 19 entries Canadian interest in the PR Lions was down this year from 28 submissions a year ago.
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