Canadian agencies came away with three Lions in the Outdoor competition Tuesday evening, though Gold and the Grand Prix remained elusive.
Leo Burnett, already awarded bronze in the Direct competition for James Ready work, was given a Silver Outdoor Lion for the beer brand’s “Coupon Billboard” campaign. The agency partnered with small businesses, which offered discounts to consumers who showed mobile photos of the appropriate “billboard coupon.”
The mobile-enabled campaign was one of several entries indicative of a trend highlighted by jury president Tay Guan Hin of JWT Asia. The Outdoor competition is “reinventing itself” with social media and new technologies “that create one-to-one conversations with consumers,” he said.
TBWAVancouver won bronze for its work for the B.C. Lottery Corporation. Its “Boat” and “Pool” executions won as a campaign. Using the tag line “Scratch and Win,” creative showed a boat and a pool meticulously illustrated in the scratchable grey surface of a scratch ticket.
BBDO Canada rounded out the Canadian Outdoor winners with a bronze for “Bike Lock,” a single ambient execution that used a giant U-shaped bike lock to attach a Smart Car to a lamppost for Mercedes Canada.
For the first time in this competition’s eight-year history (Outdoor was separated from the Press competition in 2002), the jury awarded two Grand Prix awards: one for billboards and street furniture, and one for ambient ideas.
The top billboard honour went to Anomaly New York‘s “Be Stupid” campaign for fashion brand Diesel. Creative featured models posed in “stupid” situations such as flashing security cameras with the headline “Smart may have the brands, but stupid has the balls.”
“Every year, juries like ours are pressured to pick the smartest, cleverest campaign for the Grand Prix,” Hin said. “This year, we picked the stupidest work… The brand continues to create controversy and engage consumers.”
“If you’ve ever passed any of the Diesel stores in NY, [the campaign] is really prominent; it’s almost overwhelming,” said jurist Kathy Delaney, president of Sapient Nitro in New York. “It has this voice that speaks to you when you pass the store.”
The ambient Grand Prix went to Del Campo/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, an Argentinian agency that created the “Teletransporter” for Andes–an InBev beer brand. The soundproof capsule was placed in bars to let patrons make cellphone calls without the background bar noise. Once inside, they could select one of several preset ambient sounds–like a traffic jam or emergency room–to create a more complete lie about where they were for spouses and partners.
The effort was a draw at bars and the making-of video found viral fame online, where it garnered more than six million YouTube views.
“Previously, there was a lot of debate on what truly was outdoor,” Hin said on the need for two Grand Prix awards. “If you recall previous Grand Prix winners like HBO or [Nedbank’s 2007] solar panel billboards, to name a few, it was quite a gray area. The ambient work was overshadowing the traditional pieces. So now it’s much easier to distinguish as they are competing on even grounds. In fact, in the ambient category were some of the most amazing stuff that blew us away.
Guan also noted that most of the winning entries came from “big brands, [but are] fairly low cost.”
Overall, the Outdoor jury awarded 16 Gold Lions, 11 of which went to ambient executions.
The Radio Lions were also handed out Tuesday. And while it is rare for Cannes not to award a Grand Prix in each of its competitions, the radio jury broke from tradition and decided not to award the top prize this year.
At the press conference to announce the winners Tuesday morning, jury president and Taxi founder Paul Lavoie said his panel of judges did have one spot in mind for the top honour, but the Leo Burnett Colombiana spot “Helicopter” was ineligible because it was created for the Red Cross. Cannes does not award Grand Prix to charity work. The spot features an announcer introducing several different people, and each makes a different sound: one conveys wind, the next an engine and another a propeller. Finally each of the individual noises unite to create the sound of a helicopter.
“With the help of us all, we can continue our work,” says the announcer.
“This jury really worked hard to give a Grand Prix,” said Lavoie. But they were also very tough. “If you got a Lion you should be very proud.”
At the awards ceremony, Lavoie explained how much the jury loved the Red Cross campaign and why they couldn’t award it the prize, “so this year’s jury unanimously agreed not to award a Grand Prix.” When the spot was played for the audience it received rousing cheers and applause.
At the press conference, Lavoie spoke highly of Dos Equis‘ “Most interesting man in the world” campaign from Euro RSCG New York and Y&R‘s submissions for Sears’ Craftsman Tools. “[But we] couldn’t find that one campaign that really took radio to the next level,” he said.
Asked if it was difficult convincing Festival chiefs Terry Savage and Philip Thomas that no Grand Prix should be given, Lavoie said it was not. The pair were in the room for the final discussion and understood the jury’s determination to maintain the highest standards for the Festival, said Lavoie. “The Cannes Lions is a brand and a business,” he said.
As for Canadian performance, despite a strong 19 entries on the short list, just two Bronze Radio Lions are coming to Canada.
One is going to Marketel‘s Montreal office for its “When the spotlight hits” which promoted the Federation of Quebec’s Alzheimer Societies‘ Memory Walk. Instead of a traditional spot, “When the spotlight hits” used a radio announcer to introduce a song by Viviane Audet.
After singing a few lines, Audet seems to forget the words before the radio announcer returns: “Did you know 120,000 people in Quebec are affected by Alzheimers? Today is Rona’s Memory Walk to help raise funds for the Federation of Quebec Alzheimer Societies.”
Canadian jurist and Ogilvy & Mather associate creative director Jane Murray said it won a Bronze Lion for its “totally different use of the medium.” She said it was exactly the kind of originality she was hoping to see when she agreed to judge but on the whole she did not see that much of it.
The second Bronze went to Juniper Park. The spot “Bears” was created for the Chicago Tribune to promote the paper’s coverage of the Chicago Bears. “When a player gets drafted, we’re there,” says the announcer. “When a player gets traded, we’re there. When a player gets injured, we’re there. When a golden arm fires like a cannon in midst of battle, we’re there.
“And when the Bears take it all the way, and are celebrating in the locker room with some players fresh out of the showers all naked and still dripping with water, we’re… we’re outside, waiting to get the story.”
“That was just an example of fabulous copywriting,” said Murray.
In terms of the work generally and Canada’s performance, Murray said that as she listened to all of the work she realized Canada should have entered more. “I’m thinking there is stuff in Canada that is better than this,” she said.
The jury awarded 55 Lions in all, 10 of which were Gold.
In the media competition, Canada came away empty-handed after six entries made the short list Monday.
The Grand Prix went to Canon and Leo Burnett Sydney for the “EOS Photochains” program.
To promote the EOS, Leo Burnett came up with the concept of “photochains”: people take pictures, post them to a site and then select a detail of that picture to become an inspiration for another photographer–a cloud in the background of one picture should inspire the photographer for the next shot. The process is repeated creating a “photochain.”
The chains were featured in advertising and the website quickly grew into a social media platform for users to share their photos and chains and track their pictures and other photographers.
“Why did we love this work?” said jury president and Starcom MediaVestGroup CEO Laura Desmond. “First it starts from the simple human insight; people aren’t interested in technology, they are interested in inspiration.”
Beyond that it was world-class use of social media that created an immersive experience, and it produced results, she said. Those were the three key criteria from the beginning of judging, she said. “EOS did all of those things just a little bit better.”
The jury awarded 48 Lions in total, eight of which were Gold.
Desmond said the Grand Prix was not unanimous but was strongly supported with Heineken Italia’s “Auditorium” from JWT, “Go Beyond Borders” for CNN International by Heimat Berlin and “It’s no Picnic” for Cadbury by Y&R Melbourne also garnering consideration for the top award.
