Twenty eight. That’s the total number of Lions coming home to Canada following the Saturday night closing gala of the 2013 International Festival of Creativity.
While every Lion is precious, Grey, Grip, Tribal DDB and Leo Burnett earned special bragging rights.
Most notably, Grip won two Gold Lions Saturday for The Movie Out Here, the feature length movie for Labatt’s Kokanee. The movie also won a Silver Lion earlier in the week.
Tribal DDB won Canada’s other Gold Lion last week in the Cyber competition for McDonald’s “Our Food. Your Questions” campaign. The campaign won two Bronze Lions in the same competition as well as a Silver in the Promo & Activation competition.
Grey didn’t’ strike gold, but should feel good about two Silver Lions and a Bronze Lion for three different clients in three different competitions (Press, Mobile and Media). Similarly, Leo Burnett won two silver and a bronze for three clients, all in the Design Lions.
Here’s the full Cannes Lions Canadian recap from the weekend:
FILM
DDB’s “Mustang” and “Curfew” spots for Lilly Canada’s Cialis erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical brand won a campaign Bronze Lion campaign in the Pharmacy category.
Canadian Judge Judy John, CEO and chief creative officer at Leo Burnett, said she had to explain the tough laws surrounding the ad’s creation to the jury, which was then appreciative of the way DDB dealt with the issue. “The jurors thought it was a brilliant solution for such a tight box,” she said.
Draft’s film “Focus Group” was a promotional film for the National Advertising Awards, playing with tropes associated with the ad industry’s views on consumer research. Its gold came in the Short Format Internet Film category.
“Everybody laughed, but nobody was voting for it,” John said. “I was gonna say something, but [jury president] John [Hegarty] jumped in and said ‘This is funny, and who hasn’t felt this.’ It’s a perfectly targeted piece for the NAA award show. He said ‘Who in the room hasn’t seen that person or hasn’t wanted to do that.’ My work was done and I didn’t need to say anything.”
TITANIUM & INTEGRATED
“Social Smoking,” the public service campaign from BBDO Toronto for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, won a Bronze Integrated Lion Saturday night.
The campaign, which warns against the dangers of occasional or “social” smoking, replaces cigarettes with disgusting habits (like farting) to illustrate how “ridiculous” the habit is.
BRANDED CONTENT
Aside from winning two Gold Lions The Movie Out Here was the only other contender for the Branded Content Grand Prix, according to jury president Scott Donaton, president and CEO of Ensemble.
“First of all, [Grip] had a client brave enough to allow that to happen and understood how big that could be for them,” said jury member Jimmy Smith, chairman of Amusement Park Entertainment. “Secondly, the agency actually wrote the script… That they had the talent to pull that off was pretty impressive.”
So what held it back from a Grand Prix? “Comedy isn’t easy,” explained Brian Dilorenzo, chief production officer at McCann Worldgroup. “I think the consensus [of the jury] was that it came out of the gate charging really hard and then ran out of steam a little bit.” Branded films have to stand up to scrutiny as films, not ads, Dilorenzo said, and by that measure, The Movie Out Here was a gold, not a Grand Prix.
And here’s the rundown of the Canadian winners from earlier in the week:
PROMO & ACTIVATION
Tribal DDB and Anomaly both won Silver Lions in the Promo & Activation competition.
“Our Food. Your Questions” was viewed by the jury as “truly remarkable,” said Karen Howe, senior vice-president and creative director at One Advertising and a Promo & Activation juror. “In a category with over 3,000 entries, to pull in a silver is extraordinary,” Howe said.
Anomaly Toronto’s “Budwesier Red Lights” for Labatt Breweries of Canada put wifi-connected hockey goal lights in people’s homes won in the category of Best New Product Launch/Re-Launch or Multi-Product Promotion.
Howe said the jury felt this was another example of a client doing brave work. “It was an incredibly well-loved submission,” she said.
OUTDOOR
Montreal agency LG2 won two Bronze Lions in the Outdoor competition.
The agency’s poster concept for Sanofi Consumer Health’s Allegra allergy medication brand won in Cosmetics & Beauty, Toiletries & Pharmacy category. The design involved an allergy sufferer using the bottom half of his wild posting as a tissue to blow his nose.
Sarah Barclay, executive creative director at JWT, called it an “extraordinary use of the outdoor medium… it was very strong and well-liked.”
The second trophy was for the agency’s road safety campaign for the Quebec Automobile Insurance Corporation, which showed drivers’ date of birth and death, except the date of their death was covered by a seat belt.
MEDIA
Two Canadian entries won Bronze Media Lions as Montreal’s Touché PHD and Grey won for out-of-home innovation.
Touché’s “Your Better Start’s Here” for FGL Sport, which operates the Sport Chek retail chain, saw ads resembling starting lines on actual running tracks, in gyms and other areas where ambient ads would target runners specifically.
Grey’s work for Diageo’s Guinness beer brand brought them to downtown Toronto buildings where blinds were visible from the street. The blinds were partially drawn and a Guinness label was put on the window to make it resemble a pint of beer with Guinness’ distinctively frothy head.
MOBILE
Grey picked up a Silver Lion in the Mobile competition. Its “Most Valuable Check-In” tool for Missing Children Society of Canada adds a Foursquare implementation to the growing Most Valuable child-finding platform. Messages are sent to participating Foursquare users based on their proximity to where an abduction takes place, expanding that region of alerts over time in the hopes someone will spot the missing child.
CYBER
McDonald’s Canada and Tribal earned Canada its first gold Lion Wednesday night, for “Our Food. Your Questions.” The campaign also won two Bronze Cyber Lions.
The jury felt the technical execution of the work was good, but that was not the reason for its golden evaluation. Multiple judges agreed that the client’s courage to be so transparent and open to criticism carried the work to the podium. “It was really more about the client. It was about the idea and the courage,” said Nellie Kim, a creative director at John St. and a Cyber jury member.
Grip won a silver for “The Movie Out Here” which included an online component prior to the film’s launch. Brand fans could track the film’s pre-production, audition for roles and vote for shooting locations in their home towns.
A Silver Lion was also awarded to “Carly’s Cafe,” a website created by John St. to help raise awareness for autism. The online venture aims to illustrate common, day-to-day experiences of an autistic person. The agency’s “Electriphobia” campaign for Mitsubishi’s I-Miev electric car also won a bronze.
The new-ish Vancouver ad agency 123W rounded out the Canadian Cyber Lion winners, earning a bronze for its own website that uses video content in place of text, images or, really, anything else typically found on a company’s site. Even the contact page is a video.
PRESS
Grey added another Silver Lion to its tally in the Press competition for its “Red Riding Hood” execution for Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America campaign. The ad shows one child holding a copy of the book while another holds a gun. The copy reads: “One child is holding something that’s been banned in America to protect them. Guess which one.”
RADIO
Y&R Toronto won a Bronze Lion for Ford‘s “Avocado” spot.
The spot sells Ford-branded replacement parts with a clever script. To show how a shoddy generic filter can let impurities through an oil line, the script lets random words (like avocado) through the narrator’s description of the product.
“‘Avocado’ is a very clever spot, very funny,” said Canadian jury member Jean-Francois Bernier, CD at Alfred in Montreal. “It’s simple and very well crafted… There wasn’t much discussion, it just went through. It’s solid, good radio.”
DESIGN
Leo Burnett led the charge with three awards, including two Silver Lions. One was for Bell’s “Canadian CEO Olympic Invite,” an artistic take on Russian nesting dolls sent to Bell and Air Canada executives, inviting them to the Sochi Winter Games.
“People unanimously loved it,” said jury member Lara Palmer, creative director at Lara Palmer Advertising in Vancouver. “There was a bit of a discussion around Russian dolls having been done before and whether that was unique enough to get a gold. It got a really strong silver because people loved the interpretation and that it formed the Olympic rings in the end.”
“The Street House,” Leo Burnett’s cardboard out-of-home installation to drive awareness of homelessness for Raising the Roof, also won a silver. The agency also brought home a Bronze Lion for its self-promoting “Cook Without The Book,” an apron covered with printed cooking tips to replace the conventional cookbook.
Cossette found itself back on the Design podium for Enablis, the financial support non-profit that helped the agency win Design gold in 2011. This year, its 2012 report – “The Enablis Effect” – won a Silver Lion.
Lowe Roche rounded out the silver winners with its MakeHealthLast.ca website for the Heart & Stroke Foundation, entered in the Online Digital Design category. The site visualizes lots of data relavent to the target audience, and offers a risk assessment tool.
In the Posters category, Baillat Cardell & Fils, a Montreal-based firm, won Bronze for Bian Posters, which introduces the new visual identity for Quebec art organization ACREQ’s new international design arts publication.
LG2Boutique also won for F. Menard’s new visual identity – a rebranding of a Quebec pork supplier that won at the recent Marketing Awards as well.
