Cannes Lions 2011: Winners Announced

Each year in June, the Côte d’Azur becomes the place with an overwhelming concentration of ‘lions’ (not animals, but beastly amazing advertising pieces) thanks to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. This year’s event, which was taking place June 19–25, saw “thought-leaders and experts in all forms of communications and creative thinking come together to inspire, debate and entertain” and revealed the best advertising projects from all around the globe.

During the festival, they hosted numerous sessions, seminars, exhibitions, master classes, screenings and galas, but the most important part of the event was announcement of winners in 15 categories, including Print, Cyber, Outdoor, Design, Creative Effectiveness and PR to name but a few. To see all the entants in each of the categories, go to the official website of the festival—here, we’ll cover only Grand Prix and some of the Gold Lions recipients in the following areas:

Film Lions

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam received Grand Prix for their hilarious spot about positional future for Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ campaign—the 3 min advert directed by acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and featuring soccer superstars Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Franck Ribery and Cristiano Ronaldo was launched ahead of 2010 FIFA World Cup and became of the most contagious promotional videos of the previous year. «I don’t think the Grand Prix showed a trend toward big production,» commented Tony Granger, Y&R Global Chief Creative Officer, according to AdAge. «What did shine through this year was the simplicity, the simplicity of an idea. When you look at Nike, the idea is really simple. You can rewrite the future and make your own. All the Gold winners reveal a truth about their brands in a surprising way. The Golds all behave quite differently in terms of production value. It’s the idea that made them Golds

The winning office also received the gold award for its ‘Entrance’ spot made for Heineken—Wieden+Kennedy Portland got the yellow statuette for Chrysler’s ‘Born of Fire’ advert. PUMA’s ‘After Hours Athlete’ (Droga5 New York)—but it got Grand Prix in Film Craft Lions,—AXE’s ‘Premature perspiration’ series (ponce buenos aires), Google’s ‘Chrome speed tests’ (BBH New York), a series of ‘Demo Slam’ spots (Johannes Leonardo New York) and the ‘touching’ ads for Skittles (BBDO Canada Toronto) were among those 24 entries which got gold lions in the Film category this year.

Press Lions

JWT Shanghai with its philosophical print for Samsonite suitcases was recognized as the best entry in this category. As the description to the work says, “the creative idea is a vivid contrast between how ‘heavenly’ it is in first class for the passenger but ‘hellish’ down below where the suitcase is being handled. And yet the suitcase emerges sparkling after the torture.” It was also awarded with a gold lion in Outdoor.

The gold awards were handed to Reckitt Benckiser’s animal prints (Euro RSCG Bangkok), Greenpeace’s ‘Car free day’ monochromic visuals by Leo Burnett Hong Kong and ‘dangerous‘ prints created for Volkswagen by Grabarz & Partner Hamburg among others.

Outdoor Lions

Droga5, which didn’t manage to win the grand prize in the film section, got own back in this category with ‘Decode Jay-Z with Bing.’ Microsoft tapped the agency to help leverage usership of Bing search engine—for this, they used the launch of the rapper’s autobiography ‘Decoded,’ placing 350 pages of the book in locations relevant to the content of each of the extracts, all around the world, using a plethora of media (including Gucci jackets and pizza boxes), which could be found using Bing search and maps. The project was awarded with Integrated Grand Prix. «We loved its bravery, its boldness, its innovation,» commented Jury President Bob Scarpelli, chairman of DDB Worldwide. «It’s immersive. It’s interactive. It’s creating conversations with customers. It gave millions a reason to use Bing. They put every page of [Jay-Z’s new autobiography] out in the world every day for a month in 13 major cities in the world. Fans could walk through J-Z’s life.»

40 other entries including Coca-Cola’s ‘Friendship Machine’ (Ogilvy Argentina), LEGO ‘transformer-themed’ prints (Leo Burnett Moscow) and hilarious Target’s ‘Kaledoscopic fashion spectacular’ show (Mother New York) were awarded gold lions.

Media Lions

In this category, Grand Prix was given to Cheil Worldwide Seoul for their ‘Homeplus subway virtual store’ created for Tesco. Here’s how they described the project, “We created virtual stores in subway stations hoping to blend into people’s everyday lives. Our first attempt was at busy subway stations in rush hours. Although virtual, the displays were exactly the same as actual stores—this included the merchandising. Only one thing is different, you use smart phones to shop. Scan the QR code with your phone, and the product automatically lands in your on-line cart. When the online purchase is done, it will be delivered to your door right after you get home.” Enlarge the image to see the details of the marketing initiative, which was launched in fall 2010.

The list of Gold Lion recipients included the eco-friendly file format ‘Save as WWF’ (Jung von Matt)—the .wwf. can’t be printed out and so helps save more trees,— and Nike City Cup (MPG Mexico), which was inspired by ancient Mexican culture and the nation’s dedication to football.

Direct Lions

The massive ‘American ROM’ campaign conceived and developed by McCann Erickson Budapest for Kandia Dulce generated a log of buzz, engaging 67% of the Romanian population. The team behind the campaign made the American makeover for the iconic chocolate bar (traditionally, it has the Romanian flag in the background, but they changed it for the U.S. one following the youth’s admiration of the western culture) and encouraged consumers to join the debates around the shocking image revamp. The project also received Grand Prix in Promo & Activation category as well as Titanium and Integrated award.

The Gold Lions went to the hilarious response campaign by Wieden+Kennedy Portland for Old Spice—last summer, the digital world was literally shaken by ‘the man your man could smell like’ and dozens of short spots, in which he gave quick replies to public’s questions,—as well as the previously mentioned Tesco’s subway store, Coca-Cola’s friendship machine and Bing/Jay-Z Decoded among others.

Cyber Lions

This category had three Grand Prix winners: the Old Spice’s promotion described above, ‘The Wilderness Down’ online journey (Google Creative) for Google and Arcade Fire as well as ‘Pay with a tweet,’ “the first social payment system, where people pay with the value of their social network,” created by R/GA New York for Innovative Thunder.

The Gold Lions recipients were digital encyclopedia dedicated to footwear ‘Sneakerpeadia’ for Foot Locker (SapientNitro London), breathtaking Google’s ‘Art project’ (Google Mountain), geo-location quest MINI’s ‘Getwawy Stockholm’ (Gung von Matt), YouTube’s campaign revolving around its world-uniting film ‘Life in a Day’ (Toaster London) to name but a few.

The most ‘effective’ campaign (the one which received the first-ever Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix) was ‘Sandwich’ developed for PepsiCo’s snack brand Walkers by AMV BBDO London last year, and IKEA (which was named Advertiser of the Year in May) with its hilarious state-of-the-art cookbook ‘Homemade is best’ by Forsman and Bodenfors received gold in Design Lions. In PR, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne got the grand prize for the ‘Break up’ initiative created for National Australia Bank, leaving Daimler’s ‘Tramp a Benz’ (Jung von Matt) and Cyber for Lullabies (Forsman & Bodenfors), while Electrolux’s ‘Vac from the Sea’ (Prime PR Stockholm) along with other 8 entrants with gold. ‘See the person’ (Leo Burnett Melbourne) for Scope received Grand Prix for Good.

While each company on the list did a great job in the past year, there were agencies which managed to make it really huge with campaigns and projects and had the highest score across the sections: BBDO followed by Ogilvy & Mather and DDB were given the Network Of The Year Award. The agencies of teh year are AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo, Brazil (obtains the first place), Wieden+Kennedy Portland, USA and BBDO New York, USA (landed on the second and third positions correspondingly). Today’s emerging talents are tomorrow’s game changers—at Cannes Lions, jury pays attention to not only acclaimed agencies, but also to younger geniuses, who will shape the future of advertising. As part of the festival, Young Lions competitions were held and winners on Film, Cyber, Media, Print and Young Marketers sections got their minutes of fame (the works were created in real-time, within up to 48 hours).

In 2012, Cannes Lions will be held two weeks earlier than usual, June 3–9. Follow Popsop closely to read about new campaigns, which might be the potential entrants and winners of the next year.