Did you realize that the biggest ad festival in the world is going on right now in France? The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, often called the Cannes Lions for short, annually attracts thousands of advertising’s biggest enthusiasts to its seminars, workshops and most of all, award presentations. It’s a pretty big deal. If you haven’t been keeping up to date with it, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Since its creation in 1954, the Cannes has become a major event in the advertising world. The awards, termed Lions, are presented to the categories of Film, Press, Outdoor, Direct, Media, Design, Cyber, Radio, Promo & Activation, Titanium & Integrated (aka ‘groundbreaking’), PR, Creative Effectiveness, Film Craft, Mobile, Branded Content & Entertainment, and Innovation. The juries change from year to year but are comprised of some of the premier advertising minds in the world. The overall winner of each category is known as the ‘Grand Prix’, and the other applicants are sorted into Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Shortlist categories. Below are some of this year’s Grand Prix winners so far.
This year’s Mobile Grand Prix was awarded to Smart Communications, of the Philippines, who helped turn old cell phones into textbooks. Great way to get their name out there while also giving back to the community.
Ogilvy helped Dela score this year’s Media Grand Prix with their “Why Wait Until it’s Too Late?” campaign, which urged people to let their loved ones know how they feel, while being secretly filmed. The heartwarming ads were an immediate emotional hit.
Dumb Ways to Die has caught the internet by storm recently, so much so that we even featured it in our blog post on Tuesday, which you should obviously check out here. The spot has been the big winner so far at the Cannes. It’s picked up three(!) Grand Prix already, in the Public Relations, Direct, and Radio categories. Here it is below if you haven’t seen it, although I’m betting you have.
IBM, with their ingenious interactive ads, won the Outdoor Grand Prix this year. The ads combined functionality with brand awareness and a message.
If you want to see which advertisements made the honorable mention lists, or want to just look up more about the festival itself, make sure you head over to http://www.canneslions.com/ for all the info. Let us know who your favorite winners were!