Hasta La Ideas

With gallons of rosé drunk, the Carlton Terrace trashed, and countless celebrities subjected to selfies with ad types, Cannes Lions 2014 is drawing to a close. It’s been a particularly glitzy festival this year, but along with the sun, sea and celebs a few awards were given out this week: here are the highlights.

One of the major winners of the week came as no surprise to anyone: Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors’ series of ads for Volvo Trucks, which includes the magnificent Epic Split starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, has been sweeping the board at award ceremonies around the world. Cannes Lions proved no exception with the ads picking up two Grand Prixs, in Cyber and Film.

Perhaps a little less predictable was the phenomenal success of Adam&EveDDB’s Sorry I Spent It On Myself Christmas campaign for Harvey Nichols. The cheeky campaign consisted of a gift collection of appalling presents, including gravel from Lincolnshire and a non-Swiss biro pen, which could be purchased after you’d spent all your Christmas present money on yourself. The work won Grand Prix in no less than four categories, including Film, Integrated, Press and Promo & Activation. A win across so many categories once again begs the question of whether individual categories are necessary at all, but as they prove so lucrative to the Cannes Lions organisers, it seems highly unlikely we’ll see any change in this area soon.

Chipotle’s evocative animated film The Scarecrow from Creative Artists Agency also picked up a multitude of awards, including Grand Prixs in Cyber and PR.

And OgilvyOne London’s impressive digital billboard for British Airways, which saw a child stand up and point whenever a BA flight passed overhead, picked up Grand Prix awards in both Innovation and Direct. CR will be publishing an article explaining the complex technology behind this particular piece of work on the blog next week.

Another innovative piece of work recognised at this year’s Cannes Lions was Pharrell Williams’s 24 Hours of Happy website, created by Iconoclast in Paris. The site is a 24-hour-long music video and won a Grand Prix in Cyber, the first time, at least to my recollection, that a music video has picked up a Grand Prix at the festival and testament to the broader creativity now being recognised at Cannes Lions. A clip from the site is below:

Pharrell also picked up a second Grand Prix this year, for his clothing collaboration with G-Star, titled RAW for the Oceans. The work won in the inaugural Product Design category.

In Design, the Grand Prix went to Anti Bergen in Norway for its redesign of the Bergen International Festival’s branding.

The Outdoor Grand Prix this year went to Whybin/TBWA in Melbourne for its surprising work for ANZ Bank. Titled ANZ Gaytms, it saw the bank glam up its ATM machines with rhinestones and glitter in order to show support to the LGBT community.

In Titanium, Dentsu Tokyo won the Grand Prix for its project Sound of Honda/Ayrton Senna 1989 which recreated Senna’s world’s fastest lap using sound and LED lights.

Other Grand Prix awards went to Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg for Lucozade in Radio, McCann Lima/Havas Lima for Coca-Cola in Media, and FCB Brasil for Nivea in Mobile. In the Film Craft and Branded Content & Entertainment categories, no Grand Prixs were awarded.

Finally, this year’s Cannes Lion for Good award, which is presented to a piece of work created for a charity or non-profit (and is therefore ineligible to win a Grand Prix in any other category) went to Sweetie by Lemz Amsterdam, a work created for children’s charity Terres des Hommes to snare paedophiles. A case study is shown below.

The Agency of the Year award for 2014 went to Adam&EveDDB, with Forsman & Bodenfors winning the Independent Agency of the Year gong. The Palme D’Or award for film production company of the year went to MJZ, USA, and the Network of the Year went to Ogilvy & Mather. For all other special awards info, click here.

And with that, another Cannes Lions festival comes to an end. With the presence of the likes of Kanye West, Jared Leto and Courtney Love during the week, the event felt more glamorous than ever, yet beneath the glitzy surface there was hard work going on with the quota of clients present seeming higher than ever too. Whereas Cannes was once simply a celebration for creatives, it is now almost as much a business event as an awards show, with important meetings taking place alongside the never-ending nights at the Carlton and Gutter Bar. This might make it something of a harder week for creatives – with many waxing lyrical about the good old days – but it means that the festival is more vital to the industry than ever.

canneslions.com