REVISIT LAST SEASON'S CANNES LIONS
The 59th Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity starts on 17 June, widely regarded as the Academy Awards of ad and creative work. Remind yourself of last season’s big winners and make your predictions!
Droga5, New York, ruled Cannes last year winning three Grand Prix awards: the Integrated Grand Prix and Outdoor Grand Prix for its Jay-Z “Decoded” work and a Film Craft Grand Prix for its Puma spot “After Hours Athlete”.
“Decoded” which strongly embraced digital for Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, involved a scavenger hunt spanning 13 cities. The agency hid all 320 pages of rapper Jay-Z’s autobiography (many were enlarged versions) in unexpected outdoor locations, including basketball courts, burger wrappers in New York and bus stops in London.
Fans that discovered the pages first and checked them in on a Bing-sponsored website got a chance to win Jay-Z concert tickets for life.
Video: Jay-Z "Decoded" powered by Bing from Droga5, New York.
The “After Hours Athlete” Puma spot was central to an integrated campaign aimed at casual, nocturnal athletes – those who play pool, go bowling and sing karaoke till until the early hours. The spot, which featured in Lürzer’s Archive Vol. 4/2011 and was directed by Ringan Ledwidge, was wonderfully shot, in keeping with the Film Craft Lion goal of honouring the art of filmmaking.
Wieden + Kennedy picked up the Film Grand Prix for its Nike “Write the Future” 2010 World Cup commercial. The three-minute cinematic spot that made it into in Archive Vol. 4/2010 featured a galaxy of stars, including footballers Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Droga, tennis champion Roger Federer, actor Gael Garcia Bernal and even Homer Simpson.
In a series of fantasy sequences, football players each dream of glory on and off the field if they triumph - and disrepute and scorn if they fail.
Who would you like to see win? Read our Editor-in-Chief’s recommendations here.
Need a reminder of the Super Bowl XLVI ads that created the most buzz? Read our round-up.
Nike "Write the Future" by Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Oregon.
Among the Gold Lion winners were two Super Bowl XLV favourites: Volkswagen’s “The Force” by Deutsch, LA and Chrysler’s “Born of Fire” from Wieden + Kennedy, Portland.
Featured in Vol. 2/2011, rapper Eminem drives through desolate industrial areas of Detroit, battered by both destiny and the economy, to show the one great thing “Motor City” has brought forth: the Chrysler 200. Chrysler returned with a Super Bowl favourite this year, “It’s Halftime in America”, where Clint Eastwood exhorts Americans to stick together in difficult times and to take a positive view of the future in the spirit of the Detroit car manufacturer.
Chrysler "Born of Fire" by Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO, London, took home the first-ever Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness for its work on behalf of Walkers crisps. The agency held a series of surprise events in the sleepy Kent village of Sandwich with the mission to prove Walkers can make any sandwich more exciting. One event involved Pamela Anderson turning up to a local pub to work behind the bar for the day. The multi-platform campaign earned over 1.6m YouTube hits and helped boost sales by 15 per cent.
Video: Lürzer's Archive will be at Cannes Lions 2012! Watch the trailer created by BBDO, Moscow for our workshops which will be held on 21 June.
