Cannes Contenders: McCann Worldgroup's '24 Competitors

McCann Worldgroup's highest hopes for taking home some Lions at this year's Festival of Creativity ride on these 12 projects. From work with Xbox in the UK to projects in India and Dubai, it's a veritably global selection of creative that touches on some powerful conversations. For example, McCann Poland's work with Mastercard helps Ukrainian refugees set up businesses in compatible locations with Polish businesses, meanwhile McCann Paris, FP7 McCann, McCann India and McCann Peru all have entered projects that support women in communities around the world - helping provide access to banking and healthcare, as well as encouraging their professional development.

To see all 12 projects - including work that's helping to save the coral reefs and pollinators in our ecosystem - read on below.

Xbox - The Everyday Tactician

McCann London

Modern football is dominated by a few rich clubs, leaving smaller clubs struggling to compete for talent. So for the release of video game 'Football Manager 24', Xbox and McCann London decided to help the small club Bromley F.C. recruit its next tactician from an untapped talent pool: gamers. People from across the globe applied, but the 'Football Manager' fan that got the job was Nathan Owolabi, who used his data skills from playing the game to help the club in real life. This story made headlines and was even the subject of a documentary series on TNT Sports in the UK.

L'Oreal - Worth It Resume

McCann Paris

L’Oréal Paris has been telling women 'You’re worth it' for over 50 years, but in the workplace, women continue to face significant challenges to their worth. In fact, 81% of women feel more pressure to not fail than men. L’Oréal wanted to change this mentality, fight back against these standards, and remove the stigma around failure. This campaign features L’Oréal spokespeople and women business leaders from around the world sharing their 'resumes' on LinkedIn, opening up about the setbacks that led them to where they are today, and encouraging other women to seize opportunities and be undeterred by a fear of failure.

Mastercard - Room for Everyone

McCann Poland

Created by McCann Poland, Mastercard's new digital tool leverages the power of data to help Polish and Ukrainian businesses identify complementary locations to open shop in Poland. Named 'WhereToStart', the tool expands on last year's 'Where to Settle' platform that used data to help Ukrainian refugees find places in Poland to live beyond the most overcrowded cities. This latest development of the 'Room for Everyone' initiative will help people not just live in Poland, but thrive - following on from 'Where to Settle', which earned the SDG Grand Prix and a Titanium Lion at Cannes last year.

TyC Sports - Hotel La Argentina

Mercado McCann

On the anniversary of Argentina's victory over France at the 2022 World Cup, TV broadcaster TYC faced a challenge. The rights to air the championship had expired and the channel couldn’t run any of the games. So, it took the celebration elsewhere - about 200 miles south of Buenos Aires to the small coastal town of San Bernardo. There, exists a humble establishment called the Argentina Hotel, and unlike the country’s football team (which now has three stars, for its three World Cup wins), the hotel only had two stars. So TYC went about upgrading the hotel to match the national team, upgrading mattresses, installing new TVs, and even giving language lessons to the hotel staff during a mock documentary of the process.

Puck (Arla) - Selfless Shelves

FP7 McCann

As the economic crisis in Lebanon continues, women have been severely impacted and are facing a 63% increase in unemployment. Many in rural areas have turned to the Lebanese tradition of making mouneh to earn money - preserved food often stored in repurposed jars. Seeing this, Arla's food brand, Puck, teamed up with FP7 McCann to give these women the resources and space needed to support their entrepreneurial efforts. Puck invited them to use its own kitchen in Beirut and provided thousands of its own repurposed and sanitised jars. The women then placed personalised labels on the jars, and sold them in Puck’s own 'Selfless Shelves' space in Carrefour stores across the country - then expanding across the Middle East.

Husqvarna - Rewilding Mode

Prime Weber Shandwick

Swedish gardening company Husqvarna wanted to drive the transition towards less climate impact, and recognised the role it could play when it came to biodiversity. To achieve real change in behaviour, agency Prime Weber Shandwick partnered with the company’s engineering team to create a unique feature that was introduced to Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mowers: 'Rewilding Mode'. Added through a software update, the mode turned 150,000 mowers around the world into environmental warriors, using radar technology to leave 10% of each lawn uncut, protecting spaces for pollinators.

McDonald's - After Dinner Dinner

FP7 McCann

Fine dining restaurants send patrons home not just with lighter wallets, but often, with grumbling stomachs, unsatisfied by the fancy yet meagre portions. McDonald’s, however, is known for bringing great taste, satisfaction and smiles to consumers. That’s why FP7 McCann and McDonald's launched 'After Dinner Dinner' - bringing joy to those left wanting after the many luxury restaurants in the UAE had failed them. The activation used geolocation to identify patrons in the vicinity of top-tier establishments and surprised them with push notifications urging them to go to their nearest McDonald’s on their way home. There, they could claim a free meal by presenting their expensive check from the upmarket eatery.

Samsung - Throwback Deals

MRM Brasil

There’s a familiar consumer habit when it comes to online commerce: shopping cart abandonment. People save things in their carts, waiting to purchase until a good deal comes around. Samsung leveraged this behaviour during the week after Black Friday, typically the slowest shopping time of the year. Using one of the most traditional channels, email, MRM Brasil offered shoppers 'Throwback Deals' - the latest product models at the prices from years ago. Based on what was in the carts of those in the Samsung.com loyalty database, it hyper-segmented and hyper-personalised the offers, sending emails about goods consumers had abandoned.

ESAF - Dabba Savings

McCann Worldgroup India

Rural Indian women face significant obstacles to saving money for their families, typically storing cash in a 'dabba' - the steel canister used to hold rice, and culturally believed to bring prosperity. Unfortunately, men take the money away. Working with McCann Worldgroup India, ESAF, a small finance bank, brought banking into the women’s lives by designing a dabba with a false bottom, allowing women to safely store cash. The special dabbas were distributed at the regular women-only gatherings within communities, and bank representatives in attendance encouraged women to deposit money. Then, micro ATMs, accessible through India’s 'Aadhaar' biometric system, were installed in local rice shops, allowing the women to withdraw funds when they go to restock their rice. For the first phase, the initiative launched in eight districts in Southern India without any advertising or publicity.

Stream2Sea - Reef Relief

McCann Demand

Coral reefs are one of the most important ecosystems on the planet. Estimated to have a total global value of £6 trillion per year, thanks to their provision of food and medicine, contribution to tourism and the coastal protection, the reefs support more than 25% of marine life and one billion people worldwide. However, they're now under serious threat from climate change and pollution - as well as the sunscreen we wear. Over 14,000 tons of sunscreen wash off us and into our oceans every year - and 80% of sunscreens contain chemicals that bleach and kill coral. Scientists estimate that if we don’t make sustainable changes, 90% of the world’s reefs could be functionally extinct by 2030.

So, McCann Demand worked with sunscreen brand Stream2Sea and UN marine advisor Professor Michael Sweet, to develop Reef Relief, the world’s first sunscreen that’s not only reef-safe (harmful chemicals removed), but actively feeds and nourishes coral. 

Tottus Supermarket - Gift Card of Life

McCann Peru

Breast cancer, detected in an early stage, has a survival rate of 93%. But in Peru, where the public health system is overrun and inefficient and the private system is excessively expensive, it's the second highest cause of death among women. So, Tottus, one of the leading supermarket chains, partnered with McCann Lima to protect their most important customers: Peruvian women. It made mammograms accessible and affordable through gift cards that you can buy in store. The 'Gift of Life' card gave women access to a quality mammogram at private clinic at an 80% discount. The were on display on supermarket shelves, becoming a life-saving alternative to the usual chocolates, flowers and perfume gifts for birthdays, Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. 

U.S. Bank - Translators

McCann Detroit

There are over 11 million child translators in the United States. which means that millions of non-English speaking adults are forced to rely on children to translate everything - from healthcare to legal documents to the family’s finances. It’s a big burden for a little kid. U.S. Bank saw this first-hand in its branches, and was inspired to create 'Asistente Inteligente', the country’s first and only Spanish voice assistant specifically for banking. 42 million native speakers could now bank with their own voices, while confidently navigating industry-specific acronyms and jargon in their own language. McCann didn’t want to just advertise the product, it wanted to celebrate the children who inspired it, and so McCann Detroit created 'Translators', a 20-minute documentary that told their story.