Cannes Lions 2023 Grand Prix Winners in Entertainment, Design, Digital Craft, Film Craft and Industry Craft

The fake 40th anniversary of ‘Clash of Clans’ (celebrated for the game’s  actual 10th anniversary) swooped not one but two Grand Prix today - in both the Entertainment and Entertainment for Gaming categories. With the help of Wieden+Kennedy, the brand created a full-length documentary, forged three decades of games, trading cards, and even a cereal, taking the internet by a storm. 

Although the mobile game had its beginning in 2012, Wieden+Kennedy aimed to pull its fans into a four-decade-long rabbit hole of fake lore, in which the game had existed since 1982. On the epic journey, the agency created a mini-documentary and even established some brand partnerships to weave the web of lies further.

Entertainment Lions for Gaming jury president, Francine Li, global head of marketing, Riot Games, said: "Our inaugural Gaming for Entertainment jury wanted to recognise brave work that respects the nuances of gaming culture and creatively adds value to the player experience. The Grand Prix winner does this in spades. It taps into a universal truth in games: players don’t just love games, they love the whole universe around them."

Shot on 16mm, Youmans’ raw immersive approach creates both bold, dynamic and claustrophobic scenes, while the kinetic camera during each flashback brings a nostalgic and alive feel. Through striking storytelling carried by authentic performances from the nuanced and diverse cast, Phillip Youmans entwines his craft and the powerful single from Kiwanuka into a matter of life and death celebrating the real strength in the human spirit. 

'The Greatest' showcased Apple’s commitment to accessibility, launching ahead of International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December 2022.

The film aimed to raise awareness of several incredible accessibility innovations, born from the desire to support people living with vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive disabilities.

Following the journey of seven amazing people as they go about their days, living their lives and mastering Apple accessibility features as they navigate their way through the world, the film presented a new attitude in the depiction of disability - a celebration of ability in everyday moments, often enabled by Apple technology.

Michelob ULTRA is firm in its belief that basketball is only worth it if you enjoy it. However, due to its speed, the game has been a long-standing and unique challenge to the blind and visually impaired community. 

This is why Michelob ULTRA and FCB came together to prove the brand’s commitment to accessible, innovative technology that helps the blind and visually impaired fully enjoy and experience basketball like never before. And they demonstrated it on the grandest scale possible: by having Cameron Black, a blind person, commentate a New York Knicks game, live on TV.

Entertainment Lions for Sport jury president, Rob Doubal, co-president of McCann London and joint chief creative officer of McCann UK, McCann London, said: “This year’s winning Grand Prix leveraged emerging tech, a strong partnership, and had intrinsic inclusivity at its core to engage fans with one of the best and most innovative live broadcasts of the year. It showed strong impact on the brand and its approach, execution and provision of new technology is sure to provide a legacy for all those who come after.”

The duet between Kendrick Lamar and ‘Zola’ star Taylour Paige for one of the rapper’s most talked-about songs, ‘We Cry Together’, blurred the lines between music, theatre, and poetry. Praised for brutal honesty, raw dialogue and incredible dynamism, the song soon was crowned with its own short film co-directed by Kendrick, Jake Schreier and Dave Free. In the film, audiences see Lamar and Paige enact their parts of the song in a passionate, unfiltered argument as they travel through a dimly lit home. 

Film Craft Lions jury president, Kim Gehrig, director, Somesuch, commented: “The Grand Prix winner is a trailblazing piece that uses film craft in all its strengths to create a work that is seminal and genre-defining. There are so many creative choices in the direction and execution of this film, where craft is what fuels its evocative power. From the choice of the camera choreography, the lighting, the framing, the language, the drama and the truly extraordinary performances, all these craft decisions culminate to make the brave piece of work that effectively challenges us to question ourselves. I am personally inspired by this piece of work, as was the entire jury.”

The language of the Fulani people of West Africa, known as Pulaar, is spoken by over 40 million people, but for most of history, it had no alphabet. Determined to preserve their native language since they were children, in 1989 brothers Ibrahima and Abdoulaye Barry created an early version of ADLaM in handwritten form. Yet, the need remained to digitise the alphabet so it could be used to communicate through technology, empowering the Fulani people to conduct business and connect. 

So, the Barry brothers started working with Microsoft in 2018, which just this April, led to the announcement of the ADLaM Display, an evolution of the Pulaar alphabet developed in partnership with McCann NY, and available across the Microsoft 365 suite.

For the sports brand’s 50th anniversary, Nike, together with AKQA studios in Melbourne, Portland and São Paulo travelled back in time to create a match-up between tennis legend Serena Williams from her first Grand Slam at the 1999 US Open, and her most recent showing at the 2017 Australian Open. The goal was to gain insight on how Serena got to where she is today, and how she keeps challenging the future.

Machine learning was able to model each era’s playing style: decision making, shot selection, reactivity, recovery and agility based on archival footage. Building on the vid2player technique developed by Stanford University, Nike was able to bring the models of Serena to life by re-rendering the iterations from each generation into an entirely new scene - having them appear to be playing and responding to each other. 

Train lines operated by Japan Railway form the backbone of public transportation infrastructure in Japan. Weaving their web throughout the entire country, they have not only helped society for 150 years in Japan, but remain integral to daily life. However, people have begun taking them for granted.

To address the issue, Dentsu and JP Group developed a plan to reconnect Japan Railway with its customers in a personal way. The main insight they utilised was the truth that despite the small size of the island, only 6% of Japanese people have visited all 47 prefectures. So, they aimed to maximise interest in domestic travel and inject an element of fun into rail travelling through creating the personal ‘My Japan Railway’ for customers.