Cannes Lions Grand Prix Winners in Social & Influencer, PR, Creative Data, Direct, Media and Creative B2B Announced

Vice Media and Dentsu Creative’s collaboration for the most realistic and possibly disruptive history tour of the British Museum has snagged its third Grand Prix this year. The Social & Influencer category awarded six Gold Lions, 17 Silver Lions and 26 Bronze Lions. The seamless blend of technology, innovation, culture, history and impactful creativity in the ‘Unfiltered History Tour’ project were perhaps the deciding factors in its recognition at Cannes this year. Specifically, with the help of social media filters and immersive audio, visitors of the British Museum are able to see the true history of some of the objects inside, told from the viewpoint of the communities they were stolen from. 

With seven Gold, 17 Silver, and 23 Bronze Lions, the jury for the PR Lions category awarded the Grand Prix to BBDO Belgium’s campaign for Decathlon that put together the first ever eCycling team made up of six prisoners. The inmates from Oudenaarde prison raced with thousands of riders in the outside world, anonymously, on the platform Zwift, as millions of people followed their Breakaway online. During the prisoner’s experience, they were joined for a race by the Belgian minister of justice, as well as five law enforcers - seeing the benefits of The Breakaway - the minister later expanded the initiative to all prisons in the country. The six inmates’ experiences were fully documented on the Breakaway podcast, while their mental health progress was also closely monitored. Aiming to prove that sport can unite people from different worlds, backgrounds and circumstances, the project aimed to humanise prison inmates and help with their reconnection with society on a larger scale. 

The Creative Data Lions Grand Prix went to DDB Mexico’s campaign, ‘Data Tienda’, for WeCapital, while the jurors also awarded three Gold, three Silver and six Bronze Lions. The Data Tienda project aimed to tell the story of the 83% of Mexican women that do not have a credit history, due to which they are unable to start a business or go into further study. As many as 35 million women in Mexico, according to Forbes Mexico, are “invisible to the financial system,” which is exactly what WeCaptial wanted to change, with the final goal of the full financial inclusion of women in Mexico. This is why Data Tienda was created - a financial information centre that aims to recover the real credit history of millions of Mexican women, that stays unregistered by banks, but is available in most neighbourhood businesses accounting records. 

In the Direct Lions category this year, there were seven Gold Lions, 20 Silver Lions, and 27 Bronze Lions, and the Grand Prix was swept by Accenture Song’s project for Coinbase, ‘Less Talk, More Bitcoin’. For the campaign, Coinbase launched their biggest giveaway ever at this year’s Super Bowl, running a 60-second ad consisting almost entirely of a bouncing QR code. When the code was scanned, it brought viewers to a promotional website, offering $15 worth of free Bitcoin to new sign-ups, with a chance to win $3 million in a giveaway. At an event where commercials break barriers, go beyond the expected and everybody’s eyes are glued to the screen during the ad break, Coinbase really took a leap, by introducing their brand to the world through something extremely simple. The almost ominous QR code bouncing on the screen for 60-seconds was bold, brilliant and evidently effective, bringing more than 20 million visits to the website only during the ad’s airtime.

In the Media category, jurors awarded nine Gold, 19 Silver, and 28 Bronze Lions, and the Grand Prix for Media went to Sheba’s ‘Hope Reef’, created with the help of Google, the UN, and AMV BBDO London. In a bid to save the world’s coral reefs, which are undeniably dying at a rapid speed, Sheba Pet decided to put real effort into tackling the problem, by positioning a newly-growing coral reef off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia, which spells out ‘HOPE’ for future generations to see and replicate. With the help of the local island community, Sheba planted special steel structures called Reef Stars, to create the giant letters and restore the reefs, returning life to the ocean, one day at a time. 

Media Lions Jury President, Daryl Lee, Global CEO, IPG Mediabrands, Global commented: “The Grand Prix was brilliantly amphibious in every way. It created new living media that embodied a powerful message of hope.  It opened up an immersive experience that built both global scale and a deeply personal connection. And it’s helping to save our planet in an authentic and credible way for the brand.  The jury was united in celebrating this perfect marriage of idea and technology, of message and medium, of purpose and place.”

With three Gold Lions, four Silver Lions, and six Bronze being awarded, the newly emerged Creative B2B Lions category came in with a bang this year, proving that B2B advertising doesn’t have to be dull. The Grand Prix winner in the category was exactly the opposite of that - ‘Speaking In Colour’, a project by Wunderman Thompson for Sherwin-Williams, helps architects and enthusiasts find THE perfect colour to match their vision. Speaking in Colour is a voice-activated AI colour system that helps exactly with “producing hues based on human inspiration.” For example, by simply opening the app and saying “Crystal clear, Caribbean, water,” millions of images are scanned and analysed in a search algorithm, to ultimately provide the perfect fine-tuned colour to match the vision, essentially, speaking colours into existence. 

Creative B2B Lions Jury President, Paul Hirsch, President, Chief Creative Officer, Doremus, Global said: “It’s been an exciting first year for the Creative B2B Lions. Going in, nobody knew what to expect but it turns out we had quite a few contenders for the Grand Prix. Any one of which could have won. In the end what made the difference was the winning works’ strategy, deep understanding of its audience, and exceptional and personal brand experience. In the past, B2B has often surfed in the wake of B2C, but I have a feeling this work will flip the script and have deep B2C implications in the near future.”