FCB Inferno Wins Cannes Lions Health & Wellness Grand Prix

FCB Inferno has been awarded the Lions Health and Wellness Grand Prix for its integrated campaign, ‘Alphabet of illiteracy’, created for Project Literacy. In 2015 FCB Inferno won the Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good for Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’.

Project Literacy was founded and convened by the world’s leading learning company, Pearson, to build significant advances against the global illiteracy crisis, which afflicts one in 10 people alive today. FCB Inferno was briefed to raise awareness of the severity and consequences of illiteracy, and position it as an urgent global issue. Using the building blocks of reading and writing the ‘Alphabet of Illiteracy’ is a body of evidence suggesting illiteracy is the root cause of almost every major problem humanity faces. The A- Z links illiteracy and 26 major problems all reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals, such as aids, female genital mutilation and drug abuse. The integrated campaign, which was seen across cinema, DM, print, online and social, led people to an online petition to global leaders to push illiteracy up the political agenda. Please view case study film via this link.

After the campaign launch Project Literacy was invited to sit on the UNESCO Global Alliance for Literacy, which aims to track progress and achievement across the literacy target of the 4th Sustainable Development Goal.

Furthermore 50 organisations including charities and businesses were united by the campaign to tackle illiteracy including Doctors of the World, Lessons for Life and Action on Addiction.

In 2015 FCB Inferno was awarded 2 Gold Lions Health for ‘This Girl Can’, for Best Integrated Campaign and Best Film, four Silvers and the inaugural Glass Lions established to recognise “work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising”. Lions Health, which is divided into two factions, Pharma and Health & Wellness, drew more than 2,500 entries in 2016 from leading healthcare organisations globally.

FCB Inferno CEO, Frazer Gibney says, “Illiteracy is at the root of the world's biggest issues. Project Literacy was established to put this problem at the top of the world’s social agenda, not least the United Nations. This is a deliberately provocative campaign designed to create the strong reaction needed. We are incredibly proud to be working with Project Literacy, witness the results and to now be recognised by the Cannes Lions judges”.

FCB Inferno CCO Owen Lee says, “This is a great example of craft and insight coming together to make a real impact. By clashing the innocence of the ABC with some of worst problems facing humanity the campaign proved to be very powerful. These awards are a great honour and we thank Pearson for being such a bold partner”.

Emilie Colker, Vice President of Brand and Social Impact at Pearson, founding partner of Project Literacy, said: “This campaign has brought a largely invisible issue to the attention of millions. It was a bold and provocative campaign and with nearly 13 million views of the 'Alphabet of illiteracy' video, a reach of 462 million, and an increase in traffic of 200% to partner organisation websites, this is a movement we are so proud to be part of. We see this as the start of an ongoing campaign to raise awareness of illiteracy and its effects”.