Ogilvy & Mather Wins Network of the Year at Cannes for Fifth Year Running

On the final evening of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Ogilvy & Mather has been crowned Network of the Year for the fifth time in a row with 120 Lions across 31 offices.

 

This incredible achievement saw the network pick up one Titanium, one Glass Lion and four Grand Prix, with a diverse range of work that pushed the boundaries of creativity.

 

The four Grand Prix wins came from four different countries: Ogilvy & Mather UK for Phillips ‘Breathless Choir’; INGO Stockholm, an Ogilvy & Mather/Grey joint venture, for The Swedish Tourist Association ‘The Swedish Number’;  ‘Manboobs’ campaign for The Breast Cancer Health Movement by the Network’s DAVID Buenos Aires office and ‘The Everyman Meal’ for KFC by Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg.

 

Ogilvy & Mather Frankfurt also won a Creative Effectiveness Award for its Rabbit Race campaign for Media Markt.

Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy & Mather, said: “In 2009 we laid out a five-year plan to improve our performance at Cannes. Now, in 2016, we could not be more humbled to be named Network of the Year for the fifth year running. We are proud and grateful for everyone that has helped us on this journey. This extraordinary achievement demonstrates the courage of our clients and the extraordinary creativity that all our teams possess around the world. Our deepest thanks to our clients, our people, the judges and Cannes Lions.”

 

John Seifert, Worldwide CEO at Ogilvy & Mather, commented: “It is a huge honour to be awarded Network of the Year five times in a row.  It is testament to the great skill and humanity of our talented teams across the network and the visionary leadership of my partners Tham Khai Meng and Miles Young.  I look forward to leading this network on to even greater success in our mission to ‘Make Brands Matter.’

He added, “This award will help us further focus our efforts on the greater good that advertising can achieve for businesses and citizens.  I want to thank our many incredible clients, agency partners and creative talent around the world who share with us in this success.”

 

On the final night of the Festival, INGO Stockholm, an Ogilvy & Mather/Grey joint venture, triumphed with a Titanium for its pioneering “The Swedish Number” for The Swedish Tourist Association. The direct campaign connects callers from around the world with random Swedes who have signed up to be ambassadors for their country offering an unfiltered view of Swedish life.

 

Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai took home a Glass Lion for its work for the Make Love Not Scars organisation, a charity supporting acid attack victims. The powerful OOH posters and films “Beauty tips by Reshma”, show “vlogger” Reshma, an acid attack survivor, giving make-up tutorials, demonstrating how to apply lipstick, eyeliner and remove dark spots. It then highlights that acid is as easily available and cheap as these products, giving shocking statistics on acid attacks - a phenomenon that sees more than a thousand victims a year in India alone.

 

Michael DiSalvo and Ben King, Account Directors from Ogilvy PR New York, also won Gold at the Cannes Young Lions awards. Their ‘Extra Ordinary Food campaign’ , proposed a ‘raw food fashion shoot’  with beauty magazine partnerships tore-set people’ s expectations that good food does not need to always look perfect.

 

Ogilvy & Mather also had an incredible content schedule at the Festival this year. It hosted a compelling panel discussion, together with The Girls’ Lounge, on the fight for gender equality. The event, moderated by the Network’s Worldwide Chief Executive Officer, John Seifert, discussed the burning issue of gender equality and set out to move the debate on with an unflinching look at why women are still hugely underrepresented at senior levels in the workplace. The debate highlighted the need for action, and the tangible steps needed to tackle this challenge.

 

Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2016 also marked the sixth annual Ogilvy & Inspire seminar. This year Tham Khai Meng, Ogilvy & Mather’s and Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, joined Academy Award-Winning film director Alejandro González Iñárritu for an on-stage discussion about inspiration and the role of visionary creative

 

Throughout the week the ogilvydo content studio held a number of dynamic debates which discussed the major challenges and opportunities facing the global business community. Panel discussions raged from the Global Adoption of eSports through to The Geography of Demography and Vice Versa with the moderator, Daniel Franklin (Executive Editor, The Economist) and panelists Kent Wertime (O&M APAC CEO), Amani Al Khatahtbeh– (Founder, MuslimGirl.com)m Deborah Bothun (PwC) and Cecilia Yau (PwC). @Ogilvy's audience watched over 55 hours of video on Periscope filmed at the ogilvydo content studio.*

 

Ogilvy and Mather was number one in share-of-voice on Twitter at the festival compared to all other brands. #OgilvyCannes earned over 215 million impressions on Twitter and was the most used hashtag outside of the official #CannesLions hashtag*