MILKO, NIKE ADS TAKE TOP CYBER LIONS Agencies Submitted 1,400 Online Entries June 19, 2001 By Laurel Wentz CANNES (AdAge.com) -- Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts bounded up on the stage to collect an award at Tuesday night's Cyber and Press & Poster awards, underdressed in black T-shirt, shorts and sneakers. It was a black-tie event, but to Mr. Roberts, who is both a New Zealander and a sports fanatic, it was appropriate Milko's interactive dancing cows wowed jurors. attire to collect the two Silver Cyber Lions that Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand, Wellington, won for an online rugby game for Adidas International. Despite the dot-com collapse, cyber entries soared by almost 50% this year to 1,471, from 1,048 in 2000. Cows and shoe ads The U.S. won nine of the 51 Cyber Lions, split evenly among Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions. Sweden and Brazil both won seven Cyber Lions, but Sweden picked up one of the two Cyber Grand Prix, for Swedish dairy company Fjallfil Dairy Products' Milko milk. Visitors to the Web site can create their own zany dance video featuring a dancing cow that is Milko's symbol and send it to friends. The other Cyber Lion went to Canada, for a Nike e-commerce effort by Critical Mass, Calgary, that allows people to create and order their own Nike athletic shoes, choosing style, color and even words to go on the shoe. "We stayed away from gratuitous use of technology," said Carla Hendra, the Cyber Lions Carla Hendra, first woman to chair a jury. jury president and president of OgilvyOne North America. "We were looking for high quality design and uniqueness." Ms. Hendra herself is pretty unique. She is the first woman to chair a jury in the entire 48-year history of the International Advertising Festival, which is frequently criticized for the lack of women on its juries. Direction of Internet ads G.M. O'Connell, chairman of Modem Media and a Cyber judge, said the two Cyber Grand Prix are indicative of where the Internet is going next. "Both speak to the next stage in consumer involvement," he said. Matt Freeman, a Cyber judge and CEO of Tribal DDB/North America, identified a trend toward the Internet becoming more of an entertainment medium. "Milko is completely frivolous but completely engaging and fun," he said. In fact, many of the judges created their own dancing cow videos and e-mailed them to friends, Ms. Hendra said. Related Stories: DIESEL ADS WIN PRESS & POSTER GRAND PRIX Offbeat African Images Edge Out Volkswagen Campaign ARNOLD BEETLE ADS JUST BARELY LOST BIG ONE Contrarian Approach Was Widely Admired 'Forget it's advertising' "It's so compelling you forget it's advertising," said Chris Jones, creative director-interactive at Euro RSCG Interactive, Sydney. "We spent half the day playing [the Milko game] and realized we better judge something else." In another trend, "jurors saw tons of loading pages," said Mr. O'Connell. "I think next year we should have a loading competition." Whether a category is added for ways to keep people engaged while pages are loading, other categories are likely to change and become less confusing. "Some people solve that by entering their work in eight categories and that's not the best solution," Ms. Hendra said. The jury plans recommendations to the festival, such as breaking up the too-broad rich media category. Future of creative e-mail "And things like e-mail are becoming quite important although not a lot has been done creatively," she said. "I think next year there will be a lot of creative e-mail." Despite the high-tech entries and judges, the computerized voting system couldn't quite keep up. When it broke down, the Cyber judges were forced to scribble their votes on scraps of paper. Laurel Wentz is the international editor of Advertising Age. © 2001, Crain Communications Inc. Editor@AdAge.com ..