ANTI-TOBACCO CAMPAIGN WINS MEDIA GRAND PRIX Miami's Crispin Porter & Bogusky Honored June 20, 2001 By Laurel Wentz CANNES (AdAge.com) -- The U.S. won its first Grand Prix of this year's International Advertising Festival on Wednesday when Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Miami, picked up the Media Lions' top award for the Florida Anti-Tobacco Pilot Program. The 'Secrets of a Tobacco Executive' spot was part of Crispin Porter & Bogusky's winning campaign. The agency wasn't the initial choice for the Grand Prix. The media jury was deadlocked between two other contenders during the first round of voting. One of those two favorites was the U.S. launch of a Nintendo video game called Conker's Bad Fur Day by Starcom Worldwide, Chicago. Youth targeted "The promotions, radio, TV, college newspaper and magazines were very tightly targeted to the 18 to 24 group; it was unlikely to be seen by anyone not in that target group," said John Gaffney, a media judge and executive VP and media director at Arnold Worldwide, Boston. "We really liked the strategic targeting but there wasn't a single breakthrough idea. If there had been, it would have won hands down." Even so, Nintendo and Starcom picked up not one but two Media Lions, winning both the "Best Use of Mixed Media" category and A print portion of the winning anti-tobacco effort. best targeting to men. The other Grand Prix contender was the offbeat idea of linking bad moments in sports with Cadbury Confectionery's Minties mint candies. New Zealand agency DDB Auckland worked with a local TV channel that broadcast sports events with a time delay and arranged that whenever there was a mishap, such as a golfer stuck in a sand trap, the caption "Time for a Minties" would run across the bottom of the screen. It was undeniably an innovative use of media but "we questioned the connection between Minties and live sport," Mr. Gaffney said. The deadlock prompted the judges to reflect on other entries and agree instead on the Crispin Porter campaign. Tobacco executive horror movie The cinema spot parodies a movie trailer for a horror movie called Secrets of a Tobacco Related Stories: JUROR: U.S. ENTRIES 'WEAK' IN PRINT CATEGORY Crispin Porter & Bogusky Exec Provides Inside View Executive. The trailer ominously reveals that "He had a terrible secret" and shows the protagonist's daughter confronting him when she discovers the hidden truth and hostile neighbors pounding on his car. The secret is revealed when he is seen at the end, addressing a group of fellow tobacco executives about the need to target young people because they are the industry's future. Mr. Gaffney said the teen-targeted cinema campaign, which was based on an earlier TV spot, used an environment that is powerful to the teenagers who determine the success or failure of movies. "It was driven by the media department and supported by creative," Mr. Gaffney said. U.S. wins 4 The media jury was the stingiest so far, awarding just 16 Lions. (As a relatively new part of the festival, the 3-year-old media competition awards only Lions and a Grand Prix, without dividing them into Gold, Silver and Bronze awards). The U.S. won the most Media Lions with four in addition to the Grand Prix, and Brazil, as in all the other competitions so far this week, wasn't far behind with four Media Lions of its own. The only Lions for Western Europe were from Slovenia and Denmark. "I know people in the U.K., Spain, France, Germany and Italy are going to be quite cross because there are no lions," said Chris Ingram, the media jury president and chairman of Tempus Group. "They thought this was all about process but it's about innovation." Kuwait wins media Lion The Media Lions are known for unusual choices of winning countries and this year is no exception. One Media Lion went to Kuwait, a country that didn't even have a TV ratings system after the Gulf War because the Iraqis stole many of their TV sets to take back to Iraq and looted or destroyed TV transmission equipment. The other U.S. Media Lion winners were Lexus and Team One Advertising, Los Angeles, and Mediacom and Reebok's sponsorship of reality TV show Survivor. Laurel Wentz is the international editor of Advertising Age. © 2001, Crain Communications Inc. Editor@AdAge.com ..