Heineken, 'Moldy Whopper' and Dove among first Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners

On the first day of the Cannes International Festival of Creativity Publicis Groupe and Ogilvy have come away as the big winners on campaigns for Heineken, Burger King, Dove and Renault. Heineken and Publicis Italy have won a Grand Prix for the brand’s “Shutter Ads” campaign. During the pandemic in Argentina, the beer brand diverted its outdoor media budget from advertising on poster sites to advertising directly on the shutters of closed bars to help them find the money to reopen. The campaign, which rolled out internationally, featured billboards with the message "See this ad today, enjoy this bar tomorrow.” Jury President Luis Sanchez, chief creative officer at AlmapBBDO, said the campaign "showed how one brand could act in a local community and the idea could scale globally." Meanwhile, Renault and its agency Publicis Conseil picked up another Grand Prix with the “Electric Village.” The campaign provided each household of the tiny hamlet of Appy, France, with a fleet of 11 Renault Zoes, together with a public charging point, for a period of three years to create the first fully electric town in France. A documentary series about the project ran on French TV in October. Burger King’s "Moldy Whopper," which was created jointly by Ogilvy agencies INGO Stockholm and David Miami and Publicis Bucharest, won the third Outdoor Grand Prix. The campaign adds to a slew of awards it won last year including Best of Show at the One Show in 2020 and a Black Pencil at D&AD 2020. Speaking to Ad Age about the Groupe's triple win, Publicis Chief Creative Officer Bruno Bertelli said: “Being relevant in people’s lives is critical to successful creativity. Our Grands Prix center around ideas that have cultural resonance; from putting sustainability at the heart of a village and recognizing innovative solutions throughout the pandemic to showing that real food does, in fact, get ugly. Congratulations to our brave clients and teams for the recognition of these great ideas.” In the Print and Publishing Lions, "Dove's "Courage is Beautiful" campaign was the Grand Prix winner. The campaign by WPP's Ogilvy Toronto and Ogilvy London showed the faces of healthcare workers marked by the protective gear they’ve been wearing during the coronavirus crisis, with photos taken on the front lines by Italian photographer Alberto Giuliani, at the height of the pandemic. Jury President Global Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett and Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Communications North America Liz Taylor said that Dove had created something that was “insightful, beautiful and smart, that was true to their brand—not just doing it to do it—and lived beyond our industry.” Speaking during the Cannes livestream, Taylor added: "We were judging two years' worth of work but given 2020, we wanted to make sure the winner was a 'time capsule' and there was no work that gave us that feeling more." At the time it came out, there was a lot of work with that sad piano music....but this lived beyond our industry and had real scale. Juries, creatives, years in the future will look back and say..oh man, that was the pandemic year." Cannes Lions also announced two Grand Prix winners for the Design category, one for 2021 and one for 2020. The first, by WPP branding agency Superunion, was for "Notpla," a seaweed-based biodegradable and edible packaging that could be used to replace plastic cups and condiment sachets. The second was awarded to H&M's "Looop," a recycling initiative developed in conjunction with WPP's AKQA that allowed customers to remake an old item of clothing into a new one on an in-store machine in Stockholm, after specifying on an app what they wanted. The installation, which came with ASMR sound effects, was booked up for months in advance and the technology was subsequently made available to to others in the industry. Design Lions Jury Chair Pum Lefebure, co-founder and chief creative officer of Design Army, said: "We were looking for a piece of work that was brave and innovative and had the right level of craft. This did all of that." The Design Lions also awarded as eight Gold, 13 Silver and 22 Bronze Lions winners with Golds including the City of Chicago's Boards of Change by FCB Chicago as well as Burger King's corporate identity redesign by Jones Knowles Ritchie and Rethink's work on Heinz Ketchup's "Pour Perfectly" project.

Heineken, 'Moldy Whopper' and Dove among first Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners

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