Working with Cancer launches World Cancer Day campaign competition

The Working with Cancer Pledge is launching a competition for the global ad industry to create a campaign to help end the stigma of cancer in the workplace. Companies that have signed the pledge—which include Edelman, Interpublic Group of Cos., Omnicom Group, Publicis Groupe and WPP—are calling for creatives to respond to a brief for a multimedia campaign that will run on the next World Cancer Day, Feb. 4, 2024, backed by $100 million in donated funds. Cannes Lions coverage Follow our live blog here Sign up here for email updates See all of the Grand Prix winners here The competition is the next step in the Working with Cancer initiative, which launched in January to help end the stigma of cancer in the workplace and was inspired by Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun’s own fight against the disease. The pledge was honored earlier this week with the Cannes Lions Health Grand Prix for Good and a Gold Lion for Health & Wellness. The Working with Cancer brief, called “The Big C,” will be given at Cannes on Thursday. Participants will be able to enter starting July 10, with submissions due by Sept. 15. Judging will take place throughout October, with a winner announced at the end of that month. The Cannes International Festival of Creativity was the perfect opportunity to launch the competition, according to Susan Credle, global chair and global chief creative officer at FCB, who will be a juror for the competition. “We’re really competitive with each other but [Cannes] is one of the few times that we collectively come together and celebrate our industry,” Credle said. “What a great time to also commit to something that’s important that we know we can impact faster and more meaningfully than any other industry.” Cannes Lions is facilitating the judging process, and a jury consisting of senior creative and strategy leads from across five holding companies will select a winner. Jurors will include Credle, from Interpublic Group of Cos’ FCB; Chaka Sobhani, global chief creative officer of Publicis’ Leo Burnett; Luiz Sanches, chief creative officer of Omnicom's BBDO North America; Judy John, global chief creative officer of Edelman; and Debbi Vandeven, global chief creative officer of WPP’s VMLY&R. Jurors will be looking for an “ecosystem of solutions,” said Carla Serrano, global chief strategy officer of Publicis Groupe. Donated media for the effort span digital, TV outdoor and print. Publicis will donate the production budget. “It’s a co-creation that will come out of this work with media partners, the winners, the jurors and the holding companies,” Serrano said. “It’s more freeform than picking a winner and putting it on air on World Cancer Day.” The pledge first called on employers around the world to sign the pledge to build open, supportive and recovery-forward work cultures for their employees. In February, an ad for the general public debuted to encourage workplace support for colleagues with cancer. Since awareness has already been raised around the Working with Cancer pledge, Credle said jurors will be looking for campaigns that inspire action. “When we see work that touches us emotionally, it makes me want to act, it makes me want to participate, it changes my point of view,” she said. “The question is, what are the timely things that we need to do to progress the conversation and the action?” Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here

Working with Cancer launches World Cancer Day campaign competition

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