Reddit, Burger King win Social, Influencer Grand Prix at Cannes Lions

Reddit and Burger King won Grand Prix in the Social, Influencer category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Tuesday—both for successful hacks that got people talking. Rather than purchase a $5 million Super Bowl spot, Reddit aired a regional, five-second spot, “Superb Owl” Super Bowl spot from R/GA San Francisco, that became one of the most talked-about spots of the Big Game—receiving 6.5 billion impressions and written about by more than 300 news outlets. Reddit’s spot capitalizes on how the social network made international news in the weeks before the game with the GameStop and Robinhood stock frenzy. “Powerful things happen when people rally around something they really care about," said Reddit. "And there’s a place for that. It’s called Reddit.” With “Stevenage Challenge”, from David Madrid and David Miami, Burger King worked out a way to endorse popular football stars without having to shell out a single Euro by becoming the main sponsor of the Stevenage F.C., a team at the bottom of the 4th division of English football. With Burger King sponsoring the team in real life, the brand knew those BK jerseys would appear on the team in FIFA 2020. When they did, Burger King invited gamers to compete in a series of challenges as Stevenage FC players to win free food, play as their favorite soccer stars and beat challenges. What resulted was big shots such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi wearing the BK jerseys in the game. Burger King says the campaign generated $2.5 million in earned media and fans shared 25,000 videos of goals. Stevenage also became the most used team in the game during the campaign. “Stevenage Challenge” also won the Grand Prix in Cannes Lions’ Direct category. Of 1,726 entries received, Cannes Lions awarded eight Gold, 16 Silver and 29 Bronze awards to campaigns in the Social, Influencer category. Tinder’s “Swipe Night,” Wendy’s “Wendy’s World” and Reporters Without Borders’ “The Uncensored Library” were among the campaigns that took home Gold.

Reddit, Burger King win Social, Influencer Grand Prix at Cannes Lions

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