Cannes: O&M wins two Grand Prix but there’s still hardly a big brand in sight

I don’t know what all those executives from Unilever, Procter & Gamble, serried car companies and the financial world are making of this year’s Cannes Lions adfest – maybe that they could save the money and launch an NGO instead.

Today four Grand Prix were issued: Ogilvy won two; Media for Dela, a brand from an Amsterdam funeral company (Ogilvy Amsterdam), and Outdoor (left) for a campaign for IBM that tries to make posters useful with ramps, shelters and stuff (Ogilvy Paris).

Good for O&M, which outside the US and UK is a lively operation. WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell will be pleased too of course as he prepares to celebrate another Holding Company of the Year award.

DDB-DM9 in the Philippines won the Mobile Grand Prix for a campaign inquiring into sexual abuse; important, no doubt, but hardly advertising.

And the new Innovation Grand Prix, with a jury headed by David Droga no less, went to Cheil-owned The Barbarian Group digi agency for ‘Cinder,’ which is another bit of software aimed at helping you (or your company) find your way around social media and the stuff that fuels credit cards and the like (as far as I can make out).

Well it all looks jolly clever – and innovative to a fault.

So, so far, with ten or so Grand Prix awarded we have just two big brands in the frame: Heineken International which won the rather dubious Effie-hunting Creative Effectiveness GP and IBM for its admittedly rather useful poster/artefacts (but I’d be quite keen to know how many of them there actually are).

Do you sometimes feel that Cannes fails to connect with the grubby old business world?

PS

Apologies to all of you who aren’t there and are bored rigid with all this stuff. But what (else) can you do?