AMV BBDO continues its winning streak at Cannes, taking home its first Grand Prix of 2022 for “Hope Reef,” a campaign for Mars Petcare’s Sheba that is all about restoring 185,000 square metres of coral reefs around the world.
Industry Craft Jury president Nils Leonard, co-founder of Uncommon, said: “We didn’t want craft to be maybe what it’s become, which is a kind of mustache-twiddling exercise that clients loathe and the real world forgets. We wanted it to matter.”
Another UK agency, R/GA London, also took home a Grand Prix. Theirs is for Nike’s menstrual cycle workout app, which won in the Entertainment Lions for Sport Category.
Jury president Marcel Marcondes, global CMO for Anheuser-Busch InBev, said the campaign, which for once features normal people rather than star athletes, won for “demonstrating how brands can leverage sports to actually celebrate the human differences and the nuances that make everyone special—all of that with brand authenticity, true commercial impact and with a program that is designed for the long run, not just a stunt.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a virtual appearance at Cannes on Monday, talking about how the power of creativity can be harnessed to bolster Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion.
Right on cue, the Digital Craft Grand Prix went to a digital tool created to protect Ukrainian culture. “Backup Ukraine” calls on Ukrainians to capture 3D images of the country’s artefacts, using an app to build a virtual library of the country’s architecture, monuments and antiquities. The initiative is a partnership between Virtue Worldwide, part of Vice Media Group, the Danish UNESCO National Commission and Blue Shield Denmark.
Digital Craft Jury President Luciana Haguiara, executive creative director at Media.Monks Brazil, said: “The Backup Ukraine project turns every Ukrainian citizen into a guardian of their national heritage. Because culture is the identity of people and it can’t be destroyed.”
The Entertainment Grand Prix went to a campaign for the Swedish Food Federation by McCann Stockholm. The disturbing 18-minute satirical film urges people to “go Swegan” and eat their fellow Swedes as a sustainable option.
Entertainment Lions jury president Maria Garrido, formerly global chief marketing officer of Vivendi, said: “I was mesmerised, disturbed, entertained, amused and hungry all at the same time. Five years ago, this case would probably have got bumped out. But the timing of this case is perfect for the cultural context that we’re living in today.”
Another disturbing film, “This is not America,” won the Entertainment Lions Grand Prix for Music. It’s a music video for Puerto Rican rapper Residente, produced by Doomsday Entertainment.
The Entertainment Lions for Music jury president, BBH U.S. CEO Amani Duncan, said: “We awarded the Grand Prix to this piece of work because of the video’s undeniably stunning visuals and incredible production quality. While the video has a very distinct point of view that may not be shared by all, it is an extremely powerful statement on socio-economic and culture from an underserved community. Music has always been a key platform for protest songs throughout history and one that we all want to continue to see in years to come.”
The Film Craft Grand Prix went to Serviceplan’s “The Wish” for German supermarket Penny’s. It’s about a mother’s sorrow over the milestones her son missed out on during the pandemic.
Patrick Milling-Smith, co-founder of production company Smuggler, was president of the Film Craft Lions Jury. He said: “Ultimately we awarded the Grand Prix to a film that is almost a throwback to classic filmmaking and had to be so perfectly crafted on every level to truly resonate and work. In the wrong hands a film like this could have been lost to over sentimentality, or victim to a few false notes, but it is in fact perfectly complete and the obvious work of a filmmaker in utter command of his craft.”
FCB Lisbon’s book celebrating the 50-year anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution won the Design Grand Prix. Eleven illustrators were each given the kind of blue pencil used in the past to censor artists and used them to create poems and artworks, and to black out parts of the constitution that existed before Portugal’s independence.
The Design jury president was Lisa Smith, a creative director at Knowles Jones Ritchie. She said: “This year’s Grand Prix shows the power of a simple idea — freedom, and the use of the most primitive medium to execute it — a pencil. We debated at length whether a publication should be a Grand Prix in an era where we have all the technology and innovation at our fingertips, but the symbolism of defacing a fascist constitution with poems using words selected from the historic document and illustrations covering the remaining ones was not only the highest form of craft and execution but sending a beautiful message of freedom of speech that many children in Portuguese schools will go on to learn for years to come.”
