Barbie and WoMen win big at the Clios. Will Cannes Grand Prix follow?
As we get closer to Cannes Lions in late June, other awards shows like the Clios (May 1st) and D&AD (May 22nd) are likely to predict some of the big winners at the Palais du Festival. Judging by the Clios, it looks like Orange’s WoMen and Mattel’s Barbie are the front runners.
France Telecom’s Orange won four Grand Clios, all for an AI campaign by Marcel Paris, part of Publicis Groupe. The WoMen football spot fixed the heads of male stars of the game onto the bodies of the French women’s team, demonstrating convincingly that women’s skills are equal to the men’s.
WoMen won the Grand Clio in four categories: branded entertainment & content, creative effectiveness, social video, and film under five minutes.
Barbie was entered by Mattel and took two Grand Clios, one in the integrated category and the other in partnerships and collaborations. The film’s case study is a strong one – among its claims to fame, Barbie was the top grossing movie of 2023, nailed more than 165 brand partnerships, united generations, made global headlines, and generally painted the world pink last July.
Other Grand Clios mostly went to campaigns that qualified for (and won at) Cannes last year including ADLaM by McCann New York for Microsoft (which digitized the alphabet of West African language Pulaar) and Mastercard’s Where to Settle by McCann Poland, which helped Ukrainian refugees in Poland find the right place to relocate.
As the Cannes predictions start to come in, Barbie and WoMen look to be building up momentum. Barbie might prefer to have won more awards at the Oscars, but its spiritual home is probably closer to Cannes.
