At its best Cannes Lions is a repository for the greatest ideas in the world.
Not TV ads, posters or press ads. Ideas.
And ideas that solve problems, not just win awards, are what the advertising industry gets paid for. Or should do at least.
So whilst the pieces of work I’ve chosen have all indeed won awards, the reason I’ve chosen them is for their elegance in solving problems at the moment in time and culture they were deployed.
The Million Phone Project by Droga5 (2008 Titanium Lion)
Probably my all-time favourite use of creative and strategic thinking.
I first saw it when on the D&AD Gold jury and was amazed when it was initially passed over for an award. I think that was because as it was clearly nothing like an advert in any way, jurors weren’t quite sure how it fitted into any of the categories. It was brought back to be re-judged and the jury saw sense.
Created for the New York City Department of Education and Mayor’s Office, the problem that needed solving was a perennial one: Reduce truancy and improve behaviour at school as well as homework completion.
How did they do it?
Partnering with a mobile phone company and network provider they offered students totally free phones. With a catch.
The phones would only work if they attended class. Teachers’ positive reports lead to minutes and texts being unlocked and the kids being able to use
(This was back in 2008 when using a phone meant having cash that most of the kids in the New York education system just didn’t have.)
The more the kids attend school and the better their grades get the more minutes and texts they get on their phones.
There can’t be many ideas more appropriate to the audience. Based on a human truth, insight and behavioural economics, it basically leaned in to positive bribery to influence its audience
Not an ad at all, but a spectacular example of advertising brains being used to solve problems by whatever means necessary, it clarified the way, for me at least, one needs to approach solving business problems: start with the outcome you want to achieve and allow yourself the freedom to use whatever medium is best to achieve it.
Best Buy’s Twelpforce by Crispin Porter + Bogusky (2010 Titanium Grand Prix)
Another idea ad people came up with and implemented without touching a TV or billboard.
A social media initiative that empowered over 2,000 Best Buy employees to respond to customer inquiries on what was, at the time, a relatively nascent Twitter, providing real-time tech support and product advice.
It made Best Buy seem like not just a shop to buy TVs but a place staffed by real experts who could effectively advise on what the best product is for you. Proper added value in an utterly commoditised market with, at the time, Amazon racing up behind them.
It also positioned the brand as up to the minute when it comes to innovation due to its smart use of this new fangled thing called social media.
You can tell when an idea is truly seminal by the number of times it gets referenced. All CX briefs that followed its launch contained the words: ‘We want to do a Twelpforce’. And rightly so.
The Great Schlep by Droga5 (2009 Titanium and Integrated Grands Prix)
I have watched it over a hundred times and, in the words of Beetlejuice ‘it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it’.
It’s a beautifully crafted and mesmerising piece of film that, at the time, would have been defined as ‘viral’.
A grassroots digitally-driven political campaign for the Jewish Council for Education and Research. It encouraged young Jewish Americans to visit their grandparents in Florida, a key swing state, and persuade them to vote for Barack Obama in the presidential election.
Brilliant writing, using humour and cultural insight, and a pitch-perfect performance by the excellently cast comedian Sarah Silverman, it was one of the first, and still best, examples of ‘viral’ video.
Burger King Whopper Detour by FCB New York (2019 Direct, Mobile, Titanium Grands Prix)
While on the subject of using the latest technology to create buzz for Burger King was another delicious example.
McDonalds has over double the branches of their flame grilled competitor who were keen to solve their business problem of people having to walk past numerous Maccy D’s on their way to a BK.
They used geofencing technology so that when users of the Burger King app came within 600 feet of a McDonald’s, they were prompted to unlock a one-cent Whopper deal, only redeemable through the app.
Thus hijacking McDonald’s locations to redirect traffic to Burger King.
It won’t have destroyed The Clown’s dominance but it certainly helped irritate him a bit, which must have been as satisfying as a bag-full of Whoppers.
Guinness Surfer by AMVBBDO (1999 Gold Lion)
And finally, a conventional ad. When I say conventional I mean using the medium of television. There’s nothing ‘conventional’ about Guinness Surfer. Or the process by which it came into existence.
If the definition of art is something being done as well as it possibly can be, Tom Carty and Walter Campbell must be called artists. Never has a creative partnership poured more of their lives into the pursuit of brilliance or achieved more by doing so. Their relentless perseverance was awe-inspiring. They continued writing, grading, sound mixing, post- production, embellishing right up to the final moment of playout. And it shows.
I worked at AMV/BBDO at the time they were making it and had seen it before it aired, but I will never forget the effect it had on me when it came on the TV at home for the first time. Like all great artworks it makes you feel rather than think. When it begins you can’t take your eyes off it.
It’s hard to know why. Is it the music? The cinematography? The white horses? The snippets of poetic dialogue? The avoidance of pouring pints and drinking shots in pubs?
Whatever it is, the fastidious craft applied by the team of Carty and Campbell, and their director Jonathan Glazer, is right there on screen for every frame of its glorious 100 seconds.
And it’s not just the awards juries who agree. The general public has repeatedly voted it their favourite ad of all time.
Damon Collins is a founder of Joint
