MAA blast from the past: Harvey Nichols Cannes winner/adam&eve 2016

The ads we remember most fondly are perhaps the ones with no tech, just dialogue and humour. Many of us are sick to the back teeth of tech taking over the world and, in adland, dewy-eyed at the days when ads were funny – even if they were advertising tobacco.

Here’s a Cannes Film Grand Prix winner from 2016 for Harvey Nichols from adam&eveDDB that combined what then was pretty advanced tech with wryness, verging on humour. So we have CCTV footage of real shoplifters at the posh Knightsbridge store given the cartoon treatment (they have their rights too of course.)

A&E execs used to moan that they didn’t make money from the string of award winners they produced for Harvey Nicks but at least it guarantees them a footnote in ad history.