Cannes Lions 2024: The Best Winning Ads & Activations
Published 01 July 2024
Grand Prix winners at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (June 17-21) saw brands key into sport – both propelling and playing on sporting successes while also tackling misogyny in soccer; zero in on toxic e-waste, deemed the next plastics problem; and drive AI-powered advertising forward. We decode five of the best.
At A Glance
Innovation Platforms
Topics
Game-Changing Creativity Grand Prix: DoorDash’s Super Bowl Sweepstake
American delivery app DoorDash redefined tentpole marketing (see Tapping into Pop Culture's Tentpole Moments) with its 2024 Super Bowl campaign which, for many industry commentators and viewers, became a diversion so big it overtook the game.
Made with creative agency Wieden + Kennedy Portland, DoorDash delivered all 2,468 items featured in Super Bowl adverts shown throughout game to one lucky winner. It released a 1,813-character-long promo code. Presented as a fast-moving 30-second visual effects (VFX) rollercoaster journey through a home filled with products including Mountain Dew and airline seats (denoting flight tickets), viewers had to crack the code to win. Mobilising viewers online, the campaign garnered 11.9 billion impressions, eight million submissions, and a 487% rise in social engagement.
Creative Business Transformation Grand Prix: Philips’ Anti E-Waste Xmas Initiative
Dutch consumer electronics brand Philips’ ‘Better than New’ Christmas initiative zeroed in on toxic e-waste (see Eliminating E-Waste). The campaign is in response to the 10 million unwanted electrical gifts that end up in landfill annually, as it’s cheaper to manufacture a new product than safety check and repackage consumer electronics.
Philips sold (while stocks lasted) 52,000 returned and refurbished items (at a reduced price, with an extended warranty), avoiding 185 tonnes of e-waste. It now offers refurbished products before new across its global e-commerce platforms.
Sports Grand Prix: Orange’s Twist-in-the-Tale VFX Tackles Sporting Misogyny
French telecoms brand Orange’s ad ‘WoMen’s Football’, created by Parisian agency Marcel, played on many soccer fans’ dismissive attitudes towards the women’s game, making the case that they’re based on preconceptions rather than reality.
The brand, which sponsors both the French men and women’s teams equally, released a two-minute spot – the first half of which appeared to be a highlights reel of men’s football. Halfway through, it was revealed that VFX had been used to superimpose male footballers onto scenes from women’s football, effectively ‘taking over’ their movements. The second half of the advert revealed the real players.
Outdoor (OOH) Grand Prix: Pedigree’s AI-Powered Adopt-a-Dog Ads
Cleverly embedding its stated brand purpose (to end dog homelessness) into its digital out-of-home adverts, US dog food brand Pedigree’s ‘Adoptable’ campaign used AI to transform standard Pedigree ads into billboard spaces starring dogs for adoption.
Its partnership with British animation studio Nexus used machine learning to upgrade basic pictures taken by dog shelter staff into advertising-grade photography. Passers-by scan a QR code to learn more about a dog, with an AI algorithm updating ads in real time as dogs find homes.
Recognising that 20% of shelter dogs are returned (Pets4Homes, 2022), Pedigree used geo-data including proximity to parks and house sizes to match the dogs to suitable locations.
Gaming & Direct (Data-Centred) Grand Prix Wins: Xbox Spurs IRL Success
Netting the Lions for Direct (data-centred campaigns) in addition to Gaming, Xbox’s ‘The Everyday Tactician’ campaign haloed the tactical prowess of players of its renowned Football Manager game, where gamers manage their chosen club.
Tackling the lack of investment smaller football clubs face in real life (and the consequent struggle for good quality tacticians and analysts), it worked with suburban (fifth tier) English league team Bromley FC to offer one Xbox Football Manager player, Nathan Owolabi, a paid role. Owolabi helped the team subsequently secure promotion to the fourth division for the first time in its 132-year history – a journey tracked in a three-part documentary for the UK’s biggest sports channel, TNT Sports.