Flat-earth quest lands Grand Prix
- 6 hours ago
- 1 min read
A campaign for Columbia Sportswear challenging ‘flat-earthers’ to find the edge of the world and snap a photo of it has won this year’s Cannes Lions Brand Experience & Activation Grand Prix.
‘Expedition: Impossible’ was created by McCann, New York and McCann, New Zealand for the brand, putting its CEO Tim Boyle front and centre of the cheeky campaign.
It saw Boyle promising to give away the entire company to anyone who could prove that the earth is flat with a photo. Nobody managed that, but it won an earned audience of 80 million people. Among the other KPI’s cited by the agencies in their submission: “Thousands of flat-earthers annoyed”.
“It’s about a contemporary theme, it’s a brand with a point of view, and it’s really well-crafted. The copywriting’s perfect,” said Jury President Rafael Pitanguy, deputy global chief creative officer at VML.
“And the CEO’s a good actor! It’s perfect. It would be terrible if you had a guy who couldn’t act, but that guy (Boyle) is super-fun. I want him at my dinner party.”
There were 1,561 entries for the category this year, with Golds awarded to work from Peru, Poland, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and collaborations involving teams from US/New Zealand, US/Mexico and Italy/Brazil.
On trends, Pitanguy said that “brands have really embraced what is supposed to be their weakness: they don’t hide it, they talk about it, they make fun of it, and they create a narrative around it.”
He also praised the quality in this year’s entries: “Everything was so well-crafted. Every promotion: impeccable!”
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