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An ingenious campaign on behalf of Penguin Books has secured the top accolade in 2022’s Cannes Lions Design category. Entitled Portuguese Reconstitution, the Grand Prix winning campaign was entered by FCB Lisbon, a rare but welcome win for Portugal. Designed as a way of coming to terms with Portugal’s authoritarian past (1933-1974), the campaign involved reimagining the fascist constitution of that era. Celebrated artists were given a copy of the constitution and the same blue pencils that used to be used for censoring texts. They were then let loose to transform the constitutions into works of art and poetry. “It was such a simple impactful way of expressing the idea of freedom,” said Jury President Lisa Smith, executive creative director, Jones Knowles Ritchie. “What we really liked is that Portuguese Reconstitution is more than just an idea. The eventual work was published by Penguin as a book, which has the potential to live on as educational resource.” In terms of overall approach, Smith said the jury “wanted to celebrate work that didn’t just have an ethical side, but was also commercially viable for brands. We also set out to give oxygen to work from all over the world.” This latter point was reflected in the Jury’s Six Gold Lions, which originated in Brazil, the US, Sweden, Kenya, Canada and Pakistan/Portugal. There was also a Silver Lion for Banda Ukraine, which entered Chornobyl Vanishing Logo.

When South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai wanted to launch the 2022 Tucson, the firm’s management decided that simply booking the Superbowl slot wasn’t going to be “big enough” this time. “We have been in Superbowl many times, and we love it,” Angela Zepeda, chief marketing officer, Hyundai Motor America, on stage at Cannes Lions, said. Instead, Hyundai looked to Disney, which Zepeda calls “a creative powerhouse and a media platform capable of exploding a creative idea”, to reach a whole new audience. The Disney for Hyundai creative was based around the idea “question everything”, reimagined across Disney properties to drive discovery of the Tucson. It launched during the premiere of The Bachelorette in June 2021, with a range of ads featuring both reality stars and talent from Marvel series like Loki and WandaVision on Disney+, including Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen. “The challenge with this was making it make sense, and making sure that these characters would fit together as a campaign,” Rita Ferro, president, Disney Advertising, said. Making a special appearance in Cannes, actor Olsen added: “I’ve never been part of a commercial like this before. I was in the business of representing my show and my character and Marvel… and that felt representative in my goal of getting people to watch the show. When you launch a new streaming service – WandaVision was the first Marvel show on Disney+ – something like this teaches people where they need to go.”

There’s a lot of cynicism about NFTs and cryptocurrency right now as a result of the sector’s eye-watering crash in valuations. But this hasn’t shaken the faith of web 3.0 entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, founder, chairman and CEO of VaynerX and VaynerMedia. Speaking to a packed Lumiere Theatre alongside fellow NFT/metaverse evangelist Paris Hilton, Vaynerchuk said: “What we’re witnessing right now is the result of an overheated market, just like we saw during the dotcom crash two decades ago. But that crash didn’t stop brands like Amazon and PayPal emerging as successful businesses.” Vaynerchuck’s view is that now is a great time for brands to explore the opportunities associated with NFTs and blockchain. “Now that the greed and hysteria has died down, it’s a much safer moment for brands to learn about the underlying technology, which is the most profound advance since the arrival of the internet.” Addressing the negativity around NFTs, he said: “At the moment, everyone is focusing on the issue of NFT collectability. But collectability is just the entry point, in the same way college kids were for Facebook and dancing teens were for TikTok. This tech becomes really significant when it’s more about communities and utility. To all those people who are judging NFTs on the basis on a few headlines, I would say: ‘Do 50 hours of immersive homework, then decide’.” Paris Hilton is best known as a socialite but is also CEO of an innovation-driven firm called 11:11 Media. She hit the headlines last year when she sold a piece of NFT art for $1.1m. “What a lot of people don’t realise is that I’m an undercover nerd,” she told delegates. “I got into gaming back in 2004 and later moved into digital wearables. My metaverse Paris World is on platforms like Roblox and has some amazing activations and brand partnerships.” The phrase web 3.0 is increasingly used to describe the new wave of digital innovations associated with blockchain. Asked to distinguish web 3.0 from the current iteration of the internet, Hilton said: “Right now, the web is about building audience, but web 3.0 is about community. Everyone is so willing to teach each other — I’m learning something every day.” Like Vaynerchuk, Hilton expects huge upsides to come in the world of NFTs and the metaverse. But she also sees her role as “empowering and elevating women in this space”.

Fashion designer and recently named ZEO of Edelman’s Gen Z Lab, Harris Reed, was in conversation on the Debussy stage with Edelman’s Chief Brand Officer Jackie Cooper, yesterday. The duo started by discussing the meaning of fluidity. “Although fluidity is widely understood to be about gender – and that is indeed where it started – it has evolved to be about working in non-traditional ways and the most exciting thing is that now it is spreading into businesses,” Reed said. “And it really should be, because recent research by Edelman shows that Gen Z and its focus on fluidity is affecting everything. It’s about the future of what the world buys.” Gen Z is particularly strong on transparency around the origins of products, which in turn is informative for brands: “When I do a fashion show, people want to know if, for example, the feathers that I’ve used were sourced sustainably. Basically, Gen Z wants to know everything about everything.” Reed was asked by Cooper why he’d accepted the ZEO role at Edelman: “I like a challenge and really it was a no-brainer. I was tired of being used as the token Gen Z person. The opportunity to work with Edelman offered a real chance to change things for the better,” he said. “I’m delighted that Edelman has taken on 100 Gen Z staff and I’m equally excited to be part of a global organisation.” Reed’s chosen look and openness about sexuality have presented many challenges over the years. “Sure I got bullied and I’ve been faced with prejudice and misunderstanding, but the upside is that I’ve been hugely supported by the online Gen Z community, especially through the lockdown period when there was no chance of meeting up in real life. It’s a beautiful place and it’s growing and expanding.”

Three of Nike’s top marketers and creative leaders took to the Cannes Lions stage yesterday to guide delegates through the sportswear brand’s history, culture, philosophy and innovative approach to product development. From the ‘Breaking2’ marathon attempt to the recent 'Dream Crazy' campaign, the Nike team outlined the importance of listening to athletes and driving to be the best. Nike chief marketing officer DJ van Hameren stressed that the brand is totally committed to “listening to the voice of the athlete”. He added: “But listening at Nike isn’t quiet — it’s noisy, messy, curious and tense. It has to be that way, because daring to being better is a never-ending pursuit.” Van Hameren provided insights into the way Nike meticulously designed the ‘Breaking2’ campaign, which saw Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge attempt to run a marathon in under two hours. Kipchoge narrowly missed his target, but Van Hameren said the running challenge wasn’t the real point of the exercise: “The attempt was the hero of the story. It was a moonshot.” Liz Weldon, Nike’s vice-president of global women's brand management, prefaced her comments by stressing that, for Nike, “if you have a body, you are an athlete. We see an athlete in everyone and try to inspire and enable people to reach their true potential.” Weldon talked about Nike’s trailblazing work in designing modest swimwear and product lines for pregnant women. She also outlined the brand’s interest in dance — “a platform for self-expression that has not been included in the confines of sport”. After listening to the community’s voice, the result was ‘Own The Floor’, a campaign featuring talent including choreographer Parris Goebel. “We’re all about empowering athletes to access sport on their own terms,” Weldon added. “I think we’ll see a shift now that breakdance is part of the Paris 2024 Olympics.” Jonathan Johnsongriffin, Nike’s vice-president global creative director, told delegates that “brands really can help move the world forward”. He also said sport is “as much about emotion as action. It’s the emotion that drives people to overcome doubts and change the status quo.” Johnsongriffin said the recent ‘Crazy Dreams’ campaign was the natural evolution of Nike’s Just Do It philosophy. Starring Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who led the now iconic kneeling campaign, the hero ad interweaves a strong sense of social purpose with the pursuit of sporting excellence. “As a black creative director, I really believe in the message in ‘Crazy Dreams’,” Johnsongriffin added. “The moment we stop dreaming is the moment we stop believing.”

Top prize for menstruation sports app Announcing the winner of the Entertainment Lions Sport category, Jury President Marcel Marcondes, global CMO, AB InBev, said that the NikeSync App by RG/A London, which shows women how to optimise their sporting efforts during their period, was not a stunt: “This campaign was designed for the long run. And that shows in the fact that the language in the campaign is real and authentic,” “One of the judging criteria was to weed out the campaigns that were only about visibility at the expense of being meaningful and relevant. And to do that, you have to be able to speak to the language.” Marcondes said that sport is stepping up to support worthy issues and causes: “Sport has a gigantic impact on culture, and with great power comes great responsibility. It’s good to see sports people stepping up and embracing big causes, but the focus needs to be on creative solutions rather than merely talking about the problem.” He added that even though sports and brands are getting involved in causes, there is no obligation: “If you feel there’s an authentic connection, get in there and be an agent of change, but don’t do it just because others are and you feel you have to.” Cannibalism mockumentary wins for Swedish Film Federation McCann Stockholm’s mockumentary ‘Eat a Swede’, for the Swedish Food Federation, is winner of the Grand Prix in the Entertainment category, it was announced by Jury President Maria Garrido, former Global CMO at Vivendi, at a press conference yesterday. The 18-minute film features a scientist obsessed with developing lab-grown food from human cells, which becomes human meat – which he then encourages people to eat. Garrido spelled out the criteria that she and her jurors adopted to make sense of a category that covers so many possibilities. “We were looking at the value to the audience in terms of emotional connection, the value to the brand whether strategic or tactical, its authenticity, positive impact on image or sales, and the quality of the craft – plus the way that the story was told and the message that it was conveyed.” And ‘Eat a Swede’ ticked all those boxes: “We loved the fact that anyone can do great work, and the timing of this campaign is just perfect,” Garrido added. Garrido said that the jury saw a lot of games, “so much so that I’m thinking this maybe be a new Lions category. But we all felt that many of the submissions were struggling to understand how to integrate themselves into the collaborative space that typically surrounds the gaming world.” Jury diversity leads to a win by an outsider The Grand Prix in the Entertainment Lions for Music was a controversial choice that was nearly rejected at an earlier stage of the judging process: “Residente’s This Is Not America featuring Ibeyi came out of nowhere,” Jury President Amani Duncan, CEO of BBH, said. “No one initially saw it as a front runner, then Angel [Lee] of Netflix posed a question, and because this is Cannes and ‘best in class’, it sparked a two-hour debate. After that, it remained top-of- mind and eventually it was chosen. Although it’s not the obvious choice, it is certainly the right one.” The rap video, produced by Los Angeles-based Doomsday Entertainment, recounts the often savage and traumatic history of South America, with white privilege creating misery and persecution for the continent’s indigenous people. The story is told through inspired cinematography that marries dramatic, confrontational scenes with astonishing choreography, and a tour de force performance by rapper Ibeyi. “The video carries a point of view that not everyone shares, but the more important thing for us is that the outcome of the discussion was down to the diversity of the voices in the jury. And the fact that that conversation made us all think about the world at large differently, and that it catapulted a relatively unknown body of work to a Grand Prix is really special.”

Serviceplan’s Film Craft winner takes an ‘emotional journey’ ‘The Wish’, a powerful three-minute film from Serviceplan Germany, has won this year’s Film Craft Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. Created for retailer Penny, the emotionally-charged film explores the negative impact that COVID-19 has had on the lives of young people. Film Craft Jury President Patrick Milling-Smith, co-founder and global CEO of production company Smuggler, said: “We came into the judging process wanting to explore the distinction between Film and Film Craft. The media landscape is so crowded with disposable work that we wanted to focus on the way in which great craft can help a piece of film really stand out. We’re all excited by the potential of tech, but it shouldn’t eclipse the role of craft.” In ‘The Wish’, a mother sits a dining table with her son. When he asks her what she wants, the film shifts to an internal monologue in which she laments all of the experiences he has been missing as a result of lockdowns. “In the wrong hands, it could have been too sentimental. But every aspect of this film is beautifully-observed. It grabs you from the outset and takes you on an emotional journey. We saw a few pieces of COVID-19 work but this really stood out.” The jury also awarded 11 Gold Lions to five campaigns from the UK, US and Germany. An app to help rebuild Ukraine The winner of the 2022 Digital Craft Grand Prix is an innovative and inspiring tech-driven campaign called Backup Ukraine. It was entered by New York-based Virtue Worldwide in partnership with UN cultural organisation UNESCO and Polycam X, a 3D scanning app. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Polycam X was essentially a prosumer technology that allowed users to scan physical objects via their iPhones and iPads. After the start of the invasion of Ukraine, it was repurposed so that anyone in the country could download the app and use it to scan and upload digital renderings of significant landmarks. As a result, Ukrainians have been able to store a digital record of their culture in the cloud before it is destroyed by the Russian army. Jury President Luciana Haguiara, executive creative director of Media.Monks Brazil, said: “We wanted to choose an example of digital craft that could improve people’s lives in the real world. And we wanted something that had the power to inspire other related areas of craft.” The Digital Craft jury also awarded three Gold Lions, including one for Radio & Audio Grand Prix winner The Unfiltered History. Speaking of the category as a whole, Haguiara said: “We saw some really high-speed evolution this year. There were interesting examples of digital being used as a tool to place people at the heart of the conversation.” Industry Craft winners spells hope for coral An environmentally-themed campaign which saw a pet food manufacturer help reverse the destruction of a dying coral reef has won the Industry Craft Grand Prix for 2022. The innovative project was entered by AMV BBDO London on behalf of Mars Petcare’s Sheba brand. Entitled Hope Reef, the campaign centred on efforts to revive a coral reef in Indonesia. A new living coral bed was grown in the shape of the word Hope – drawing on the expertise of marine scientists and local communities. The word was so large that it formed the basis of a striking aerial image that has subsequently gone viral around the world. More significantly, the reef dramatically reversed the decline in both living coral and the local fish population. Jury President Nils Leonard, co-founder of Uncommon Creative Studio, said: “We wanted to choose a campaign that really mattered, something that demonstrated how craft is more than just moustache-twiddling." "For us, this campaign exemplified the power of typography – and at the same time was an example of a brand really trying to make a difference.” The jury also awarded five Gold Lions to four separate campaigns, from Brazil, Japan, Sweden and the US. In terms of trends, Leonard said: “We saw a lot of work relating to web3. But we also saw a refreshing return to super-realistic, visceral photography.”

Oleg Tomin, creative director/director of advertising agency Bart&Fink, recently had the word “give” etched on his skin. It was his first-ever tattoo. For the Ukrainian creative, the word is also a call to action for the global creative community to give whatever it can to help war-torn Ukraine retaliate against the Russian invasion that stunned the world in February. Tomin was speaking during yesterday’s Creativity Under Bombs panel session, where he was joined by other Ukrainian creatives from the worlds of music, marketing and media, as well as by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who sent an exclusive video message. Zelenskyy said he could not think of a better place from which to send that message than the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where the global creative community normally gathers to exchange ideas on how brands can better reach consumers. Ukraine’s fight for global democracy requires creatives to urge the world to give their time, he said. “The end of this war depends on the world’s attention” Zelenskyy’s appeal to the international creative community to use their skills to help Ukraine fight for its freedom resonated with Tomin, whose family’s life has been destroyed by Russian bombs. And having been deeply moved by his neighbours sharing what little they had with his family, he said it was that “brilliant act of giving” that prompted him to acquire his first-ever tattoo. Despite having no media budget, co-panelist Pasha Vrzheshch, co-owner and creative director of Kyiv-based Cannes Lions winner Banda Agency, said his company recently asked the international media community to give free space for the ‘Be Brave Like Ukraine’ campaign it created for Zelenskyy’s government. The campaign is already yielding results, having appeared on a variety of major platforms, including New York City’s Times Square. Vrzheshch urged Lions’ delegates to help maintain that momentum. Another panel speaker was singer-songwriter Jamala — real name is Susana Dzamaladinova — who won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ukraine in 2016. She appealed to artists to give their voice in protest. “I ask artists not to be silent,” she said.

More than 10 years before ‘MeToo’ became a viral hashtag, Tarana Burke was using the term to reach women of colour who had survived sexual violence. While she recognised the powerful empathy of the phrase, she had no idea that it would later be claimed by women all over the world and, ultimately, become a catalyst for global change. Monday’s panel, 5 Years later – MeToo In 2022, saw Burke, founder and chief vision officer for the me too. Movement discuss with Susan Credle, FCB’s global chair and global chief creative officer, how the movement has evolved — and where it is headed. “I founded the me too. Movement in Alabama in the early 2000s,” Burke said. “It was a grass roots, community-driven movement that was about healing in action for those that had suffered sexual violence. It grew incrementally over the years.” The hashtag took off in 2017, when Alyssa Milano tweeted it following a conversation with someone who knew of Burke’s work. But Burke wasn’t fazed by the new and evolving ownership of her idea: “I could have spent a long time fighting for credit, but that makes it all about me. You can call it ‘me too’, you can call it ‘survivor justice’… I am here to do this work.” She added: “Eventually, I got thrust on to the international stage. Although there was a lot of celebrity focus, there were still a lot of questions from normal people, asking: ‘What do I do now we are talking about this?’ My message was: ‘I see you, survivors’ — and to try to keep the focus on the people.” Closing, Burke pushed back against attempts to catalogue the movement’s overall effectiveness: “Please resist the urge to launch campaigns that ask what Me Too has done in the last five years. I want you to tell a different story — what Me Too has made possible.”

Dentsu International, the global arm of Japanese holding company Dentsu Group, came to Cannes Lions with all creative guns blazing as it launched what it says an integrated creative network of what the future should look like. Called Dentsu Creative, this new subsidiary will effectively merge Dentsu’s different creative units, including dentsuMB, 360i and Isobar, to produce a unified single creative division. This new enlarged unit will inject clients’ creativity needs into all parts of the marketing-and-advertising chain, including media, technology, data analytics, customer experience management (CMX) and entertainment. “This is a world first,” said Wendy Clark, Dentsu’s global CEO, on a panel called Designing a Global Creative Network for 2022 and Beyond. Clark, who hit the headlines in 2020 when she left her job as president/CEO at DDB Worldwide for her current position, was joined on the Cannes Lions stage by Fred Levron, Dentsu’s global chief creative officer, whom she had poached from FCB. Clark reminded the audience that Dentsu’s Japanese owners went on a massive spending spree in the 2010s, including the US$4.9bn spent on the media giant Aegis Group. Dentsu recently conducted a survey with 500 CMOs, 75% of whom said the siloed way creative agencies were currently set up was not fit for purpose. In response, Clark said, Dentsu wanted to make a difference. “We want to be the most integrated creative network in the world.” Levron explained the vision behind Dentsu Creative: “We asked ourselves, ‘If you had to create a brand new creative network in 2022, what would it look like, having in mind how the world works today and for years to come?’ I want creativity to be the biggest asset that we have.” Levron became responsible for turning that ambition into a reality. “The way we see creative is different compared to everywhere else.” What would distinguish Dentsu from rival holding companies like the UK’s WPP, Omnicom and IPG in the US and France’s Group Publicis, he continued, would be its Japanese heritage. “And the fact that we understand the media landscape more than anyone else,” he added. Additionally, he and Clark said that brands should be able to rely on entertainment, as well as advertising, for their marketing messages. “We want to be the leader for brands who want a voice in pop culture,” Levron said. “It is time for brands to create IP, to move from TV ads to TV shows. We will be known for creating content.”

Chess icon turned political activist Garry Kasparov used his Cannes Lions platform to call for unwavering support for Ukraine in its war with Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian army. Denouncing the Russian president as “evil”, he called on delegates to play their part in defending freedom. “What is at stake is not just Ukraine, but the existence of the kind of world we live in.” Russia-born Kasparov has been a vocal opponent of Putin for the last 20 years. “How did I know he was a problem? Because I listened to what he said. The way he talked about spheres of influence and the Soviet Collapse persuaded me that democracy was in danger. The thing about dictators is that they lie about what they have done, but they often tell us exactly what they plan to do.” Kasparov retired from chess in 2005 and turned his attention to pro-democracy activism. “Friends told me it was a mistake because chess is black and white but politics is grey. But to me what is happening in Ukraine is black and white.” In terms of what Cannes Lions delegates can do to support the Ukraine effort, Kasparov said the key is to maintain pressure on politicians to see the war through to the end. “Putin has moved to a hybrid strategy which combines military with diplomacy. As the war drags on and there are stories about the energy crisis or disruption to food supplies, it is important not to be dismayed. We need a to deliver a message of hope, resilience and defiance to the public, so that they continue to put pressure on their politicians to act During his talk, Kasparov shared a film featuring Ukraine’s minister of foreign affairs Dmytro Kuleba in which he urged Cannes Lions delegates to support the Ukraine brand, which stands for “bravery, courage and the future”. Echoing Kasparov, he said, “Russian propaganda is strong, but your creativity is stronger.” Kasparov was introduced to a packed Lumiere audience by Richard Edelman in a session entitled Garry Kasparov on the Imperative for Brands to Act Now, (hosted by Edelman Data & Intelligence Monday.

Sueann Tannis, senior director, Integrated Communications at the United Nations Foundation, and president of the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good announced at a press conference yesterday that Lil Sugar - Master of Disguise by Hip Hop Public Health, had won the Grand Prix. The campaign, which uses rap to get its message across to both vulnerable kids and adults, is about fighting the fact that sugar has 150 different names, an obvious ploy by the industrial food industry to hide how much sugar it is putting in processed foods, despite its health risks. “Alongside the many praiseworthy aspects of this hugely important campaign, I’d like to say a word about the genuine inclusivity and diversity of my fellow jurors and thank them for giving me a great judging experience,” Tannis said. “We were judging entries based on equality, justice, inclusiveness, and use of technology, among other criteria, and we all agreed that Lil Sugar is a phenomenal piece of work that challenges our assumptions about what’s in our food, and using rap and rappers from the early days of the genre to get kids and adults on board was a master stroke. Lil Sugar has already been seen by three million students across 5000 schools in the New York area, and it’s eminently scaleable, plus it can adopt any kind of music to reach out to different demographics.” VML Y&R’s killer concept wins top prize for Health & Wellness The winner of the 2022 Health & Wellness Grand Prix is ‘The Killer Pack’ from Indian agency VML Y&R. The product, made by Maxx Flash, is a small, biodegradable packet that kills mosquitoes outdoors by destroying their eggs. Simply by leaving the pack in the trash bins, rubbish dumps, puddles and garden ponds where the insects breed, it has already made a significant different to insect-borne malaria cases across India. Announcing the award, Health & Wellness jury president Patricia Corsi, Bayer Consumer Health’s chief marketing and digital officer, and chief information officer said: “’The Killer Pack’ is brilliant on so many levels. It uses existing pesticides, it doesn’t harm other species and it’s extendable to other regions of the world plagued by mosquitoes. All the jury felt very strongly about the product and the campaign’s potential to save lives.” Corsi also reported that there had been significant growth in the number of submissions to the Health & Wellness category. “We were very happy to see so many entries,” she added. “But perhaps the most significant thing is that all five continents were represented among the entries. We awarded Health & Wellness Gold Lions to Asian, South American, North American and European agencies.” MND book banks Pharma Grand Prix VML Y&R won its second Grand Prix yesterday for ‘I Will Always Be Me’, which took the top honour in the Pharma category. The campaign by VML Y&R New York for Dell Technologies aims to give people with motor neuron disease (MND) the words to express what they are experiencing and preserve their voices. Announcing the award, Pharma jury president Brett O’Connor, executive creative director of VCCP Health, said: “It’s a brilliant project that leverages AI alongside a book of common phrases to massively reduce the amount of time and effort that people with MND have to spend in order to make a ‘bank’ of their voice for when they lose the ability to speak.” MND is a terminal illness that ultimately destroys people’s ability to speak. Banking a person’s voice helps them to communicate in the later stages of the disease, but it typically takes three months and requires 1,600 phrases to be banked in order to accurately replicate a voice. VML Y&R worked with author Jill Twiss to create a short story that people with MND can read to their loved ones. As they read, the system seamlessly banks their voice. All the syllables needed to create a copy of their voice are contained in the book. “This is such a touching story that really hits you in the feels,” O’Connor added. “For me and all the jury, the important thing is that it buys precious time for seriously ill people by condensing what used to take three months into 30 minutes.”