No matter the changes that the advertising world saw in the last years, Cannes Lions remains the most important festival of the industry and its awards the most wanted and desired. Therefore, it’s only natural for all the agencies and marketers to be curious to know the secret of winning one. So what are the ingredients that turn your campaigns or executions into possible winning ones? The important, big awards are given to disruptive, irreverent, totally different pieces of work that are known and loved at an international level.
Looking at the works that one and listening to several jury members, we were able to highlight some points that will give you a clearer picture on the topic.
“We felt the new integration is about transcending intermedia and really integrating into culture and society,” said Jury President Tham Khai Meng, for AdAge.com.
- Works that push humanity forward.
- Works that are deeply original and sharable.
- Campaigns that effectively impact business objectives
- New ideas that change people’s perspectives. When inspiration is combined with a rigorous experimentation program, companies can push today’s marketing innovation.
- Intuition balanced with data, big ideas with bold experiments, inspiration with rigorous validation.
- What wins a Grand Prix in a particular category is work that represents best the category and shows the way forward to the industry.
- Old ideas reinvented and putting things in a completely different perspective
- Including a societal angle in your campaign when producing your case study.
- Going big (a strong idea, consolidated by a depth of the execution and all the content created around it). Jury members were very vocal in saying that they wanted to focus on work that had been widely shared, got press coverage and was being made by big real brands.
- The PR component of the campaign becomes more and more important. No winning campaign has been “discovered” at Cannes. All Grand Prix winners were operations that had been already widely shared and talked about in the media, and had also made an impact on marketers all over the world, even before the start of the festival.
- The concept is still the king.
- Using emotion and focus on a positive attitude. Let’s not forget that jurors are humans as well, and if you can make them feel something, you’re much closer to being in the winner’s circle. The stronger the emotion, the better.
- Short videos presenting the campaign’s idea, execution and results. The shorter and to the point as possible, the better.
- “Work that has impact far beyond its initial intention or that creates a category shift is work that stands out. It’s often not the big brands, but the truly smart, innovative, and conscious work that scores highest with the judges”. – Sue Daun, Creative Director Intebrand London.
- Inspiring creativity envy.
- Works that break the rules and do not conform to what we expect to see—work that transcends a category.
