Most of you reading this blog have heard of the Cannes Film Festival and the Cannes Lions – the international advertising festival.
Fewer of you have probably heard of the Cyber Lions, which were launched in 1998, focusing on interactive advertising. For years, this part of the show was relegated to the early part of the week, living in the shadow of TV commercials.
Much has changed since those days. The award night has been moved to be more accessible to more attendees of Cannes and most of the seminars in the last couple years have been focused on digital, with talks being led by Twitter, Razorfish, AKQA and Digitas, all interactive-focused shops. More integration with digital seems to be a reality in today’s Cannes.
Speaking of integration – compared to previous years, this year’s Grand Prix winners are more holistic, integrated campaigns rather than the digital-only executions that tended to win in year’s past. In fact, Lars Bastholm, president of the Cyber Lions judging jury says: “Digital no longer lives in a vacuum, it is integral to larger campaigns and this [campaign] is a great example of that,” referring to Tourism Queensland’s “best job in the world” campaign. He adds, “Digital tied everything together. There was a minuscule budget but it became a global campaign. Digital [allowed it to] blow the budget [in terms of impact].”
Let’s take a closer look at these three Grand Prix awards and what made them so successful.
Tourism Queensland: Best Job in the World
In the interactive campaigns category, Tourism Queensland and their agency Nitro came up with “the best job in the world” which got quite a bit of press for its website promoting this job opening and the applicants it attracted. The person selected for this job would get paid $150,000 to live on an island and blog about their experience there. Yep, that’s it.
They drove traffic there in a very nontraditional manner – newspaper and online classifieds treating this job just like any other on places like monster.com and the big newspapers of the world. They used an almost satirical teaser video that got distributed to news outlets, garnering over $100 million in media coverage with a campaign budget of only $1 million. Their YouTube contest attracted over 35,000 submissions, the bulk of which were surprisingly serious.
Unfortunately, the contest has wrapped up now so you’ve missed your chance at the best job in the world. But the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef have not stopped here – they’ve leveraged the buzz they’re still getting from this campaign by featuring the personal blog of Ben Southall, their winner, as well as putting him to work starting July 1st, where we’ll all get to see what the best job in the world is really like.
Fiat: Eco:Drive
Fiat and AKQA won in the online advertising category for their eco-campaign called Eco:Drive. Seemingly inspired by the data-driven revolution occurring in the mainstream consumer’s life, proven by the success of Nike+iPod running system and the hybrid cars that track your efficiency as you drive, Fiat made the investment to integrate “Blue&Me” technology that allows drivers to transfer their driving information via USB thumb drive to their computer where they can analyze their driving style. The website then dissects the driving style and offers custom recommendations on how to improve fuel efficiency. In a beautifully illustrated interface, Fiat also gives you results of individual road trips and tips on the optimal way to shift gears to maximize efficiency.
Like Nike (but on a much larger and costly scale), Fiat made a commitment years ago to open up its in-car diagnostic information not to be a black hole only to be accessed by expensive dealer service bays but by the average Joe. Then they realized that conveying that information via online would be the most user-friendly and engaging platform to build a relationship with their customers.
The Dark Knight: Why So Serious?
In the viral advertising and marketing category, Warner Brothers and 42 Entertainment built a campaign to hype “The Dark Knight” film, called “Why so serious?” It not only involved nearly 30 microsites that got people talking and interested in the world of Gotham, but also integrated an online alternate reality game as well as live events all over the world. People came out in droves to see the bat signal placed on buildings in New York and Chicago, tens of thousands showed up across the national to march with Harvey Dent signs and shout campaign slogans, and many more were sent on a hunt across the world using GPS coordinates for bowling balls left by the Joker.
This campaign attempted (and succeeded) at creating an alternate world where people could feel as if they were citizens of Gotham – through participating in real-world events to visiting the campaign websites of Harvey Dent or the Gotham City Pizza website. This resulted in over 10 million unique participants online and nearly a million in real-world participants.
As you’ve just seen, these Cyber Lion winners aren’t just microsites anymore – they are simply great ideas with digital playing an important role tying components of the campaign together. As our industry evolves, look for more smart, integrated campaigns; no longer treating interactive as an add-on but rather as a foundational piece.
Want to see more stellar, integrated, interactive work? Visit the Cannes Lions website and see the rest of the winner.
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