Latest / WOI Unfiltered / A Look Cannes Lions & Who Won Big - Epi 25
Transcript
- speaker-0: Alright I just hit record. speaker-1: Wait a second, wait a second. Let me grab coffee. speaker-0: Good morning, speaker-1: Hi Jenna, how you doing? speaker-0: Your hair looks so long today. speaker-1: I think it's you know what, I'm loving this angle today 'cause I'm a little speaker-0: It's here for you. It looks so long and fabulous. And I just saw you and it didn't look like that. speaker-1: I gotta tell ya, being farther from the camera works wonders and I feel happy about it. speaker-0: We are all good. all right, today is a fun one. We teased this, I think on our last episode, but we're gonna talk about can. We're gonna talk about can lions. and actually this is gonna be two parter. speaker-1: Hold on, quick discrepancy, can or can't. speaker-0: I say can. I am a I'm all in on can. I'm just American, I'm gonna go with it. But it's a this is a two parter because our next episode we actually have a guest who was there, so maybe she will correct us. speaker-1: You're like, I'm just American. Yes. And I can't wait for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. We'll corroborate. speaker-0: Exactly. We'll see, we'll see what she says. We'll we'll have a little debate on that. But yes, so for those who don't know, and I I feel like most most people in our industry know this, but so Can Lyons is basically like, I don't know, the the Super Bowl of awards, the Oscars. The Oscars of the advertising and PR industry. it is a massive award show industry conference. Who's who Swanky event. It's all the things. takes place every June in France. and I was doing a little bit of research because we've grown up with this. This has just become part of the ether of our work stream every June. had a lot of clients submit for it, a good amount of clients win various awards there. so it's it's not foreign to us, but I realized before we started talking about this that I actually had never gone back to really figure out like when it started or how it became so notable within the industry. So I did a little homework. and and let me pull this up. So it actually started in 1954. It was an international advertising film festival. And it the first one was actually held in Venice. I thought that was really cool. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: so the lion trophy that is so synonymous with this event was inspired by the lion of the Piazza San Marco. which I I thought was really interesting. And then it permanently moved to France in 1984. So it's been there for quite a while now. but it speaker-1: In speaker-0: It started in the ad space, which makes sense. Honestly, even when I started my career and and started, you know, learning about it or submitting clients for it, it I feel like it was still more of an advertising thing. Yeah. I didn't research, you know, when they officially started switching some of their categories, but now at this point, it is not just traditional advertisements. It is The PR space, it's consumer engagement, it's got social. it's kind of all of the different creative work streams that you think about and a look at the best of the best work in all those different streams. It's also really well known on the CPG side, and you see a lot of CPG brands clean up every year and and take home some big awards, but it's also something a lot of tech brands are there and they do really well. healthcare brands are really, you know, doing a great job there. and then you also see s more purpose driven campaigns that are being honored there. So it is diverse in that aspect as well. speaker-1: Yeah, and it's gonna continue to evolve, I'm sure, with the dawn of AI, and not really the dawn, the the crest or whatever you want to call it. I do think what is kind of interesting as well about the founding of the festival is that it was created by the cinema screen advertising contractors because they were a bit envious that Khan had a film festival that was an international to-do. And when you think about it, films won't get an audience unless there's advertising around it. It's the same for products as well. So, you know, driving that force of like, hey, we're here too for creativity and to actually get people to care about your thing is is kind of a fun part of the history there. So yeah, it is it is it was an exciting couple of weeks in con, it seems like. And today we're gonna talk about a few campaigns that Rose to the top, some maybe more obvious than others. I I will say I saw out in the wild maybe three of the four we're gonna talk about today, Jenna. which is which is always good. I was speaker-0: gonna say actually so we actually spoke about some of the campaigns that were big winners there. We we had spoken about them in previous episodes having nothing to do with with con can. My gosh you you got me saying it speaker-1: I incepted you. speaker-0: This is gonna be our data data conversation all over again. so that was cool. I mean, I think the only thing I would add, jumping off of a lot of the conversations we've had in the last year, content remains king for brands. It has been that way for many years now. And the almost the cinematic excellence of the content you see coming out of brands now, it's so engaging. I mean, I think back and and I don't know, I don't think this was a winner. speaker-1: Totally. speaker-0: 'Cause it was probably developed too late in terms of entries. But I think about the Adidas piece that we talked about for the World Cup and how I was so enamored with that and wanted to watch it and wanted more. I mean, I can almost guarantee that's gonna be up next year. But these these pieces of content that you see brands creating are their art. I mean, they're they're creative art and speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: They deserve their moment in the spotlight. So this is a really cool festival. It's also laden with, you know, meetings on yachts and who's got the best attire and sunglasses and all of that. So you kinda gotta pull all that. So you kinda had to peel all that back to get to the like the true creative, but also anyone in that industry, including us, also kinda loves some of that stuff. So so great. Like that's too. speaker-1: Yep. The fashion, you you gotta look great and con. Yes. For sure. speaker-0: Inspiration. all right. So today is gonna just be kind of a a look at some of our favorite winners. Well I speaker-1: Started off with Adidas, might as well. Adidas Times Oasis, and I mean the the the pop rock band from the UK. So Liam and Noel Gallagher went back on the road in summer of 2025. an Oasis reunion tour 30 years later. It was all the rage in Chicago and the circles we run in. Lots of friends eager for the tickets or where they could go and see one of these reunion shows. And the whole it was called the original Forever Oasis brand partnership, where Adidas came in in a really natural way to partner with the band on a merch line. but also they were able to call very throwback footage from 30 years ago when the fandom was at its prime, when Oasis was just dominating the charts. and they the the band itself was always wearing Adidas too. So it was like, Completely natural. The fandom was wearing Adidas. It was just like a very natural thing and a natural pairing that goes beyond just brand partnership. Again, when it's that genuine. So they made a hero video, an anthem, so to speak, Jenna, you were just saying the cinematography, the cinematic beauty of campaigns in con is a huge, huge thing. So this was about a little over a one-minute video that kind of showcased. you know, these sort of blurry, beautiful images and old footage of the fandom getting ready for the concert and the excitement of seeing one of their favorite bands perform on stage, clad in Adidas, very naturally again, kind of crowd surfing, and it was this ethereal set to live forever, which is a fantastic song by Oasis, one of the top. And You know, one that you like to sing out loud and it it is camaraderie, whether or not you're in the car alone or with a group of friends singing the song, you know it, you happen to know all the words. So these fans are crowd surfing and then they get to the front where Oasis is and it's just like this meeting and it's beautiful. so anthem video to launch the campaign and then a merch line of some thirty pieces that were Oasis and Adidas branded. speaker-0: It's a big merch line. speaker-1: Yeah. Big merch line. And there was some stat where in the UK, like one piece was selling every second. I think they had like an over eighty, eighty percent sell through on the merch. and then just gangbusters on the earned media with a partnership like that. So tapping into nostalgia, which we know has been big for quite a while now, you know, a c a couple of years now in the cultural ether, but again, in a really genuine way, with a ban that's very much iconic and was the musical news of twenty twenty five. So they won the biggest award in the entertainment category because of that partnership with Oasis. speaker-0: Super pool stuff. Yeah, I loved that one. I felt like that was just to your point, it was really organic and people just clamored to get that merch because it didn't feel like you were getting concert merch. It just felt like you were getting something that you would wear anyway, but then it had that great connection as well. speaker-1: A piece of the band, right? Like quite literally a piece of the band. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: So another one that won big I I was gonna say this might actually be my favorite. So we've talked about Kraft Heinz a few times. and they've had some really cool innovative campaigns in the last well, in the last year or so. The one that won really big for Kraft Heinz was the Look Familiar campaign. So Heinz has been around for I think 150 years. And if you look back at their logo. on the front of their bottle, even though they've shifted their logo around, you know, over the years, they've always had this image that looks like a fry container, a French fry container. Right. And so it was just such an obvious campaign, but they created it in a global way. and it was basically they went and got, you know, the fry containers from all around the world and showed that it just went naturally with their bottle. They had digital ads, they had print advertising, they had, you know, content of like videos and all and such. and they just yeah. They did a huge global campaign about the fact that French fries go not with any ketchup, but with Kraft Heinz. And they connected that and they drew like a little white line around every single fry thing. That was that was their big creative, right? As like the white line of their logo. that looked like the fry container was around all these other fry containers and you could see that they were almost identical. and it went insane. They had billions, billions with a B of earned media impressions. speaker-1: Thirty three countries of market penetration. which it I think I think riffing on the visual identity piece too, it's like it transcends language. It transcends language barriers, right? It's like French rye box is pretty consistent across the world. Yes. Plus the Heinz ketchup logo. It's a very easy get. And you know how I love Simplicity, Jenna. This one was simple. speaker-0: That's what it was. It was so simple. The other thing that I think is really key about any campaign like this, and specifically for these winners, is sales lift. They're actually, they're not just showing impressions and awareness. They're showing a true sales lift from it, which I think is is really strong. I mean, that's the marker of a good piece of creative, is that it is actually driving people to go out and purchase and use the product. speaker-1: And I think is doing you know, they're putting more effort into understanding the efficacy of the campaign. I mean, it's always a huge piece of the entry, right? But to be able to correlate that to sales lift is is the icing on the cake that will get you the Grand Prix. speaker-0: Yeah. Yes. That so that was a really amazing one. The other one that was a big winner, and Emma will let you talk to this, was one that we actually spent a good amount of one of our episodes talking about. Which speaker-1: Yeah. This is when we loved in the wild. Yeah. We loved it in the wild. But Kit Kat Heist, the timing was so interesting. It was like right around April Fool's Day pre-Easter, which is a big time for chocolate brands. and Nestle just did a really phenomenal job of of being natural and kind of riffing on something that could have been a catastrophe with what, 400 tons of chocolate being stolen on its way from one place in Europe to another. Uh-huh. And instead of just kind of doing the internal crisis route and the holding statement to the public and consumers and whatnot, they flipped it on its head and kind of made something funny about it. So reminder they they did the the tracker online for consumers to see if their Kit Kat, the barcode on their Kit Kat was one of the stolen lot. Yeah. So it it got worldwide massive interest in what happened to these Kit Kats. And you know it is kind of earned gold when other brands jumped in on it as well. so I know some airlines, I believe it was Ryanair, you know, got in on it. Domino's was an early adopter as well, kind of saying like, We're really sorry what happened to you, but in unrelated news, can't wait for the world to see our new Kit Kat Pizza. I mean, when when you are able to generate brand interaction and that kind of organic gangbusters conversation to be trending like that, it's really some you you know you have something special. And again, it was it was a crisis comms moment for them, however they turned it into a global campaign. The nimbleness and the agility. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I I think the thing that I the quote that I found to be most fun and most telling was the India State Police Forces. Yes. Put out a comment and said this wouldn't have happened on their watch because they don't take breaks, which is just so fun, so playful, obviously plays off of the brand identity of Kit Kat, right? And I think that's the big thing, is this was so successful in such a fast way, in large part because Kit Kat had spent decades establishing a consistent brand identity. distinctive assets that people were used to, you know, talk about simplicity and we talk about the Heinz fries, right? And Kit Kat's the same the same. I mean, people know what a Kit Kat looks like around the world. You know, things can change slightly, but they have such strong distinctive assets and that catchphrase that it was something they could easily quickly flip into a solid campaign. And I was reading something about one of their executives basically saying, you know, now they're trying to look at without the heist happening, because you know, that's that's one in a million, hopefully doesn't happen to them again. But without that, how do they enact something like this again that can take off? And that is the magic, the magic that we're all looking for. speaker-1: Yeah, the magic of three sixty marketing for sure. Yeah, I know. And and they could even sustain it too. I think, you know, one last point on the campaign itself. After the fact when they were transporting Kit Kats in Canada, they did like an a convoy with security vehicles, which also got pickup because it was like, Okay, it's it's like you're toting around the president. but really it's just, you know, it's just your Kit Kats, also important, but especially in my household. speaker-0: Exactly. I know s side note on Kit Kats, but a cousin of mine went to Japan and sent he was so, so sweet. And he sent my children little like gift packages. And within the gift packages there were a couple of different Kit Kats for each of the kids and they were all different flavors. Flavors I've never seen. like cheesecake and there was like a fruity one. They're all different types of flavors that My kids were, I think, too nervous to try, but Brian and I got in on sampling them because they weren't going after them. So that was fun. speaker-1: I love that. I love it. I love a flavor innovation. Well, and we have one more amazing one to talk about in the kind of CSR sustainment space and purpose driven, Jenna, that I know you want to tee up, but this was pretty amazing for several reasons. speaker-0: Yeah, this one was fun. I was really excited when I stumbled across this. So Kenya took home its first ever Grand Prix award, which in and of itself is really awesome and special. for a campaign call it's it was Two Goods, Paid Sick Leave for Cows. And when I saw that, I was like, okay, I have to what is this? What in the world is this? Yes. speaker-1: Double click, Jenna, into this. speaker-0: And I the video that I watched, it was really, really awesome. It was about the fact that, you know, when cows become sick and need to go on antibiotics, they have various chemicals and hormones in their system. And their milk really should be dumped. I wanna say it was like th for three to five days or something. And not used, not put in the market. But this is the livelihood of of farmers, right? This is that that drastically impacts what they can produce and put out and their livelihood. and there was no real way around it. and so some speaker-1: Every day is income. Every every day of milk production. Yeah. speaker-0: And so sometimes you were seeing that this milk that had the hormones from the antibiotics and all of that w was then put out in the market and that's harmful to the people who were drinking it. and so they were really kind of looking for a solution, and the solution was to essentially be able to give the livestock, the species, paid sick leave. So if they were ill, then their milk did not need to be used in production, but there was a payment there so that the farmers weren't losing wages. it was a really cool creative campaign. They actually put change into market, right? And created this paid sick leave so that prices weren't going to soar because consumers couldn't take that hit, right? Consumers couldn't take this like insane rising of costs of milk just because of this problem. But you also don't want to be Giving consumers tainted milk. speaker-1: A simple simple insight, humans get paid sick leave, so why not the cows? Right. speaker-0: It was just it was an innovation that was so obvious. but I'm sure took years of back end, you know, research and government conversations and all of that to get it to where it got to. And it was really nice that then the creative got that payoff of winning the award so that this was then more visible to the world of all this hard work that was done. it was really cool. And as I said at the beginning, you know, CPG cleanup at CAN. They really do. But this was a nice example of somebody kind of outside of that space, getting some of that love and and being able to tell such an important story. speaker-1: Yeah. so much fun stuff. And I'm really, really looking forward to our Monday guest to dig deep deeper with us on what it was like on the ground, all the the little insider knowledge about her key takeaways and things she learned. So it'll be fun to to extend this conversation. It's it's worth two pods for sure. speaker-0: Yes. So last last question here. what's our impact been this week? speaker-1: Yeah, so we are excited about a new partnership that we're building with the fall campaign that's initiating very, very soon in August, in fact. And we were able to meet with the full integrated agency team, the IAT, and that was such a great time to meet the new personalities. It seems like a bang up team that really know channels. and I just think the partnership is a phenomenal way to get this. new client off the ground. and it's it's just always great to be exposed to to new agencies. It's a couple that we've never worked with before in all of our time, Jenna, in in this industry. So I know we're all really looking forward to that. speaker-0: Yeah. And I would say particularly relevant to the conversation we're having because something we didn't quite touch on, but these winners and these massive campaigns that are receiving this recognition, they're not born of one team or one agency. Especially when you look at these bigger companies like a Kraft Heinz like Nestle's Kit Kat, you know, there are many teams that put hours and hours and hours of effort into making this success from the ad agencies to the media buying agencies to the social agencies to the PR agencies. And having a really strong integrated agency team is truly the only way to achieve such success. So it is really impactful when you are brought into a new IAT And you can immediately feel that everyone has a strong sense of their lane, but also a strong sense of collaboration, which is really what's needed to to bring it together and strike gold for our clients. So I was I was personally really excited to to chat with that team. They're excited to work with them and I think we're gonna do a lot of great work for the client together. speaker-1: Yeah. Couldn't agree more, Jenna. All right, sweet. speaker-0: Friend, well Yes, we'll chat early next week with our special guest, talk a little bit more about this, have a little con versus can debate and go from there. speaker-1: I already changed you though. So there you go. All right. Have a good one. speaker-0: All right, thanks Bye.