‘I wanted to hear it over and over again, and I just kept laughing,’ says jury president Mark Gross, SVP/group CD at DDB Chicago, of Zig’s ‘Low Voice’ spot for Ikea, which won a Gold Radio Lion today. ‘It’s very simple, short and unexpected.’
Canadian juror Tom Murphy, CD at St. John’s-based Target, agrees. ‘I think it’s absolutely brilliant.’ The spot features a low, Darth Vader-esque female voice complaining about getting a terrible sleep. The iconic Ikea guy chimes in that she should get a better mattress from Ikea. The woman’s voice then declares she feels much better thanks to a great sleep on her new Ikea mattress. The twist? She still has the low, gruff voice.
Montreal-based Sid Lee received a Bronze Radio Lion for the spot ‘What’s New’ for antique dealer Jean Lacasse Antiquaire. The simple execution features a man coming into a store and asking, ‘What’s new?’ The owner’s reply? ‘Nothing,’ which is followed by a voiceover with the antique store’s details. ‘It’s that type of stuff that breaks through,’ says Murphy.
DDB Canada’s ‘Shave Everywhere’ campaign (which won the Best of Show at the Crystal Awards this spring) made the Radio short list, but didn’t pick up any hardware. ‘We debated it a lot,’ says Murphy, adding that he voted for it. ‘We were [just] one judge away. It was passionately backed by several, but then there was a comment made about potty humour. Everyone recognized it was a great spot, but you can’t just sway half a panel.’
Canada turned up empty-handed in both the Media and Outdoor categories. The Media Grand Prix went to Swedish company AMF Pension for a campaign that used various media touchpoints, like OOH and online, inviting them to see what they might look like when they’re 70 years old. They could opt in to receive time-lapsed photos of themselves on their mobile phones.
‘It was a very well-rounded case, it did tick all the boxes,’ says jury president Dominic Proctor, London-based CEO of MindShare Worldwide, who adds that to land a Lion, a campaign has to have a piercing consumer insight, a solid strategy, breakthrough execution and impressive business results. ‘There were insights about how [the target] use mobile media. It was executed extremely well. They used new and old media that linked well to each other.’
The campaign was entered by its creative agency, Forsman & Bodenfors Gothenburg. MindShare Sweden is the media agency behind it. Interestingly, about half of the winning Media Lions were entered by creative shops, not media agencies. ‘Creative shops are better at entering awards shows,’ says Canadian judge Annette Warring, president at GenesisVizeum, who adds that many of the media entrants were also submitted to creative categories, and re-worded for media. ‘[Media shops] need to put a more focused effort on entering into Cannes.’
The Outdoor Grand Prix went to HBO for its ‘Voyeur’ campaign by BBDO New York, which also picked up the Promo Grand Prix yesterday. ‘It’s the outdoor that draws you into the campaign,’ says jury president Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman at Mumbai-based McCann Worldgroup India. ‘It did complete justice to the outdoor medium.’
