• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, June 24, 2015

A seven-and-a-half minute commercial for client Soundcloud created by Grey Germany and Berlin’s Studio 206 and Mokoh Music won the Cannes Radio Lions Grand Prix Wednesday. Titled “The Most Unbearable Radio Ad,” the spot was designed to memorialize those who were killed trying to escape East Berlin when it was surrounded by the Berlin Wall.

Radio Jury President Paul Reardon, executive creative director, Whybin\TBWA Group Melbourne, Australia, described that ad as “somber,” “harrowing,” and “absolutely amazing. It’s a very interesting example of how the new players in the game have changed the category but how audio is still an amazing and powerful medium to communicate in.”

Droga5, Optimum Sports and Smuggler won the Cyber Lion Grand Prix for an Under Armour campaign, "I Will What I Want," featuring supermodel Gisele Bundchen and other female celebrities that was created to change the brand’s “uber-masculine image by celebrating all women.”

Cyber Jury President Jean Lin, CEO Isobar Global said of the Grand Prix selection: “We chose a piece that demonstrates how a powerful brand narrative enabled by technology can grow and live in physical and online environments. And how well-crafted brand experience can create uplifting impact to peoples’ lives.”

While sophisticated technology was used to deploy and enhance the campaign, Lin said the winners didn’t let the technology detract from the central storytelling idea that “touches your heart and moves you.”  The campaign also won two Gold Lions.

Taking the Grand Prix in the Design category was Grey London for its work on a Volvo product called “Life Paint,” a spray product that is invisible in daylight but glows brightly at night when exposed to automobile headlights. It can be sprayed on bikes, clothing, shoes, or even dog leashes. The product was designed to reduce the number of accidents between cars and bikers and pedestrians.” Grey London also won the Promotion/Activation Grand Prix for its work on the product.

Commenting on the Design Grand Prix, Jury President Andy Payne, global chief creative officer, Interbrand Group, said the jury wanted to award “something with significance and something that had scale.”  He said the Life Paint work “embodies all parts of design in terms of different disciplines. It’s about innovation, product, packaging [as well as] digital, experience and communication. It perfectly for us aligned the brand’s purpose through those disciplines and it moved that purpose beyond the product to something that had a greater cultural relevance.”

In the separate Product Design category the Grand Prix winners were Geometry Global Dubai and Lucky Devil Films Singapore for the Lucky Iron Fish project. The shops developed a product--a piece of iron in the shape of a fish--used for cooking. It was created to address Cambodia’s iron deficiency epidemic (half the population suffers from it).  With iron pills being too expensive for many Cambodians the challenge was how to get them to place a piece of iron in pots cooking meals. Research showed that Cambodians believe in the so-called “Lucky Iron Fish” a cultural symbol of hope and good luck.

Designer Dan Formosa, this year’s Product Design Jury President said the Grand Prix choice was admittedly low-tech but was nonetheless “an amazing example of the power of design to make change and a beautifully elegant example of design and the power of design.”

More on the winners and short-listed entries can be found here.