OMD Sweeps Cannes, With A Little Help From Some Consumers

CANNES, FRANCE - It was a good night for Daryl Simm and OMD Tuesday evening at the 54th Annual International Advertising Awards here, as the Omnicom network picked up both of the event's top Media Lions prizes.

The night's biggest, and most pleasant surprise for the U.S. media agency community, which came up on the short end of the Lions' short list with only 25 finalists out of more than 1,700 entries, was OMD New York's upset win as Media Agency of the Year by amassing the most Lions Award points.

OMD New York won a Gold Lion for its "Doritos Crash the Super Bowl" consumer-generated campaign. It also won a pair of Bronze Awards for the "Montana Meth" Drug Prevention Campaign, and "Now What" for State Farm Insurance.

The Grand Prix was awarded to another OMD shop - this one clear on the other side of the world, OMD New Zealand - for its "Money Goes Digital" cash transfer service campaign for ASB bank. Entered in the "Financial Products and Services" category, the obviously effective effort promoted a new technology that allows cell phone owners text money from one user to another. The campaign used stickers that could be peeled off actual currency, depicting digitized versions of the statesmen centered on the bills, a creative execution that required the approval of the New Zealand government. The campaign also placed tens of thousands of Post-It notes at train stations around the country, reminding commuters of the technology and allowing them to take a small reminder with them.

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There were no other Gold or Silver awards for U.S. agencies, but four Bronze: Starcom Chicago for Kellogg's "The Difference is Special K," which targeted dieting women at the times and places where they might be tempted by something less healthy to eat; Leo Burnett Chicago for McDonald's "Sundial," which created a billboard that was a working sundial, featuring the McDonald's 'M' highlighting different breakfast items throughout the morning; ARC Worldwide Chicago's Youth Obesity Campaign for the Center for Disease Control, "Verb Yellowball," which was exactly what the title suggests, a bright yellow ball with the word "VERB" stamped on it, distributed around major metro areas; and Mindshare New York's "Real Women" consumer generated campaign for Dove Bodywash, which aired during the Academy Awards.

Canada helped North America overall, with ZIG Toronto winning a Gold and a Silver for a spooky promotion for the Canadian cable network Scream TV, which featured a holographic ghost of a little girl "haunting" an old Victorian home in downtown Toronto.

The 2007 Media Lions jury President was David Verklin, chairman-CEO of Carat Americas and Carat Asia Pacific.

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