Cannes Lions Report 2014

The dust has settled on Cannes Lions 2014. The hangovers have been dealt with and real life has resumed. So how did it go for the digital out of home category and for GV?

For Grand Visual it has been an amazing year at Cannes. Looking at entries to the full range of categories there were an incredible 58 submissions that specifically credited GV. This is more than double the submissions for 2013 and reflects both the increasing ambition for digital activity in the physical world of outdoor, plus the reputation for innovation that Grand Visual has earned over the years.

Those submissions were across multiple categories including Outdoor, Media, Cyber, Branded Content, Design, Innovation, Film, Promo & Activation, Mobile and Titanium. Again this points to the emergence of digital out of home and digital experiential as mainstream and integrated activity.

Out of those submissions 9 were shortlisted and 4 bronze Lions were awarded. The final tally recognized Pepsi Max Unbelievable and Google Front Row in the Outdoor Lions; Google Front Row in Promo & Activation Lions and Google Outside again in Cyber Lions.

So it’s been the best year so far for GV at Cannes Lions and a huge congratulations to all the team for this outstanding achievement. And of course a big shout to the brilliant agencies we have worked with over the last 12 months.

So what else was of interest specifically in the digital section of the Outdoor Lions? There were a few of familiar faces in the winning entries.

The brilliant bit of theatre for Samsung’s stare-down picked up a bronze.

Another S4-promoting campaign was the Smart Phone Line in New Zealand. The campaign recognises that the fans who queue up to be the first to own the latest product are the ones to be the nicest to. It’s a social campaign with a big, cool real world digital face.

“Magic of Flying” for British Airways was of course the run away (runway?) winner for any campaign utilizing digital tech and OOH. Hats off to the team at Storm for pulling that one off. Campaigns like this get everyone excited and really push the digital OOH channel in terms of consideration with creative teams.

My favourite entry (beyond the ones we delivered) was “The Social Swipe” for international relief organisation Misereor. In terms of execution it tackles the challenge of card transaction at the outdoor installation and opens up a host of thoughts on actually monetising interactions.

Finally, to get a creative’s perspective on where digital OOH is going have a look at these interviews with leading creative “grand fromages” in Cannes this year.