Titanium/Integrated jury snubs ‘Best Job’, awards double Grand Prix to Obama campaign

Despitewinning three Grand Prix, Australia’s favouritecontender for a Titanium/Integrated Lion was snubbed by the jury forwhat has become the festival’s most coveted award. CumminsNitroBrisbane’s Tourism Qld ‘Best Job in theWorld’ remained just a shortlist after the final judging.

Asia disappointed with nothing making it through.

New Zealand fared better, turning its two shortlists intoa Silver Integrated Lion for AIM Proximity/Colenso BBDO Auckland’s Yellow YELLOW TREEHOUSE and a Bronze Integrated Lion for Adidas/New Zealand Rugby Union AllBlacks THIS IS NOT A JERSEY/ADITHREAD.

Obama forAmerica’s Obama/Biden Presidential Campaign won both the Titanium and theIntegrated Grand Prix. It was the clear winner for the Grand Prix in bothcategories. The Titanium & Integrated jury, chaired by David Droga, Founder and Creative Chairman of Droga5, voted on 403 entries to reach a shortlist of 23, of which 11 Integrated Lions and 3 Titanium Lions were awarded.

There’s some confusion over whether the jury watched thecorrect video entry for ‘Best Job in the World’ in the Titanium/Integratedcategory. Sean Cummins, CEO of CumminsNitro said:”One of my guys saw the shortlist presentation on screen. And we don’t know ifthey were shown the right or wrong video. We don’t know for sure what they haveseen or not seen. One of my guys has raised it as a point of clarification butwe’ve not heard to anything to alter anything. But that’s the ball game.”

He added that Titanium hasdifferent criteria of untethered creativity, not bound in the advertising we doeveryday, which is fine in itself.

 “[Tourism Queensland campaign] isnot edgy and cutting edge, it’s just very very good. We are very happy andproud of ourselves, no other agency has won three Grand Prix before,” saidCummins.

The jury members cannot confirmwhether they watched the wrong video. Jury President David Droga, founder and creative chairman of Droga5 NewYork, said that they watched the video thatwas put in front of them and judged the work on what they saw and what theyknew of the campaign, which was very familiar to all the jury members. As ajury they thought it was a fantastic idea and a great campaign that was awell-deserved winner of the Grand Prix in PR, Cyber and Direct, but thejury voted unanimously. It was thought there were bigger ideas in Titanium andmore integrated campaigns submitted.

TheCumminsNitro, Brisbane creative team told CB: “The term ‘integrated’ isdifficult to define. Our campaign consisted of international press ads,point of sale recruitment posters, online display banners, onlinerecruitment listings, PR kits and progressive releases to media,user-generated video content and social media. We’re immensely happywith the way the campaign has been received by the industry. As always,it’s up to the jury to decide.”

Indianjuror Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman and regional ECD, Asia-Pacific, McCannErickson India said in Titanium they were looking at something thatcreates a movement and while ‘Best Job’ is definitely a great idea it is notsomething they were looking for in Titanium, which is something that creates amovement which extends the boundaries and involves so many people that it sortof cascades down into society and becomes part of the culture, or creates asubculture all together.

“On those categories, there were other entries that scoredmuch higher than this one. No one is denying that this is a great idea,” saidJoshi.

New Zealand juror Andy Blood, group ECD forTBWA\Whybin\Tequila, Auckland, said that everyone knew the campaign inside-outlong before they got to Cannes.

“Sometimes it comes back to the spirit. We spent a hugeamount of time making up for the lack of decent videos, whether it was thewrong video or the technology didn’t work or we replayed it. We exhaustivelysold other people’s ideas. I’ve been on messy, partisan juries and this was thecomplete opposite, the people here were genuinely doing their best to celebratethe best work they’d seen around the world irrespective of technical failure orthe wrong video.”

The otherTitanium Lions went to Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s ‘Whopper Sacrifice’ forBurger King, Droga5 New York’s Jewish Council for Education and Research’s ‘TheGreat Schlep’ and BBH New York’s NYC & Co and Warner Brothers’ ‘Oasis Digout your Soul’.

Two GoldIntegrated Lions were handed out – TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg for TheZimbabwean’s ‘Trillion Dollar Campaign’ and Goodby Silverstein & Partners’San Fransisco’s ‘The Now Network’ for Sprint. There were four Silver IntegratedLions awarded and five Bronze.

Drogasaid the best work absolutely rose to the top and there was so much healthy discussionthat when it came to deciding on the final winners there wasn’t a lot ofdisagreement. Part of the jury’s responsibility was separating between Titaniumand Integrated.

“Wethought the Grand Prix winner, the Obama campaign, had a valid case for beingin both categories. We could spend half an hour talking about why we thought itwas a great example of integrated and you can put an argument together aboutwhy we thought it was a huge bold idea and why it should win the Titanium,”said Droga.

Joshisaid that traditionally political campaigns don’t qualify for the Grand Prix,but the jury decided ‘Obama’ was a brand campaign.

“It is acampaign where for the first time the consumer co-created a campaign togetherwith the brand owner so it was something the advertising industry could notignore. It is purely a brand campaign,” said Joshi.

Drogaadded that while we’ve all seen political campaigns and sniggered about themfor being so formulaic, political campaigns won’t be the same ever again. He saidthe jury was careful to separate the man from the campaign and made anapolitical decision.

“Thiswasn’t a vote for the man, this was a rational conversation we had, it wasn’tan emotional conversation, we separated the man from the thinking,” said Droga. 

Drogasaid the jury defined Titanium as ideas that create a movement and thatmovement can be for change, it can be to sacrifice your friends on Facebook,but something that creates a movement that you want to participate in, even ifit’s a disposable idea. And integrated the jury was trying to celebrate thosegreat ideas that were made better by multiple touchpoints.

He said:”We had to wade through over four hundred five minute videos. I think next yearyou pay by the second so all the entries are kept small.”