Every year, Cannes Lions explores the value of creativity in branded communication: from product and service development to the creative strategy, execution, and impact.
Since I’m such a fan of commercials, I always look forward to seeing what the winning ads were from the Festival.
The winning ad in the Film Lions category was a series of five commercials by the New York Times with the tagline”The Truth Is Worth It”. Here is one of those commercials:
While I have not checked all of the commercials that were entered at the Festival, I did discover some wonderful ones. My favorite was an ad made by John Lewis and Waitrose as a way of announcing their partnership last September. I missed this commercial when it came out, even though I was aware of the partnership when I wrote one of my Christmas ad posts last year (the two firms put together a clever campaign).
The first jointly produced commercial was created by Adam & Eve/DDB, a firm that has helped with many John Lewis commercials. The ad was part of a wider marketing campaign, called “& Partners”, to explain the two retailers’ rebranding as John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners.
The ad tells the story of primary school children who put on a special performance full of surprising twists to Queen’s classic song Bohemian Rhapsody. Their parents watch in amazement and the film ends with the line, “When you’re part of it, you put your heart into it.” It is meant to show the Partnership’s commitment to customers and how going the extra mile can lead to extraordinary results.
Here is the ad:
It’s a great commercial, but I wonder what that school is going to do next year to top this performance?
*image from Cannes Lions
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