Crowd Whistles Along as 'Grrr' Prevails

CANNES, FRANCE At the final awards ceremony of the International Advertising Festival here, the always-vocal delegation at the sweltering Saturday night presentation turned the classic Cannes boo—a whistle—into a sentiment of praise.While many of the winners were whistled at for making it into the show, the Grand Prix Film winner, Honda's "Grrr," turned the Palais des Festivals' traditional expression of hate into one of love, just the sentiment expressed in the wildly adored animated spot.Ending a week of discussions about how the industry is coping with change-a theme that weaved its way into most of the 36 seminars about, among other topics, new media platforms, content creation, viral advertising and the model of the agency of the future—Wieden + Kennedy London's charming ode to "positive hate" was awarded the highest honor in the film competition.The campaign also won one of four Titanium Lions, as well as the Journalists' Award.While much talk at the festival this year was about the waning power of the television commercial and the ways agencies need to adapt in order to better serve their clients and reach consumers in a fragmented DVR media world, it was still a 90-second TV and cinema commercial that was heralded as a groundbreaking idea that pointed the way towards the future."It's no surprise that it is the Grand Prix. On one hand, there was some reticence that it had already won so many awards, but then you have to [ask], is it the best piece of work?" said Film and Press & Outdoor jury president John Hunt, worldwide creative director of TBWA Worldwide, who helped the jury come its final decision by voting using a secret ballot ontheir first and second choices for the Grand Prix. "Grrr" won with a vote of 17 out of 22.The retro-style animated commercial introducing Honda's first diesel engine asks, "Can hate be good?," an idea inspired by Honda chief engineer Kenichi Nagahiro's openly professed hate of diesel engines. He agreed to create a diesel engine only if he could start from scratch. The spot, featuring the voice of radio personality Garrison Keillor, follows sputtering, clanking diesel engines flying around a vivid, candy-colored animal kingdom full of bunnies, flamingos, penguins and chickens. The animals take swipes at the disruptive engines as the whistling tune cheerily suggests, "Hate something. Change something. Make something better." Film juror Ann Hayden, evp, creative director worldwide, General Mills, at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, said she was not surprised to see the Titanium jury also honor Honda. "It's a knockout idea to me. It's a change agent. Nothing else came close. The thought resonates with you for a long time. The idea of making something better is great for the new diesel and great for the rest of the world.""[Honda] hits you on so many levels. A quick glance at it, it's got flying engines with really cheesy animation, then the more you watch it the more it absolutely seduces you. The song itself, the can-bad-be-good [idea]," Hunt said. The song had many judges bobbed their heads in rhythm to the spot. "Instead of an idea getting more and more complicated, that was an idea that got more and more simple. The execution, the style, it's so self-confident in its simplicity. There is no attempt to embellish and play to the audience. When you put those things together, it's a commercial that has every little thing adding up to a big thing. It's not related to whiz-bang morphing technology. It's chilled."The two other gold Lion-winning entries that received the next highest number of votes were Adidas' "Hello Tomorrow" from TBWA\Chiat\Day in San Francisco, the dreamy Spike Jonze-directed spot that also won a gold for the first Best Use of Music award, and a four-spot Olympus digital camera campaign from Springer & Jacoby, Amsterdam, that illustrated the line "What you choose to remember" with digitally enhanced live-action interpretations of rejected photos. For example, in one spot, a baby with red-eye is shut in the closet, and, in another, a mother berates her daughter about her blurry boyfriend."Honda got well over the two-thirds majority in a blink of the eye," said Hunt. This was strikingly different from the Press & Outdoor judging, which towards the end of judging had several strong contenders up for the top prize, he added. Earlier in the week, the Grand Prix in Press went to an EMI campaign from TBWA\Paris depicting how music piracy hurts artists. And in Outdoor, the Grand Prix went to a Silfa Legos execution by Ogilvy & Mather in Santiago, Chile, which placed an image on a building to make it appear as though it was made of giant Legos and was missing one. Titanium Lions jury president Jeff Goodby, co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, said the Honda campaign was awarded for its inventive strategy and, in a competition reconfigured to honor integrated campaigns, worked across multiple communication channels. In addition to the Grand Prix-winning spot, the campaign used radio, online gaming, interactive TV, stickers and postcards to promote the new engine. "Honda won because of the incredible groundbreaking strategy," explained Goodby, adding that "it communicated in so many ways beyond the commercial itself."The three additional Titanium Lions awarded went to: a Mini Cooper campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami called "Counterfeit," which wryly warned people not to buy the fakes; the "5 cent" Virgin Mobile campaign from Host in Australia based on a fictional midget rap star; and a Volvo campaign, "Life on Board Project," from Fuel Europe that was centered on non-scripted conversations inside the car.The Titanium was introduced in 2003 by then jury president Dan Wieden, president of Wieden + Kennedy, to reward groundbreaking, innovative concepts that pointed the industry towards the future. Given to BMW Films that year, it was an attempt by the festival to honor breakthrough work that did not neatly fit into the award show's contests determined by media placement. "It's gone beyond that now," said Goodby, who noted the challenge of the jury was to set a new precedent on how the work is judged.Although the revamped Titanium was described as an integrated competition, receiving 133 entries in all, the jury determined that integration was simply a point of entry and the award wouldn't be about how well the idea was integrated across multiple channels but also how inventive the communication was. And when Titanium judging began, the jury, which represented a varied mix of disciplines, including direct, interactive and media, as well as more traditional agency creative perspectives, decided not judge the entries within the media spending segmentations that was part of the entry process. "It's never really about money spent," said Titanium juror Cheryl Berman, chairman and chief creative officer of Leo Burnett, Chicago. "It's about the idea, the ingenuity and embracing new ways of engaging people in the future."The biggest discussion in the Titanium judging was defining its new purpose, deciding whether any of the entries deserved a Grand Prix and how many Lions should be awarded. "It was difficult," said Titanium juror Bob Greenberg, chairman, CEO and CCO of R/GA in New York. "There was a bit of a divide as to whether we should have more or less Titaniums. I was for more this year because I believe that there's not one single campaign that is truly pointing the way towards the future. Each one of them in a different way does an excellent job in parts of the future."Titanium juror Andy Fackrell, executive creative director of 180 in Amsterdam, added, "The ones we chose balanced each other out. "After the awards ceremony at the Palais, Goodby said there was still a lot of work to do in that category moving forward. He admitted that he would have liked to see the jury award only one Titanium, rather than four. His top choice was the CP+B Mini effort but not as Grand Prix. "I'm happy there was no Grand Prix. There was no one forward-thinking idea," he said.Goodby also said that he will suggest that the festival go back to the original way of judging the Titanium, determined by the group of jury presidents across the various competitions rewarding a ground-breaking idea, rather than centering it on integration. "Integration is not hard to do. That in and of itself is not enough, it's a box that you check" of media channels, he said. "That is not what this jury is here to reward."As the vocal crowd at Cannes always does, many of the jury's choices drew whistles, including a campaign for caffeine drink K-Fee out of Jung von Matt in Germany and a Reckitt Benckiser furniture polish ad from JWT in Sao Paolo, Brazil, among others. Though the U.S. won 5 gold, 9 silver and 13 bronze Film Lions, many delegates grumbled that several well-liked U.S. spots weren't recognized. Bob Nelson, head of production at DDB in New York, said he would have liked to see some of the more popular spots at the screenings awarded Lions. "There were many that people really responded to that weren't on the screen," he said. Spots like "Singing in the rain" for VW out of DDB in London, which won a bronze, deserved a higher honor, he said and also pointed to many executions from the U.S., like Bud Light's "Airplane" from DDB in Chicago? were noticeably absent, among others. "I missed eBay," he said. "Where was HP?"And the show itself was criticized for being slowed down by the Radio Lions presentation, which honored DDB Chicago's "Real Men of Genius" campaign with a Grand Prix and the Titanium. Although delegates appreciated the significance of the award, many felt they didn't see enough of each winner to get a full understanding of each entry. Some thought Honda won the Titanium on the strength of the spot.Mark Tutssel, deputy worldwide creative chief of Leo Burnett, agreed with the additional Titanium awarded to Honda. "If you want proof that people love this spot, look at the spontaneous whistling of the crowd tonight. It's an inspiration to the industry," he said, adding that everyone from his mother to his 14-year-old son has sung along. "It's clearly entertaining and getting through." (Though the music in the Honda spot was clearly central to its success, it was not entered in the Best of Music category and therefore could not be considered for that honor.)The final Cannes awards night was all about the whistling, he added. "I love how the whistle went from hate to love, from hatred of a spot to the joyous appreciation of a spot."This story updates and expands on an item posted on June 25 with additional feedback and reaction.

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Crowd Whistles Along as 'Grrr' Prevails

Eleftheria Parpis

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Eleftheria Parpis