‘Dumb Ways to Die’ Ends With Record 5 Grand Prix, Adding Film and Integrated

CANNES, France—In the end, the dumbness was record breaking.

Visitors to the Cannes Lions festival here speculated all week about just how many Grand Prix the “Dumb Ways to Die” train-safety campaign from McCann Melbourne would pick up. Tonight, it added a Film Grand Prix and an Integrated Grand Prix, bringing its grand total to five. (It had already won in Direct, PR and Radio.)

That obliterated the old record of three, set in 2009 by Tourism Queensland’s “Best Job in the World.”

The three-minute, animated “Dumb Ways to Die” music video—in which adorable blobs make the stupidest decisions and gruesomely pay the ultimate price—just this week passed 50 million YouTube views. But it was more than an online video. The song itself—written by McCann’s John Mescall and Australian musician Ollie McGill from the band The Cat Empire and performed by Emily Lubitz of Tinpan Orange—was made available for sale on iTunes, and reached the top 10 in the global iTunes chart within 24 hours of its release. The integrated campaign also later led to a gaming app.

Pereira & O’Dell in San Francisco also picked up two more Grand Prix tonight—in Film and Branded Content & Entertainment—for Intel and Toshiba’s social film “The Beauty Inside.” That brought the campaign’s total to three Grand Prix—it had won in Cyber as well—matching the old record.

Click below to see the top winners, and all U.S. winners, in the four categories from tonight’s awards ceremony—Film, Film Craft, Titanium & Integrated and Branded Content & Entertainment.

Winners Lists: Titanium & Integrated, Film, Film Craft and Branded Content