Diageo awarded gold for creativity at Cannes Lions Festival

Diageo, the world’s leading premium drinks business, and its agencies are celebrating a gold-winning performance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2013.

Celebrating its 60th anniversary, the Cannes Lions awards recognise excellence within the creative communications industry by bringing together communicators from all over the world to celebrate brilliant work. Diageo, together with its agency partners, was awarded 12 awards, comprising one gold, two silvers and nine bronzes.

The winning campaigns were:

The Cloud – part of the Guinness Made of More campaign, was awarded gold in the Film Craft category. The advert follows an unusual CG cloud over skyscrapers and between buildings to demonstrate how Guinness is Made of More. Diageo partnered with The Mill London, advertising agency Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO London and production company Gorgeous London. The Cloud was also awarded a bronze in the Film Lions.

The Make Music in the Corner Shop campaign with StinkDigital, KK Outlet and Hirsch & Mann was awarded a silver Lion in the Promo & Activation category. Harnessing Red Stripe’s ethos of fun and light-heartedness, the campaign brought a corner store in London’s East End to life, transforming it for one day only into a giant musical instrument. Customer reactions were captured on film and transformed into impactful social media content.

The Point of Purchase Grille campaign for Windhoek, in partnership with agency Brandhouse, won a silver Lion in the Design category. The campaign saw the redevelopment of traditional security ‘screens’ in township taverns to include graphic elements of the brand’s packaging, making them more decorative and welcoming to customers whilst still being functional in design.

Diageo in collaboration with Grey Group Canada won a bronze Lion in the Media category for best use of ambient media in the Guinness Window Pints campaign. The campaign saw Guinness repurposing white blinds in office windows to create the visual illusion of a pint of Guinness in daytime light, in a bid to ‘own’ St Patrick’s Day in the bar and club district.

ZZ Shock – a Jeremiah Weed campaign that saw legendary rockers ZZ Top perform in a beer refrigerator for unsuspecting shoppers took home a bronze Lion in the Branded Content and Entertainment category. Diageo partnered with Creative Artists Agency Los Angeles and production company Hungry Man to create the content.

Diageo in collaboration with Leo Burnett won a bronze Lion in the Media category for best use of special events & stunts/live advertising for the Bundaberg Road to Recovery campaign in Australia. In response to the January floods in Queensland, the campaign looked to attract public attention by bringing people back to Bundaberg to reclaim the area as a tourist destination rather than a disaster zone.

The Bundaberg Road to Recovery campaign also won a bronze Lion in the Media category for best use of integrated media and a bronze Lion for Branded Content and Entertainment. As part of the response to the Queensland floods, the campaign reached out to fans through various media channels including digital activation, radio, TV and print, to encourage visitors to a visit the area for a special event to mark the peak of the campaign to take back the area as a tourist destination.

Guinness Asia picked up three awards for Made of More. Developed with BBDO Proximity Singapore, the ‘Pool’ iteration of the campaign won a bronze Lion in the press category. Made of More Rockstar also won a bronze Lion in the press category, as did the ‘Hotel’ edition of the advertising campaign. The campaign aimed to bring the drink and the drinker together.

Andy Fennell, Chief Marketing Officer at Diageo plc, commented, “We celebrate these wins in partnership with our agencies, whose creativity and flair bring our brands to life for aspirational consumers all over the world. The awards recognise the sheer brilliance behind the marketing of some of our most iconic brands from Red Stripe to Guinness, in the face of some pretty phenomenal competition.

“I feel proud to celebrate these wins, which have exceeded the high standards that we set for ourselves. They demonstrate our agency partners’ ability to remain agile and imaginative in the way we engage with consumers across a whole spectrum of touchpoints.”