GLOBAL – LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, MARCH 7, 2012: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which brings together the global advertising and communications industry, is partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic foundation, in an effort to generate communications ideas that could help change the world.
The project is called “Grand Challenges Explorations: Aid is Working. Tell the World” and will serve as a call for action that aims to inspire brand communicators to come up with an idea that will help solve a global problem.
“The global Cannes Lions community is made up of the world’s greatest communicators who are solving problems for clients all day every day,” says Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO. “Imagine if our community could harness this creativity to solve a global problem with an outstanding idea expressed on just two pieces of A4 paper? Imagine if a great idea emerged, and if that idea was honed and improved by the best thinkers in the industry? And imagine if there was the money to actually make something happen, to create the idea.”
Tom Scott, Global Brand and Innovation director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, added, “Aid is effective, but the story of aid isn’t breaking through. Now more than ever it’s critical that we look at new and innovative ways to change the debate. We are excited to partner with Cannes Lions to help ensure that the world’s greatest creative minds can put their energy against a really important challenge.”
Any individual, team, agency, or company can develop a communications idea, to be submitted on two sides of A4 paper. The brief is simple: create a new and innovative way of telling the real story behind global aid. Entries will be judged anonymously by the Cannes Chimera, a group senior creatives from the Grand Prix winning agencies in the 2011 Cannes Lions Festival.
Ten winners will be awarded $100,000 for the development of their idea; finalists will be flown to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation campus in Seattle, where the Cannes Chimera will mentor the creators to further hone ideas. The polished ideas will be re-submitted to the foundation, with a chance of receiving additional funding of up to $1 million to see the idea into fruition. The winners will be invited back to Cannes in 2013 to show the final output of their efforts to the global advertising community.
A new challenge will be set each year to harness the power of creativity for the greater global good. Each year, a new Cannes Chimera will be formed with the respective Grand Prix winners, while previous members will remain part of the Cannes Chimera consultancy board.
This year’s Cannes Chimera is composed of the following:
- Mark Bashore, Head of Creative, Digital Kitchen, Chicago, USA
Design Grand Prix, ‘The Cosmopolitan Digital Experience’, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas 

Mark Bernath, Executive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Film Grand Prix, ‘Write the Future’, Nike 


- Adrian Botan, Creative Partner, McCann Erickson Bucharest & Regional Creative Director, McCann Erickson Central and Eastern Europe
Direct Grand Prix, ‘American Rom’, Kandia Dulce AND
Promo & Activation Grand Prix, ‘American Rom’, Kandia Dulce 


- Paul Brazier, Executive Creative Director, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO London, UK
Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix, ‘Sandwich’, Pepsico 


- Amanda Clelland, Associate Creative Director, Droga 5, New York, USA
Film Craft Grand Prix, ‘After Hours Athlete’, Puma 


- Neil Heymann, Creative Director, Droga 5, New York, USA 
Outdoor Grand Prix, ‘Decode Jay-Z with Bing’, Bing/Jay-Z AND 
Titanium & Integrated Grand Prix, ‘Decode Jay-Z with Bing’, Bing/Jay-Z 


- Ant Keogh, Executive Creative Director, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, Australia
PR Grand Prix, ‘Break Up’, National Australia Bank 


- Thomas Kim, Executive Creative Director, Cheil Worldwide, Seoul, Korea
Media Grand Prix, ‘Homeplus Subway Virtual Store’, Tesco 


- Aaron Koblin, Artist, Google Creative Labs, New York, USA
Cyber Grand Prix, ‘The Wilderness Downtown’, Google 


- Nick Law, Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer, R/GA New York, USA
Cyber Grand Prix, ‘Pay with a Tweet’, Innovative Thunder 


- Rob McLennan, Executive Creative Director, Net#work BBDO, Johannesburg, South Africa
Radio Grand Prix, ‘Bud’, ‘Love’, ‘Toby’, Mercedes-Benz 


- Iain Tait, Global Executive Interactive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy Portland, USA
Cyber Grand Prix, ‘Response’ Campaign, Proctor & Gamble, Old Spice Body Wash 


- Jason Williams, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett Melbourne, Australia
Grand Prix for Good, ‘See the Person’, Scope 


- Yang Yeo, Chief Creative Officer, JWT Shanghai, China
Press Grand Prix, ‘Heaven and Hell’, Samsonite
The deadline for submission of entries is May 15. Please visit http://www.grandchallenges.org/can for more information about Grand Challenges Explorations: Aid is Working. Tell the World. For more information about the Cannes Chimera, please visit http://www.canneslions.com/chimera.
