CANNES – BBDO Worldwide reigns supreme in Cannes once more. The 65th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity saw the powerhouse walk away with the highly coveted Network of the Year for the seventh year in a row thanks to strong showing across the board claiming all kinds of Lions, including Grand Prix honors.
For the second time in five years, adam&eveDDB London walked away with Agency of the Year while Holding Company of the Year went to Omnicom. Meanwhile, Jung von Matt, a German-based agency, was named Independent Agency of the Year.
Unilever CEO Paul Polman was given the Cannes LionHeart Award in recognition of his commitment to building sustainability into the heart of Unilever’s operations. From when he joined Unilever in 2009, Polman has sought to catalyst transformative change by engaging partners across the globe in a battle against deforestation, where Polman saw that Unilever, as the world’s largest buyer of palm oil, had the power and responsibility to act.
Introduced in 2014, the Cannes LionHeart is an honorary award, presented to an individual who has innovatively harnessed commercial brand power to make a significant and positive difference to people or the planet.
Named Creative Marketer of the Year for 2018 was Google. The company has gained a reputation for innovative technology to support advertisers as well as creating and helping brands to create some of the boldest and creative campaigns. This year, Google was recognized for embracing creativity across their brand marketing, the application of new technology to creating effective campaigns, and inclusive storytelling. The award was accepted by Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lorraine Twohill.
This year's Network of the Year award is honoured to @BBDOWorldwide… Congratulations!! #CannesLions pic.twitter.com/v3pawjoPRK
— Cannes Lions (@Cannes_Lions) June 22, 2018
With the news that Google won the award this year for Creative Marketer, Cannes Lions, and Google also announced a partnership to launch the Google Creative Campus. The Google Creative Campus will work with the Roger Hatchuel Academy to create a program for 45 students at Cannes. The focus will turn to “driving greater gender, ethnicity and socio-demographic diversity in the creative industries,” according to the release.
The Palme d’Or award went to MJZ, USA. This accolade is given to the production company that has collected the most number of points across all film-based sections such as Film, Film Craft, Entertainment, Lions Health Grand Prix for Good, Social & Influencer, and Digital Craft.
Young digital creatives from Costa Rica took home the Young Lions Digital award. The winners were tasked to put together a campaign that encourages millennials to download and donate through the Share The Meal app.
The culminating activity of the festival also saw brothers Piyush and Prasoon Pandey honored with the Lion of St. Mark Award, the first time a pair of brothers were awarded the trophy for their contributions to the advertising industry. The Pandey brothers are also the first Asians to win the award as well as the first people from Ogilvy to receive the honor.
