MANILA, PHILIPPINES – The 2021 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has handed out winners for Design Lions with Asia receiving one each for gold, silver, and bronze.
Dentsu Inc. Tokyo won a Gold Lion for Design Lions for the campaign “Pocky: The Gift” on behalf of chocolate company Ezaki Glico Co. Ltd. The campaign had previously won the Grand Prix at AD STARS 2020 out of Busan, South Korea as well as the Gold Design Lotus for Packaging Design and Silver Design Lotus: Integrated Design Campaign at ADFEST 2021 out of Pattaya, Thailand.
Recognized globally for their chocolate snacks, Pocky also features flavors including milk, banana bran, berry chocolate, pumpkin, coconut, blond chocolate, honey, milk cocoa, savory sakura, and matcha Sakura. To address sales to young adults not being very strong, Dentsu Inc. Tokyo focused on the packaging of Pocky to make it a stylish gift item with branded graphics and strategically designed packaging.
By promoting the product as a gift item available only at select outlets, the brand encouraged young adults to share Pocky in a new way. A brand microsite and newspaper inserts suggested creative gift ideas, allowing the target market to show off their creativity on social media.
For its part, Ogilvy Taiwan won a Silver Lion for Design Lions with its revolutionary “Project Uni-form” which saw a small school in Taiwan formally changed their dress code by challenging gender stereotypes. A campaign for Vogue + Angus Chiang, “Project Uni-form” is the world’s first school clothing line for boys, girls, and everyone in between.
Launched during Vogue Fashion Week, the clothes not only gained rave reviews, they were also available online for students across Taiwan to adjust them to fit their respective school colors. For a relatively small and conservative country like Taiwan, “Project Uni-form” garnered support from students, alumni, the Ministry of Education, and even Pres. Tsai Ing-wen.
Considered a big step forward in the movement against gender stereotypes, “Project Uni-form” promotes freedom of expression and opening conservative minds even as it is adapted by other educational institutions outside Taiwan.
With “The Dissolving Bottle,” BBDO Guerrero sought to address the problem of shampoo bottles causing pollution while redesigning shampoo bars to make them more intuitive. The result is a Bronze Lion for Design Lions at Cannes. People have long associated shampoo with bottles and not the bar shape of soap.
To let more people know that they don’t need a bottle to shampoo their hair, BBDO Guerrero came up with “The Dissolving Bottle,” which is a shampoo bar in the shape of a bottle but gradually dissolves after constant use. Hence, no plastic bottle to possibly cause pollution is left behind. “The Dissolving Bottle” is easy to use, wash, and lather while leaving no plastic waste in the process. For these efforts, BBDO Guerrero brings home a Bronze Lion for Design Lions.
The winner of the Grand Prix in Design Lions went to AKQA Stockholm for H&M. In “H&M Loop,” the brand addresses the problem that is 87% of clothing ending up as landfill when discarded. Through a collaboration with the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel and the H&M Foundation, “H&M Loop” remakes old garments over eight steps.
Fabrics are recycled into something new without water or chemicals and the process can actually be seen at the H&M flagship store in Stockholm, Sweden. Through the use of an app, customers can customize the color, size, and garment design of the recycled product that they will receive at the end of the process.
Design Lions celebrate visual craftsmanship and the entries that won needed to demonstrate how design was used to define a brand or communicate its key messages. They also recognized work in which a unique visual identity led to consumer recognition or understanding.
