MANILA, JULY 5, 2013 – Advertising agency Ace Saatchi & Saatchi has much to roar about these days.
It brought home a total of five trophies from the Cannes Lions Creativity Festival, including two Golds for its myDSL campaign “Screen-Age Love Story” for client PLDT Home. The Cannes Lions is the most respected awards show in the creative communication industry around the world.
The two Gold Lions were under Branded Content & Entertainment, for Best Integrated Content and Best Use of Digital and Social Media. The agency was also told it was second in running for the top trophy in the category, the Grand Prix.
Screen-Age Love Story also received two Media Lions: a Silver for Best Use of Social Media and a Bronze for Best Commercial Public Services and Health Care.
Another one of Ace Saatchi & Saatchi’s campaigns, P&G’s “Olympic Shirt Flag” for laundry detergent Ariel Color, was given a Bronze Media Lion for Best Integrated Campaign.
In total, Ace Saatchi & Saatchi became the most-awarded Philippine agency at Cannes to date, as well as the most-awarded Saatchi & Saatchi office in the Asia Pacific.
Screen-Age Love Story is known more popularly as the ‘Anna Banana’ campaign, which began with a teenage boy Derek S. Lorenzo posting a video on YouTube about his crush. The video’s first milestone came when it reached 100 hits, all thanks to Derek’s mom who then took it upon herself to promote the video online and on the radio so that more people would watch it and post their own versions.
Efforts were supplemented with Print, Outdoor, Radio, Website, and Digital ads. Fiction and reality worked hand in hand when Derek’s crush “Anna” uploaded her own YouTube video to harshly turn the boy down, much to the disappointment of his fans. This led the campaign to launch a search for a new “Anna”, through Derek’s mom, dad, and kid sister. Teenage girls from across the nation submitted their audition videos online and on-ground at myDSL’s event booths in malls. Eventually, the sweet and talented Aria won Derek’s heart, and the heart of the public. The campaign demonstrated how strong digital connections can lead to strong emotional connections at home, receiving over 6 million Youtube views. It also triple trended on Twitter with over a million Tweet views, and received P10 million worth of free media and word-of-mouth. Most importantly, myDSL achieved record high applications and subscriptions.
Meanwhile, Ariel Color, known for keeping colors more vibrant, gave Filipinos a chance to be part of the country’s colors at the 2012 London Olympics through the Olympic Shirt Flag campaign, simply by donating a piece of their shirt in any one of the national flag’s colors. Thousands of cloth squares were cut and replaced with an iron-on patch that stated “Our Colors. Our Pride.” The squares were washed with Ariel, dyed to match the required pantone of each color, then sewn together to form 12 Olympic-size flags which the athletes carried with them at the Olympic ceremonies and during their games. This resulted in a P50-million sales increase for Ariel, and reached over 4 million online uses on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. It received P1.8 million worth of free media, reaching 11 million Filipinos nationwide.
The agency’s executive creative director, Andrew Petch, says of the wins: “ This is an outstanding and truly dominant performance, and every single person in this agency contributed to this success. To make powerful creative ideas that build our client’s brands is what we are now proving to the world that we at Ace Saatchi & Saatchi do best.”
