DUBAI: Saudi Arabia has won its first-ever Grand Prix at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which concluded its final award ceremony on Friday.
“It’s inspiring to see new countries enter and win Lions to raise the creative bar on the global stage,” said Simon Cook, CEO of Cannes Lions.
Creative agency Wunderman Thompson won the Grand Prix for its campaign “The Subconscious Order” for client Hunger Station in the creative commerce category.
A new feature on the Hunger Station app was introduced to recognize when a user has been scrolling for some time, at which point the “subconscious ordering” tool is activated.
The app then displays a variety of cuisines, and the front camera tracks the eye’s interest. Using artificial intelligence and proprietary food topic modeling, the app then suggests a list of relevant restaurants.
Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, the jury president for the creative commerce category and chief creative officer of FCB Canada said the campaign set “a new standard for commerce and shows the way forward in how brands can remove pain points in a moment of purchase while adding meaningful value to it.”
She added: “Some work brilliantly showed us what is possible today in creative commerce, but this idea showed us what is possible tomorrow.”
Impact BBDO also won a Grand Prix in the print and publishing category for An-Nahar newspaper’s “Newspapers Inside the Newspaper Edition” campaign.
The campaign launched on Dec. 12, 2022, to commemorate the death of An-Nahar Editor-in-Chief Gebran Tueni, who was assassinated in 2005.
The edition was unlike any other the paper had previously published. Each spread sought to revive defunct newspapers by inviting journalists, who had worked for these publications, to write articles.
The campaign featured six Lebanese newspapers: Al-Anouar, The Daily Star, Al-Hayat, As-Safir, Al-Mostaqbal and Al-Bayraq.
The print and publishing jury said: “The Grand Prix was awarded to a brave piece of work that put into action a publication-based idea to defend the sanctity of a free press and did it in a way that we hope sends a signal to the industry on how eternally innovative the future of publication can be.”
Another campaign by the same agency-client duo, “The Elections Edition,” also won a bronze in the creative strategy category, and BBDO Worldwide was named regional network for the Middle East and North Africa.
Creative agency FP7McCann scored several wins this year. Its campaign “The Heinzjack” won a silver and bronze in the outdoor and brand experience and activation categories, while its campaign “Ketch-up and Down” won a bronze in the industry craft category.
The agency also won three bronze trophies in three separate categories for its campaign “Frequencies of Peace” for kids’ retailer Babyshop, as well as two trophies — a silver and a bronze in the creative data and direct categories respectively — for its campaign “Wall Street Balls” for the Testicular Cancer Society.
Leo Burnett also bagged multiple trophies including a gold and silver in the entertainment and public relations categories respectively for the ABAAD Resource Center for Gender Equality’s “Dirty Laundry” campaign, as well as a bronze in the media category for The Lebanese Transparency Association’s campaign “The Currency of Corruption.”
Independent agency Gambit Communications saw two of its members — integrated communications manager Judy Bakieh and account manager Sarah Alsalem — win gold trophies in the Young Lions’ PR category.
Other winners from the region included independent agency And Us, Havas Middle East, and Saatchi & Saatchi Middle East.
