Weight Watchers International, Inc. has announced that it has launched its first global marketing campaign via US agency Translation, that celebrates the liveability of the WW Your Way+ program and how it's possible to enjoy the foods, behaviours and occasions tied to the season, while continuing to develop healthy habits.

Saatchi & Saatchi has been appointed as the agency of record for the Ministry of Justice's Anti-Money Laundering initiative, following a competitive pitch. Saatchi & Saatchi will work with sister agency Starcom, who won the media component of the pitch.

Saatchi & Saatchi will work with the Ministry of Justice to create awareness of the roll-out of Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation. Phase one of this legislation has been in place since 2013, with phase two - the AML/CFT Amendment Act - coming into effect from July 2018. The new legislation will see extensions to the current AML/CFT Act to cover more businesses, including real estate agents, many lawyers and accountants, and betting on sports and racing.

 
And on day three, I wake up with a killer throat infection. It's only been 48 hours so far but I feel like I've gone through a year of change - of changing my mindset, my understanding of opportunities, and how I act, and perceive things. My whole understanding of the future and myself has shifted dramatically, and it's a total mindfuck. We have our mentor sessions and I cry in all three.
 
And along with my emotions, things have started to get ridiculous. Our meetings have gone from sitting on floors in backstage corners of the Palais to penthouse suites. Common the rapper is in the carpark outside the Girls Lounge, and we're being jettied out to Google Island for lunch. There, somehow - almost stupidly - I end up dining between Olympic gold medalist and activist Abby Warbach, a GMO of Google, and a heavy hitter from 72andSunny, as they talk about spatial awareness of leaders and the dangerous power of advertising messaging.

First-up, I want to reinstate how brilliant and frankly essential the live judging was, particularly for this category. Apart from the privilege of hearing the best of our industry and clients talk about the world's best work they have created, it really allowed us not to be simply judging a case film. Unlike a beautifully packaged two minutes, questions can be asked and the real nature of the intention, the methodology, the experience, the context and the decision-making can be examined. Very, very revealing and expansive or reductive as a result. Talking to the out-going Cannes Lions chairman Terry Savage (who has created and refined the festival as we know it for the last 30 years) he indicated that we may see more of this approach. It's obvious as ideas become more complex, more contextual and frankly more experiential you need to understand and attempt to feel that.

Titanium is defined as reconsidering the way forward, as a category it's to serve as an important reflective moment for the industry, to take stock and understand the signals of what's ahead and for us as a jury we also interpreted that as what's important to reconsider bringing with us.

After keeping everything under wraps, it was a relief to finally announce the winners to the world. Wieden + Kennedy and Nike's Nothing Beats a Londoner is hands down the campaign of the year, and couldn't deserve the Grand Prix more. It was incontestable.

London is maddeningly diverse: there was no way a one-size-fits-all approach would ever have worked. Peckham is nothing like Chelsea. South of the Thames is a different world to the North. Mess up your messaging and you'll piss heaps of people off.

Simon Langley, ECD, J. Walter Thompson Sydney escaped the crowds and lines of the main stages and found himself drawn this year to a more intimate side of the festival, The Innovation Lions. Langley reports exclusively for CB.

There is so much going on at the Cannes Lions, the hardest part is working out how you're going to get the most out of it. In previous years, I've often attended the main stages with the big names and celebrities that draw the huge crowds. Even this year, I went along to see the inspiring David Droga who kicked it off on Monday, and had a laugh at the expense of Donald Trump with Jeff Goodby and Michael Wolff. But as the festival rolled on, the lines grew and I found myself almost needing to camp out the night before just to get in.

 
Her name? Sylvia Rotta.
 
I also met Dave Droga (R.I.P. me). Colleen DeCourcy. Kat Gordon and Lisen Stromberg from the 3% Movement. Names of famous industry leaders, now formed into advocates: of us. In between, we sit in on a lecture with Thandie Newton (above), British vogue editor Edward Enninful and Tiffany Warren from Ominicom.

Blue Planet II executive producer James Honeyborne (left) received the first Global Goal 14 Life Below Water Impact award for positive ocean awareness from the UN's Director for Ocean Dr Lisa Svensson (pictured below with Honeyborne).
 
Underwater ceremony took place in bay of Cannes and screened during the Global Goals seminar with campaigner and musician Simon Le Bon, Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch, Unilever CMO Keith Weed, evian's VP Marketing Patricia Oliva, Founder of Adjust Your Set and co-founder of BLUE Marine Foundation Chris Gorell Barnes and co-founder of Project Everyone Gail Gallie

FCB New Zealand's Undercover Crossword campaign ahead of World Elder Abuse Day has seen a 36% increase in call traffic to the Elder Abuse Response Service helpline in its first week.

Family members make up over 75% of abusers, so a covert method was needed to reach  elders without their relatives catching wind.

MediaCom has been named Media Network of the year at the 2018 Cannes Lions Festival. The agency's work for Tesco in the UK landed the Grand Prix for Excellence in Media Planning, while campaigns for P&G's Gillette in Israel added two Silver Lions and a Bronze Lion. The agency also received eight shortlist nominations, making MediaCom the most decorated media agency in the competition.

The Grand Prix campaign, Tesco's Food Love Stories, enabled the retail giant to turn food shopping from a functional to an emotional purchase. While competitors focused on food provenance, Tesco used its first food campaign in three years to celebrate "the food you love to cook for the people you love".

 
I had a late one last night. Yesterday soon became today, but not because I was living the high life. Sadly, I didn't get to see Kylie. We knew it would be a long day. But finishing at 12:30am wasn't the plan. I'm bleary-eyed for all the wrong reasons.
 
Yesterday was far more relaxed than the bickering of the day prior. That's not to say consensus had become any easier. We were just shattered. I can't believe how tough this week has been. Honestly. Expectations and reality are often diametric. It's been so worth it though.

And the winner is... After four days in the PR jury room, finishing at 1am on the last day, the PR winners for #CannesLions 2018 have been announced. I'm exhausted but am satisfied with the results and the process.

We awarded 86 Lions out of 2087 entries and the Grand Prix went to LADbible's Trash Isles campaign that reached half a billion people. The campaign focused on turning the France-sized-area of floating trash in the Pacific Ocean into an official country, with bank notes, stamps and a passport, and submitting an application to the United Nations. This obliges other countries to help clean it up.

I know you've got a lot of catching up to do on all the other diaries, so here's a summary of my time on the Direct jury:

Trends:
Burger wars
Clown wars
Restaurants and cancer patients' taste buds are new media
Silverfish are the new pillow mints. That's not a new trend, just what one of my fellow jurors experienced in their hotel room.
Seeing the Gutter Bar clean at 6am. But that's because you're getting up then, not going home.
The Direct Jury being angry that the Radio Jury stayed in nicer hotel.

The Epica Awards, which is represented by CB in Australia and NZ, has kicked off its 32nd season with news of a very special advertising campaign, new prizes and a highly respected jury president.
 
Epica will hold its next jury meeting, conference and ceremony in Amsterdam from November 12 to 15. The ceremony itself will be held at the city's KIT Royal Tropical Institute. This year's jury president will be Tony Chambers (pictured below), brand and content director of Wallpaper* magazine.

Says Chambers: "As someone who's passionate about design, branding and communications, I'm delighted to be able to join fellow journalists in these fields to determine who's doing the most innovative creative work right now."

Download the Direct Lions winners - Direct Lions Winners.xls

View the Social & Influencer Lions winners - Social & Influencer Lions Winners.xls

View the PR Lions winners - PR Lions Winners.xls

The 2018 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity enters day three today with the release of shortlists for 2 more Lions categories just moments ago.

To the Thinkers and Tinkers of Thinkerbell, I haven't been in contact for the last 16 hours because I've been locked in a room to determine the metal for the Direct Lions for 2018. By 1am our Jury had finally reached a verdict. But unlike many awards judging situations, there were very little decisions made that weren't unanimous - the result of countless hours debating, discussing, watching case study videos, checking websites, and even phoning a weird Columbian phone number to validate and scrutinise the ideas.
 
Solution:
Follow the guidance of our Jury President, the one and only Susan Credle, Global CCO of FCB.
 
Results: Some of the best creative ideas we've ever seen, including ideas that made us laugh, ideas that will change the world, ideas that will engage people for a long time after the media dollars have run out, ideas that were so simple we couldn't believe they hadn't been seen before - and of course, a Grand Prix that was all these things rolled into one.
 
See you all on Monday. Jim Ingram, signing out.

Yeah, about that.

We've spent four days on lock-down, deciding the fate of the entrants: Judge, jury and executioner. Today was the big day: the last 200. The final bloody countdown.

I should first say, if ever there was an educational masterclass in understanding the year's best work from the people who devised it and the extraordinary clients who bought it, this was it. Never mind observing some of the penetrating questions (in a very respectful and congratulatory kind of way) from us the jury.

Our jury is presided-over by Colleen DeCourcy, CCO of Wieden + Kennedy, like many of our visionary and contemporary leaders, she is unsurprisingly disarming, straight-talking and clearly thinking deeply about the complex and ever-converging world we all operate in. She has been generous and encouraging to the wider group. Having served as jury President myself, I know how hard that is, for each juror to feel they have an opinion or a question worth asking in the face of some much more formidable or just louder individuals. While we are a smaller jury and I guess a senior one, the culturally diverse nature is what defines the Cannes Lions, hearing and understanding points-of-view is very reminding of why this festival is truly, globally regarded.

Day #3 of judging and the heat is on. Inevitably, when decisions need to be made, differences arise. We all know that at this point we're not only deciding who goes forward but which entries won't make the cut.

Those that made it through to the shortlist are diverse in terms of content, origin and style. There's a good mix -- not all from Western nations -- but representative of many global regions. Sometimes a simple idea elegantly executed can deliver exceptional impact.

View the Cannes Brand Experience & Activation Lions winners - Brand Experience & Activation Lions Winners.xls

So it turns out that every piece of communication created during the last 12 months is in fact, Direct. If it's creating a one-on-one connection, it's Direct. If it has a call to action, it's Direct. If it doesn't have a call to action, but you still do or feel something, it's Direct. If 100Billion people did a thing, it's direct. If someone looked at it with their eyes, it's Direct.

They weren't wrong.
From the rapid-fire pace of choosing a shortlist for three days, things slowed right down when it came to dishing out the metal. Right. Fucking. Down.
Suffice to say, choosing a Grand Prix isn't a decision made lightly either.
No stone is left unturned. Debates rage. The bonhomie between judges fades a little as real questions are raised. Tough questions. And in some cases, I felt, long overdue questions.
There were a lot of things I was missing by working beyond midnight that final day.
Like the will to live.
Other things too like old friends who had just flown into town, intent on drinking their entire body weight in that bloody pink wine that after a week you start to hate.
Things like the Campaign Brief Australia/New Zealand opening drinks at the Grand too.
And England's opening World Cup group game against the undisputed world heavyweights of football...um, Tunisia.
Or did I?
What you see here is me enjoying the lively discussion of my jury whilst chewing a pen.
Or at least pretending to.

Karen Ferry (left with Leo), senior copywriter at Leo Burnett Sydney is representing Australia in this year's See It Be It programme in Cannes. Here she shares her experiences straight from the festival, exclusively for CB.

So, this is it. Cannes. Finally being here feels strangely surreal; a falsity of the imagination. Because, like most creatives in Australia, I haven't been to Cannes before. The dream of teams being sent on the whiff of a shortlist died years ago. And the festival itself exists so much through the stories brought home from previous weary travellers. Cannes is (debatably) the holy grail of advertising trophies, and this festival our pilgrimage. Are you really full advertising if you haven't had an overfoamed, overpriced cappuccino and partied at Gutter Bar?

But this year I have been chosen. Plucked from 600 entries of senior creative women from around the world to attend See It Be It, a female leadership program run by Cannes.