Simon Vicars’ Cannes Diary #2

Simon Vicars, chief creative officer at Colenso BBDO is representing New Zealand as jury president on the Cannes Audio & Radio Lions jury. Vicars, along with most of the NZ and Australian jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

That’s it. Judging is done. The awards have been handed out. I shook some very soggy hands on stage.

23 lions were awarded in total. That represents about 3.1% of all entries in audio and radio.

We gave out four gold. Pretty standard for a category of this size. And actually, the golds were some of the easier decisions. Still lots of debate about a couple. But the silvers and bronzes were much more shifty in terms of how they bounced between different colours of trophies. If you got a bronze, it was probably a silver at some point. Damn!

It was great to see brands that are household names crushing it in terms of creativity. Not just embracing good ideas, but going all-in to make them great.

Humour is hard, but it’s worth it. It’s easy to make 10 jury members from all different parts of the world cry. But what makes us laugh is far more subjective. So when your work got a room laughing, it got rewarded. Welcome back, humour. We’ve missed you.

And finally, the Grand Prix:

The Misheard Version by Spec Savers. It’s a brilliant example of creativity turned up to 11. A nationwide hearing test, disguised inside an iconic song. Creative to its core and recklessly ambitious in its execution. It powered business results and broke into culture. Thank you, Spec Savers. For getting us laughing. For committing properly to this idea. And for making our jury’s biggest decision an easy one.

(Image credit: Getty Images)