Last week at the 57th annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival fully one-third of the 12 Grand Prix awards were taken by two campaigns that were cause-based. (If the math seems a little funny it’s because the two campaigns in question won Grand Prix awards in four separate categories). Is this the most ever? Truthfully the Lions website was so slow moving on my side of the Internet that I couldn’t afford the time to double-check. But I think it’s safe to say that more of this is happening now than when the Festival launched back in 1953. Why is that? And why did these two cause-driven campaigns vacuum up so many awards in Cannes? I think we can stipulate that there are more causes now than in 1953 or even in the two-martini lunch days of 1963, when Mad Men’s agency ‘Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce’ was active on Madison Avenue. We can also stipulate that there are more media available to advertisers now than ever. Indeed, one of the winners was Wieden + Kennedy’s campaign f...
Dedicated to highlighting and dissecting the best and the worst cause marketing promotions and campaigns.