Obama's presidency ad wins awards at Cannes

The integrated media campaign that helped Barack Obama win the US elections, and become the first African-American to lead the country, won two Grand Prix Awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Unanimously voted as the best campaign, the 'Obama For America' ad created by a multi-agency team, including AKPD and GMMB, received the prestigious awards in titanium and integrated categories.

The jury said the campaign was ground-breaking because it surpassed the traditional political campaigning and embraced technology and achieved the highest level of public engagement and interactivity.

The campaign utilised television, radio, print, online, and outdoor advertising to transmit the "change" message. It vividly encapsulated the future, which would be different from that of George W Bush's previous eight years that left a lot of Americans disgruntled over Iraq war and the economic crisis.

In fact, the winning campaign not only influenced Americans but gained the support of millions of people across the world, too.

Currently, President Obama's campaign serves as a case study on how a successfully integrated campaign can mobilise support, influence a population and even change the face of the government.

The titanium and integrated jury, chaired by David Droga, Founder and Creative Chairman of Droga5, voted on 403 entries and a shortlist of 23, of which 11 Integrated Lions and three Titanium Lions were awarded.

The wins in both categories were dominated by American agencies including Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Droga5 and BBH.

The film category winners were also announced on

the final night at Cannes. The Film Grand Prix was awarded to Tribal DDB Amsterdam for the Philips Interactive Film Carousel.

The advertisement was directed by Adam Berg of Stink Digital and promotes the Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD TV. Shot in one long cinematic take that ends, or begins again, with the opening shot of a cop with a gun, Carousel pans a frozen moment in an attempted armoured-car robbery gone wrong. It becomes a film-within-a-film by rolling over the cursor at certain points to see how the film was made or to see a demo of how to use the Philips Cinema 21:9 TV.

Gary Raucher, head of integrated Marketing Communications and Vice-President of Philips Consumer Lifestyle, told AdAge, the advertising web-portal, that Carousel was viewed online 500,000 times in the first two-and-a-half weeks. It had more than one million visitors to Philips.com since its April launch, though many more have watched it on YouTube and other sites.

The jury, chaired by David Lubars, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, BBDO North America, shortlisted 261 from the 3,453 entries in the film category. Of which 16 were awarded gold, 36 silver and 35 bronze lions.

The last two categories saw no lions from the region. India received one gold lion award in the film category – which went JWT India, for A Day in the Life of Chennai campaign for the Times of India. Other winners included agencies from Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Italy, UK, France, Argentina, the US and Belgium.

DDB Brasil, São Paulo bagged the Advertising Agency of the Year Award.

This award is given to the agency that obtains the highest number of entries in the press, outdoor, film and radio sections.

The Network of the Year Award was given to BBDO.

The Palme d'Or, given to the best production company, was awarded to Phenomena, Thailand.

A special jury commendation was given to Believe Media in Los Angeles for its Wassup '08 True Vote ad.

The winners of the Young Lions Film Competition are as follows – the Mexican team comprising Fernando Carrera and Victor Alvarado, both art directors with Saatchi and Saatchi, won the gold medal; the Canadian team including writer Chris Booth and art director Joel Pylypiw, both from DDB, took the silver medal; while Andreas Hoff and S Peter Ammentorp Lund from Deanmarks Medie, Denmark, won the bronze.

The Advertiser of the Year Award was presented to Volkswagen.

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