The newly introduced Public Relations category at the Cannes Lions generated a lot of international interest. And the global PR exercise to promote Tourism Queensland's "Best job in the world" campaign won the PR Grand Prix at the first of the four awards ceremonies taking place during Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival week.
Having spun worldwide interest around the competition to win the best job in the world as caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Cumminsnitro in Brisbane was named yesterday by the Cannes Lions jury the winner of the topmost prize in the newly introduced PR category.
In its first year, the PR category at Cannes Lions received 431 entries from which the jury also chose to award 17 PR Lions from an initial shortlist of 37.
"Best job in the world" was also awarded the Direct Grand Prix, making this Cumminsnitro's second Grand Prix of the night.
The campaign was described earlier by its organisers as the best ever, generating $100 million (Dh367m) in tourism publicity.
Queensland's official twitter profile, with 5,431 followers, posted the news right away to be viewed by its fans. Its Facebook profile has more than 7,000 fans.
The Direct Lions category saw 11 gold, 12 silver and 26 bronze trophies given from a shortlist of 180 entires, out of a total of 1,364 entries.
Shackleton, Madrid, won the prestigious Direct Agency of the Year award.
In addition to the PR and Direct categories winners, the festival announced the winners of the Promo Lions categories. After shortlisting 143 from the 1,118 entries submitted in the Promo Lions categories, 44 winners were chosen by the international jury.
The Promo Grand Prix went to Beacon Communications in Tokyo for its entry "Yubari" to promote the Yubari Resort.
A further 10 gold, nine silver and 24 bronze lions were also awarded.
Leading the Promo Jury was William Rosen, President and Chief Creative Officer of Arc Worldwide, North America. Lord Tim Bell, Chairman of Chime Communications was president of the first PR Jury and David Sable, Vice-Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Wunderman headed the Direct Jury.
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