M&C Saatchi’s Clever Buoy campaign for Optus picks up Gold Lion in Cannes
M&C Saatchi Sydney was the only Australian agency to take home a Cannes Gold Lion last night. In other categories, Australia won one Silver Lion and 13 Bronze Lions in the awards presentations.
Optus’s ‘Clever Buoy’ campaign saw M&C Saatchi win the award in the mobile category, while in the same category GPY&R Melbourne picked up a bronze Lion for its Oakley Pro Vision work with Whybin\TBWA Sydney taking home a bronze Lion for its NZ Dronie work for Tourism NZ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv5b4jwABiw
In the Cannes Promo and Activation category, GPY&R Brisbane won a Silver Lion for its Melanoma Likes Me campaign for Melanoma Patients as well as taking home a Bronze Lion for the same campaign.
Why are you covering this Mumbrella? Last year you said you never would again.
Hi Backflip,
Thanks for your question. Here’s the piece I wrote last year: https://staging.mumbrella.com.au/why-mumbrella-wont-attend-scam-lions-count-us-241198
As you’ll see, I said we wouldn’t attend – and we haven’t.
What I did say in the article was this: “You won’t find our journalists in the jury press conferences. We won’t uncritically report every shortlist as an automatic triumph. I suspect we won’t even be allowed access to the embargoed results ahead of time. From a distance, we’ll take a more critical look. We’ll aim to celebrate the winners who entered real work that helped solve big marketing problems.”
In practice, that means that rather than reading half a dozen daily stories about individual shortlists, we’ll probably be writing a single story about the key points.
Where unfamiliar work has been recognised, we’ll ask the agencies in question where it ran. (We’re already waiting to hear back from Leo Burnett Melbourne about the story behind its Honda work, which won bronzes overnight. We’ll let you know when we get an answer.)
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Great name Clever Buoy.
Genuine question for M&C / Optus:
How is Clever Buoy actually performing?
And by ‘performing’, I actually refer to its role in protecting swimmers and surfers from sharks, as opposed to winning awards (which it is doing plenty of).
You do say it “could one day present a viable alternative to current shark defense methods”, which sounds terrific. However, a quick look at the official website says that “Clever Buoy is Research and Development programme aimed at developing a prototype”. Shouldn’t we be celebrating ideas like this when they come into reality, or at least closer than “BETA R&D Phase”?
There are plenty of good ideas all around the world that prove to be impractical, thus can never become a reality. Shouldn’t we wait until this is real? Or is “real” not a huge consideration for awards juries?
What about Blackspot Beacons? Never seen or heard anything about it and the website suggests it’s coming soon? Blackspotbeacons.com
@KGB, agree with your comment and was wondering that a few months back when the _idea_ was first published. Until it actually saves lives nothing is won in my eyes.
And I thought Mumbrella would have taken an equally critical stance.
On a positive note, the animation for Clever Buoy is beautiful. Well done M&C Saatchi!