Created for CNA, a Brazilian network of 580 language schools, FCB Brasil’s “Speaking English” won the Grand Cristal Award at the 2014 Courchevel Cristal Festival, which wrapped Saturday in the French Alps.
From France’s Marcel, “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” won The Advertisers Grand Cristal, while “#Like A Girl,” produced by the Leo Burnett agency, took the Global Leadership Council Grand Cristal. “Inglorious Fruits” and “#Like a Girl” also scored nods in multiple other categories.
Launched in 2001, the Cristal Festival gathers top level execs from the communication, content and advertising worlds in a networking/conference events- think MipTV with no market – staged in spectacular locations, such as Courchevel, a French ski resort, Lebanon, Africa or Brazil.
Debating Brand Entertainment & Content over Dec. 16-17, then Marketing Innovation and Data on Dec. 18-19, the 100-or-so execs at Courchevel packed a dizzying array of presentations, Q & As and round tables. From the entertainment domain, speakers included Electus CEO Ben Silverman, “House of Cards” producer Dana Brunetti, plus AOL’s self styled “digital prophet” David Shing and Red Bull creative director Simon Schwaighofer, plus Canal Plus, Orange, TF1 and M6 reps.
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Media agencies – Havas, Publicis, PHD Worldwide, RadiumOne – market research companies (Ipsos , Kantar Media, ZenithOptimedia), and brands (Microsoft, Danone) swelled speaker ranks.
Courchevel came as part of the world’s advertisement industry is in transition as players abandon trad 30-second spot advertising in favor of extended branded story telling, factual or fiction. This year at least, the ad-spots featured in top category winning campaigns often weighed in at two minutes-or-more and, notably, were often social-issue content. Some have already gone viral.
In “Speaking English,” for instance, FCB, an ad agency owned by the Interpublic Group, records how CAN linked up English-language students in Sao Paulo with senior citizens at Chicago retirement communities. Both need someone to talk to. Speaking English brought them together, to talk by Internet, the senior citizens correcting the Brazilian students’ English.
The already celebrated branded female empowerment campaign “Like a Girl,” was made for Always, a feminine hygiene brand owned by Procter & Gamble. In an effort to build young girls’ low self-esteem at the time of puberty, the two-minute vid records men and women who to act out what they thought was “to run like a girl.” Older interviewees and a boy run arms flailing, namby-pamby fashion. Young girls, in contrast, said itmeant to run as fast as you can. The phrase “Like a Girl” takes on a new, stereotype-breaking motivating meaning.
Coinciding with the European Year Against Food Waste, “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables,” which won the Creative Cristal Academy Grand Cristal, used quaint graphics to lament the fact people throw away 520 million tons of food a year and talked up the campaign by Intermarché, France’s third largest supermarket chain, to rehabilitate and sell at a 30% mark-down strange-sized fruits and vegetables: Grotesque apples, disfigured egg-plants, ugly carrots. The campaign boosted store traffic by 24%, the report said.
Made by Leo Burnett Dubai for Vox Cinemas in the United Arab Emirates, “Du Tuesday” took the Journalists Grand Cristal. Part of Vox’s Two For One Tickets Campaign, one of its one-minute commercials, “Too Depressing,” ribs misery-porn cinema, picturing a mute mother serving her wheelchair bound son, who’s also mute, the last soup of the month. She drops it on the floor; he announces he has lung cancer. “Some films are too depressing to watch alone. With Du Tuesday, get two tickets for the price of one,” the campaign suggests.
Adjudicated by a Dana Brunetti-headed jury, the Online Video Grand Cristal was won by “Playthings,” which profiled Evolve, an apolitical org promoting responsible gun-ownership, such as locking up firearms.
The near three-minute vid report features Evolve’s already feted thirty-second spot, made by McCann New York, which begins with a mom arriving at a house to pick up her kid from a play date. “Did Kyle behave himself?” she asks. Suddenly, Kyle burst past her with the other mom’s infant son, both wearing helmers and waving light sabers – which on closer inspection turn out to be the host mom’s long, bright dildos. “If they find it, they’ll play with it….so always lock up your guns,” Evolve’s ad runs. Time called the ad “brilliant.”
France’s Courchevel Cristal Festival ran Dec. 16-20.
COURCHEVEL CRISTAL FESTIVAL 2014 WINNERS
FESTIVAL GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Speaking Exchange
Advertiser: CNA
Agency: FCB Brasil
ADVERTISERS GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables
Advertiser: Intermarché
Agency: Marcel, France
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP COUNCIL GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: #Like a Girl
Advertiser: P & G
Agency: Leo Burnett Toronto/Chicago/London/Holler
CREATIVE CRISTAL ACADEMY GRAND CRISTAL – FILM, PRESS, OUTDOOR, INTEGRATED
Campaign: Campaign: Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables
JOURNALISTS GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Du Tuesday – Two For One Tickets Campaign “Too Depressing” and “Too Complicated”
Advertiser: Du Communications
Agency: Leo Burnett Dubai, UAE
MEDIA GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: The World First All-Lego Ad Break
Advertiser: Warner Bros.
Agency: PHD, U.K.
ONLINE VIDEO GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Playthings
Advertiser: Evolve
Agency: McCann New York
CRISTAL DIGITAL & MOBILE /DIGITAL APLLICATION
Campaign: The Engineers Challenge – The Most Serious Game Ever
Advertiser: SNCF
Agency: TBWA, Paris
OUTDOOR GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Coke Rainbow “A Rainbow for the Rainbow Nation”
Advertiser: Coca-Cola South Africa
Agency: FCB, South Africa
PRESS GRAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Human Traffic Signs
Advertiser: Shanghai General Motors
Agency: Lowe, China
BRAND ENTERTAINMENT & CONTENT GRAND CRISTAL – GLOBAL & U.S.
Campaign: #Like a Girl
BRAND ENTERTAINMENT & CONTENT GRAND CRISTAL – FRANCE
Campaign: The List by Sooruz
Advertiser: Sooruz
Agency: Publicis Modem
BRAND ENTERTAINMENT & CONTENT GRAND CRISTAL -MENA
Campaign: Lebanon4sale – The Shop For Everything
Advertiser: Sakker El Dekkene (Stop the Shop)
Agency: Leo Burnett Beirut
FILM CRAFT GRAND CRISTAL – GLOBAL
Campaign: Power Comes From Vodafone!
Advertiser: Vodafone Gmbh
Agency: Jung von Matt AG, Germany
FILM CRAFT GRAND CRISTAL – FRANCE
Campaign: Next Time Label It
Advertiser: Brother International
Agency: Rosapark
INTEGRATED GEAND CRISTAL
Campaign: Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables
GRAND CRISTAL SPORTS MARKETING
Campaign: #allinornothing
Advertiser: Adidas
Agency: We Are Social, U.K.
GRAND CRISTAL SPORTS MARKETING CRISTAL ACADEMY
Campaign: The Invertes Jersey
Advertiser: Botafogo de Futevol E Regetas
Agency: Africa, Brazil
GRAND CRISTAL BRAND CULTURE
Campaign: Kaan Khajura Teshan
Advertiser: Hindustan Unilever
Agency: PHD, India
GRAND CRISTAL, PR
Campaign: #Like a Girl
GRAND CRISTAL PR FRANCE
Campaign: One Note Against Cancer
Advertiser: APREC
Agency: Publicis Conseil
GRAND CRISTAL PR EASTERN EUROPE
Campaign: To Delay Means To Kill
Advertiser: Lizaalert
Agency: Twiga, Russia
GRAND CRISTAL DESIGN
Campaign: Get Well Kit
Advertiser: Sanofi-Aventis Group
Agency: Geometry Global Moscow, Russia
ENDS
