Top 5 Cannes Lion 2021 shortlisted OOH campaigns

Cannes Lion 2021 officially begins today and ahead of virtual festival, the organisers released a list of shortlisted campaigns yesterday. The list includes shortlisted campaigns for outdoor, design, print & publishing Lions, in partnership with Microsoft; and the Media Lions, in partnership with NBCUniversal.

Cannes Lions Live, which runs from 21-25 June, will broadcast hundreds of films, documentaries and panels on creativity – live and on-demand – with original thinking, provocative new ideas, plurality of points of view, never-before-seen case studies and research. 

As we anticipate the results for the prestigious Lions awards, which will be announced daily at lunchtime (GMT+1), we’ve put together our own list of top 5 shortlisted OOH campaigns which will inevitably inspire the marketer in you.

1. Dove – Courage is Beautiful

Campaign context:

Early into the pandemic, Dove set out to celebrate the bravery of front-line healthcare workers. However, photographers were not permitted into the impacted hospitals.This constraint led to a powerful solution: to use the “selfie” photographs that front-healthcare workers were sharing on their personal social media accounts. Their images conveyed the physical and mental toll of the pandemic with raw, unretouched authenticity.

Searching hashtags on various social platforms, we found real healthcare workers’ personal images and then DM’d them to invite them to participate. We then juxtaposed the images of their battle-worn faces with our message.Working with hospitals in the USA, Russia, Spain and South Africa, we collected data on workers’ shift patterns and bought digital out of home media adjacent to the most overwhelmed hospitals, broadcasting our campaign when healthcare workers started or ended their shifts, giving frontline workers a dose of encouragement to keep on saving lives.

Agency & award entrant: Ogilvy London

2. Reddit, Inc – Bread Response

Campaign Context:

Reddit started 2020 with the intention of launching its first ever marketing campaign to legitimize the brand in the eyes of consumers, but amidst a global pandemic, civil unrest and looming Presidential Election, priorities shifted. While politics dominated nearly every facet of Americans’ lives, trivial things received a vast number of votes on Reddit, which could’ve made a significant impact in real life.

The agency used the act of voting as a conduit to help current and potential users understand the positive impact of Reddit’s communities. OOH featured creative comparing Reddit upvotes to close local elections in NYC, Chicago, LA and Houston — demonstrating that if people can vote on a cat-bee meme on Reddit, they can vote in an election. To build message frequency and brand association, the agency geofenced the billboards and retargeted them on mobile, while contextually targeted digital units reached users as they consumed news and political content.

Agency & award entrant: R/GA SAN FRANCISCO

3. Burger King – The Moldy Whopper

Campaign context:

Burger Kings main competitor McDonalds are three times bigger, and have a much bigger advertising budget. Burger King have to depend on a smarter use of their advertising dollars. As a consequence BK have tradition of making cut through ideas that travels the world in a short time. Burger King have removed 8,500 tons of artificial preservatives Globally. That’s the equivalent of 38 Statues of Liberty per year. In most of Europe, big areas in the US and particularly in Sweden BK has removed all artificial preservatives from its products. The brief was to tell this to the world. To send this important message, also to the fast food industry, Burger King broke the mold with something unpredictable: mold – Letting their signature Whopper hamburger rot for up to 35 days and showing the result on different types of outdoor media in various countries around the world.

4. Kellogg’s – The Cereal

Campaign context:

Simple Breakfast Stories. It’s easy to make a simple story complicated. The true challenge is to keep a simple story simple. Kellogg’s story has always been a simple story, one of good grains, minimally transformed into great breakfast moments.But their brand had become overpowered by its sub-brands, lacking a unique visual language and message, making their story complicated.

Data revealed that consumers still perceived Kellogg’s as the true, authentic leader of their category giving us permission to leverage their iconicity to simply reclaim mornings. The agency went back to what made Kellogg’s iconic: natural grain goodness that will start your day right. A story of minimal transformation inherent to the brand’s heritage: a simple journey from seed to bowl.The agency created an outdoor campaign that celebrates this journey through a unique brand language, simply made of Kellogg’s historical iconic assets.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Agency & award entrant: Landor Paris

5. Mini – Parking Assistant

Campaign context:

Since 1959, MINI has stayed true to its roots: a simplistic, iconic design with outstanding longevity that inspires fans to this day. The brand stands for an urban lifestyle with maximum experiences in a minimalistic space.

But today’s models offer more than just an efficient and creative way to get around. They are technology-packed with state-of-the-art safety and comfort features. This is well known to MINI drivers, but not so much to people outside of the car’s fanbase.

Agency & award entrant: Serviceplan Germany Munchen

To view the full list of shortlisted outdoor lions for 2020/2021, click here.

Hungry for some local creative OOH campaigns? Click on the image below to have a quick look at how 3 market leaders are using OOH to execute high ROI campaigns: