PH wins Young Lions award at Cannes fest

GRAND PRIX DM9 JaymeSyfu’s Gabriela “Bruise” poster wins the Grand Prix at the Cannes ACT Responsibly competition. Pepito Olarte, Philippine Daily Inquirer vice president for advertising, accepts the trophy from Cannes Mayor Bernard Brochand during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Cannes, France—The Philippines has won the prestigious Young Lions Young Marketers Competition for hot creative talent at the 58th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Angeline Go and Justine Ferrer of Del Monte Philippines won the gold for the Cannes Young Marketers competition.

The Young Lions Competition is designed to catapult the careers of rising stars that are set to redefine the future use of imagery in advertising.

Philippine agencies BBDO Guerrero, TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno, DM9 JaymeSyfu and Ace Saatchi & Saatchi took home a combined haul of five medals from the festival which ended on June 25.

Dubbed the world’s biggest and most prestigious show on creativity and communications, the seven-day festival showcased around 24,000 entries from all over the world, the most deserving of which walked away with the highly coveted Lion trophies.

Pepito Olarte, vice president for advertising of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was host to the 17 Philippine delegates privileged to be part of this groundbreaking advertising festival. The Inquirer is the Philippine festival representative of the Cannes Lions.

Rewarding category

Outdoor proved to be a rewarding category for the Philippines as TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno’s “Creatures” campaign for Boysen and BBDO Guerrero’s “Persistent Headaches” campaign for Saridon each received a Silver Lion.

DM9 JaymeSyfu walked away with a Bronze Outdoor Lion for the Department of Tourism’s “Limestone” poster.

DM9 JaymeSyfu also won the Grand Prix at the Cannes ACT (Advertising Community Together) Responsible Competition for the Gabriela “Bruise” poster. The award is given to the campaign which received the biggest number of votes from Cannes visitors.

Olarte accepted the trophy from the mayor of Cannes on behalf of DM9 JaymeSyfu.

Fashion laundry

Ace Saatchi & Saatchi’s “Fashion Laundry” for the Procter & Gamble detergent brand Ariel merited a bronze trophy in the Media Lions.

DM9 JaymeSyfu’s “Center of Attention” series “Opera” and “Lecture” ads for Pharex made the Press Lions short list but was unable to bag the coveted medal.

BBDO Guerrero’s FedEx “Changing World” was on the short list for Cyber Lions, while TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno’s Boysen Creatures, “Jellyfish,” “Snail” and “Fish,” and Campaign’s & Grey Philippines’ “Sneakers” for Lacoste, made the design category short list.

The country waited with bated breath as the Philippines’ Young Lions competed for the prestigious Film Lions and Young Marketers Competition.

Beside Ferrer and Go, Young Kidlat Awards winners Jeffrey Roel Thomas and Ramon Luis Alfonso of Publicis JimenezBasic for film also took part in the competition.

Profits for charity

This year’s brief, disclosed to competitors on June 22, required teams to create a fictional product or service relevant to their business and a supporting communications strategy for the launch, with all profits being donated to charity as the unique selling point.

Twenty-six teams under 28 years of age, had just 24 hours to interpret the brief and to develop their concepts, using content from Getty Images’ range of creative, editorial and archival collections.

Belarus came in second and Brazil, third.

Melvin Mangada, executive creative director of TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno, a silver Lion winner in this year’s Cannes, was the country’s sole member in the Cannes Outdoor jury.

Biggest winner

A day before the festival ended, the biggest winner was McCann Romania, which successfully sank its teeth into the Grand Prix in both the Promo and Direct categories. Located in Bucharest, the agency’s “American ROM” campaign for Romania’s favorite homegrown chocolate bar, the ROM, also bagged two Gold Lions for the same categories.

Asian pride was also on full display, with Cheil Worldwide’s “Homeplus Subway Virtual Store” for Tesco serving as its tour de force. The campaign won Korea a Grand Prix and a Gold Lion for Media.

Other Grand Prix winners were Droga5 New York for Outdoor Lions, Australia’s Clemenger BBDO for Press Lions and South Africa’s Net#Work BBDO for the Radio Lions.

The seven-day festival ended on Saturday, with the announcement of top accolades which included Palme d’Or, Agency of the Year, Network of the Year and the Grand Prix for Good.