Cannes 2015 is a celebration of creativity, innovation and love
WE may have only exhausted half of 2015, but significant progress has already been achieved during this short period of time, notably in the fields of humanity and equal rights.
For the amount of flak the United States receives for interfering with numerous world events, one thing it deserves accolades for is the Supreme Court’s decision to legalise same-sex marriage across the country.
The establishment of this new civil right for advocates of the LGBT groups does certainly mark a historic milestone and portrays an image of just how far we have come as human beings.
Last week’s ruling happened to coincide with the announcement of winners and shortlists across 18 categories of the 2015 edition of “Cannes Lions” – the pinnacle of every advertiser’s dream to showcase the best creative works from across the world.
For all of the various technological innovations in media displayed during the week-long event, the one case study that really stood out for me was Honey Maid’s “This Is Wholesome” campaign, which literally took the definition of wholesome to a whole new level. It was a campaign that won a Gold Cannes Lion under the “Creative Effectiveness” category.
Not only did the brand want to promote the nutritional values of the product, it wanted to highlight the changing face of the American family, which can no longer be defined as typical or homogeneous.
The campaign depicted interracial families, gay families and even families that only had a single parent raising an only child.
As a nation as diverse as the US is, with a huge population of 300 million, it was rather surprising that this was the first time a brand bravely stood for a social issue and that the word “wholesome” was defined by pure familial love, regardless of racial, marital or gender background and not abiding to a specific majority demographic.
It may not seem obvious to the average reader, but Honey Maid’s business objective was to penetrate into households beyond the typical white family.
A campaign as radical as this did naturally receive a backlash from conservatives, and even right-wing political groups. The campaign owners knew too well that negative sentiments would inevitably be evoked because the idea in itself was rather disruptive and politically controversial in nature, and they already had a back-up plan to manage this crisis.
Turning crisis into an opportunity, Honey Maid collected all of the negative comments, turned them into a message of love through a sculpture, and surrounded that message by an aggregation of all the positive comments that it received, post-campaign launch, which outnumbered the messages of hate tenfold.
As Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” That quote holds true with this campaign.
Two things that can be learned from a campaign as unconventional as this are that:
1. When a client is brave and bold enough to take a creative leap of faith, even though the risks are high, the returns they reap will be much higher. It not only becomes part of consumers’ hearts, but it also becomes a major driver of the evolving social fabric. That is when brand love becomes elicited.
2. The planning process plays an absolutely vital role in delivering the loop from campaign execution to crisis management.
Facebook pounced on the trend and added an optional rainbow filter application to its profile-picture platform. To date, 26 million users have slapped a rainbow flag over their profiles in support of the “pride” movement.
As a strategic planning practitioner, I’m always intrigued by ideas that have the perfect blend between math and magic, as Robert Pittman – the founder of MTV – perfectly stated.
An idea that leverages a cultural paradox, addresses a social tension and delivers the bottom line of the business will always win. Other notable case studies that address long-standing beliefs about gender biases and discrimination include works from P&G’s “#LikeAGirl”, Sport England’s “This Girl Can” and Vodafone’s “Red Light Application” campaigns, which took the world by storm. I urge you to watch them and to become inspired by the power of creativity to solve business and social issues.
The only regret I felt about “Cannes Lions 2015” was the under-representation of Asian winners in this year’s festival of creativity, and I hope that this relative lack of success will spur us to do better work and persuade our clients to be braver in delivering more innovative campaigns in the near future.
Pradon Sirakovit is associate director for strategy and innovation at IPG Mediabrands.
