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Cannes - With a Grands Prix, four Gold Lions, a Silver and a Bronze in various categories, you'd think the advertising campaign for The Zimbabwean newspaper would be a shoo-in for the top campaign at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival.
But you'd be wrong. The talk of the festival - and the most awarded campaign - was basically a job ad. It was a highly integrated multimedia campaign for "the best job in the world", created to boost tourism in Queensland, Australia.
That job was to live in luxury for a year on an Australian tropical island, doing nothing for a top-drawer salary. The campaign picked up a record three Grands Prix, in the Cyber (online), Public Relations and Direct marketing categories.
As Cyber jury president Lars Bastholm of Ogilvy North America said, "digital took over what was essentially a miniscule budget and blew out all the barriers to make it a worthwhile campaign. It was just plain fun."
Devised by Brisbane agency CumminsNitro, the hunt for a caretaker to reside on Hamilton Island off the Great Barrier Reef attracted 35 000 applicants from around the world. HH The Zimbabwean campaign, created by TBWA Hunt Lascaris Johannesburg, was a breakthrough production in its way.
Though essentially low-tech, it demonstrated how to integrate a message effectively across a range of channels - winning gongs in the Outdoor, Media, Design and Direct marketing categories. The campaign included handing out 50 trillian Zimbabwean dollar currency notes on street corners.
The main Zimbabwean currency is literally not worth the paper it's printed on.
- Fin24.com
