For the first time in the Cannes Lions’ 70-year history, a Saudi Arabian campaign has won a Grand Prix Award – with Wunderman Thompson’s ‘Subconscious Order’ campaign for HungerStation taking the prize.
Securing the ‘Creative Commerce Grand Prix’, Wunderman Thompson Saudi Arabia’s ‘Subconscious Order’ campaign combined innovative thinking and cutting-edge technology to develop an app that taps into the subconscious mind to help the user decide which food they’re truly in the mood for.
The campaign was developed for food delivery service HungerStation, a Saudi equivalent of Just Eat or Deliveroo, to help fight the frustrations of decision fatigue.
By using a customer’s mobile or desktop camera, in-app eye calibration and vision AI tracks the user’s eye movement, before using topic modelling AI to create a curated list of options based on what their eyes lingered on the longest – revealing the customer’s subconscious cravings.
“This is a truly historic win for both Cannes Lions and Saudi Arabia, as it is the first time a campaign from the Kingdom has won a Grand Prix – one of the most prestigious awards for creativity in the world,” Wunderman Thompson Saudi Arabia executive creative director Rayyan Aoun said.
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“As the first – and still the leading – food delivery app in the Kingdom, HungerStation is a pioneer in its field. It feels fitting then, that, along with Wunderman Thompson, our innovative campaign has won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix – a groundbreaking achievement for Saudi Arabia.”
The work stems from the idea that the subconscious mind can process information up to 500,000 times faster than the conscious mind, and looks to better connect consumers with this part of their brain.
The Grand Prix capped off a historic Cannes Lions for the creative agency, which also picked up a prize for Innovation, marking the first time Wunderman Thompson has won two Grand Prix in one year.
Wunderman Thompson global lead of creative data, Jason Carmel added: “We are incredibly proud to have been part of such a momentous occasion and to have worked alongside HungerStation to deliver a powerful tool which is not only forward-thinking and smart, but that also taps into a genuine desire for the decision-making process to be simplified.
“This technology signals a step towards the future of ‘Zero UI’ interfaces, whereby users control a device through their voice, movements, glances, or thoughts. But it’s not tech for the sake of tech, it also addresses a need to cleverly address decision fatigue and help people with an important decision – choosing dinner!”
