WARC has revealed its key insights into the winners of this year’s Cannes Lions creative effectiveness awards, finding that humour, distinctive assets, shared value of purpose and driving fame through earned media are key drivers of commercial success.
Identifying common themes among the winning campaigns, WARC reports that humour is back in a big way, with lighthearted campaigns experiencing roaring success at this year’s awards.
This year also saw the use of distinctive assets at the heart of key campaigns, helping to drive differentiation through unique product activations, such as ‘Foamy Haircut’ by Africa São Paulo for Brazilian beer brand Brahma and ‘Draw Ketchup’ for sauce brand Heinz Ketchup by Rethink Canada.
“Findings in this study are critical to understanding how marketers are meeting business goals and driving sustainable impact over time,” WARC Creative head of content Amy Rodgers said.
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“The winners of this category are unquestionably creative, and now awarded for their effectiveness too. They are simple but disruptive ideas that really work to drive business growth.”
Although humour was at forefront of creativity among the winners, purpose wasn’t entirely out – but rather redefined, after having dominated the landscape for the last several years. Brands are now seeking to drive change as an opportunity to create shared value, not as an obligation.
Brands have also found that earned media is invaluable in generating mass attention, allowing them to participate in culture and build a clear identity. Word-of-mouth as a media channel and objective has seen a rise this year.
Ogilvy global CEO Devika Bulchandani added: “The winning cases did the fundamentals of marketing in a brilliant manner. They used brand equity – both brand and product – and then used creativity to amplify that equity which led to strong business results.”
