It's that time of year again. The Croisette circus with the breakfasts, panels, yachts, rosé, sunsets, and all the gloriously expensive chaos that keeps the industry humming is upon us in under three weeks.
Beneath all that pageantry and a climate of redundancies and constricting client budgets, a Lion or two on the shelf can make the difference when closing a pitch or keeping a job.
Predicting the winners is not exactly straightforward science. The variables are plenty, and jury rooms have their fashions, their blind spots, their enthusiasms. But the work that tends to survive the debates, the horse-trading and the table-thumping typically earns its place on merit.
In that spirit, Campaign Asia-Pacific opens its annual Cannes Contenders series. Making his debut this year is Thinkerbell's chief creative, Tom Wenborn, with three campaigns he believes are worth watching when the envelopes are opened on the Palais.
Campaign: The Māori Roll Call
Brand: Whānau Ora
Agency: Motion Sickness
Category: SDG Lions
Motion Sickness continues to impress with its commitment to both craft and cultural integrity. The Māori Roll Call is a thoughtful, important piece, one that’s handled with care, and anchored in a powerful, resonant idea.
Campaign: If you can take it, it’s yours
Brand: Selleys
Agency: Howatson & Co
Category: Outdoor Lions
Three words, as Wenborn puts it, “entertaining product demonstration.” It’s a format that demands simplicity, and this execution leans into that discipline. By confining the idea to a billboard, it retains a clarity that could land well with juries in an otherwise expansive category.
Campaign: Little
Listings
Brand: Hot Wheels (Mattel) and Carsales
Agency: Thinkerbell
Category: Commerce Media Lions
A distinctly Thinkerbell solution, Little Listings plays on the tension between scale and perception. By selling miniature cars as if they were real, the campaign brings together multiple creative and commerce streams into something that feels both simple and novel—an idea that works precisely because it doesn’t overcomplicate itself.
