Cannes 2016: Mobile awards snub APAC markets

CANNES - The region universally acknowledged as the hotbed of mobile-first behaviour barely registered with the Mobile jury at Cannes, where the category resulted in just a smattering of awards for APAC work, mostly from Australia. 

DDB Sydney was the lone Gold Lion winner from the region, for a campaign on behalf of the Sydney Opera House. That work also took two Silver Lions.

Overall, the region won only 10 Lions out of the 62 awarded, and only three of those went to a country not named Australia. Although Singapore accounted for a Silver Lion and Thailand and Japan won a Bronze each, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines—all frequently cited as markets with unique, rapidly evolving mobile ecosystems driven by passionate users—are conspicuous in their absence. Whether this indicates that the region truly lags the US (which won the most metal) in the development of mobile advertising or signals a lack of understanding on the part of the jury will probably be debated for some time. Either way, it's disappointing.

The category yielded a Grand Prix for 'NYT VR' by T Brand Studio of New York for GOOGLE, GE, MINI and the New York Times.

Here is the complete list of APAC winners, such as it is.

Note: In the table below, duplicate entries indicate awards in separate sub-categories. We have chosen not to list the category numbers for brevity's sake.