Why they scored at Cannes

At every Cannes Lions, a select few campaigns make a real splash. One of those campaigns at Cannes Lions 2010 was TBWA/Chiat/Day LA's 'Replay for Gatorade', which pocketed the Grand Prix in both the PR and Promo and Activation categories.

Gatorade brought together the players from a Thanksgiving Day college football match that took place in 1993 and ended in a tie. Now in their thirties, Gatorade got the players back into shape and ready for a rematch. The preparation was followed by tens of thousands over social media, and the final event was watched live by over 15,000 fans.

Why did it win? It's not because of technical prowess in production. It's not because of mindblowing visual masterpieces on film or digital media. It was because of an idea rooted in the very essence of human nature. The idea that everyone loves a second chance. It touched on other very human desires, such as the need to put one over the college rivals. Furthermore, it was grounded on perceptive consumer insight - that seven in 10 adults over the age of 30 do not exercise regularly, but it's possible to reignite their athletic spark by giving them a sufficiently compelling reason. As a clincher, the whole concept was closely tied in with Gatorade's brand essence as an athletic brand.

You could see this theme throughout Cannes Lions 2010. Simple ideas rooted in the very essence of human nature were the ideas that scored.

Another such idea was AMV BBDO London's 'Choose a different ending' for the London Metropolitan Police. The insight was that a lot of young Londoners carry a knife in the belief that it will protect them, but it often turns out that their own knife either gets them killed, or makes them kill someone.

A site was created with a set of videos allowing you to 'choose your own adventure'. You may get to a point where a fight is happening before your eyes, and you get to choose whether you leave the fight, threaten a guy with a knife, or stab him with that knife. Based on your choice, the next video will be played. You die in some videos, you kill someone and go to jail in some, and you get away from trouble in others. Once you get away from trouble, you are rewarded with free music downloads.

'Choose a different ending' used the simplest technology - videos that are selected based on the user's decision at a particular point. But its powerful appeal to human nature made it an impactful campaign. What can be more powerful than seeing yourself getting killed or going to jail because of a wrong decision you made? That is the most compelling way to change human behaviour, and this campaign scored on that.

The other prevailing theme of winning work at Cannes Lions 2010 was medium-agnosticity. Work which used anything and everything as a medium, and was not constrained by compartments like film, digital, social, print or ambient.

Foremost among these were Tribal DDB Stockholm's 'Fun theory' campaign for Volkswagen's new environmentally friendly cars based on Blue Motion Technologies.

The consumer insight was that Volkswagen made environmentally friendly cars a better option by making them fun to drive.The 'Fun theory' campaign was in the same spirit, where chores were converted into fun activities. Tube commuters were encouraged to take the stairs by converting a flight of stairs into a fully-functioning piano, recycling was encouraged by turning a recycle bin into an arcade game. The experiments were filmed and posted on the FunTheoryBlog and viralled around YouTube and Facebook.

Who would have thought that a flight of stairs could be a marketing medium? Or a recycle bin for that matter? Through marvellously unconventional thinking, Tribal DDB Stockholm and Volkswagen had truly pushed the envelope. Not only did they create a viral phenomenon and created positive buzz around Volkswagen's Blue Motion Technologies, they also clinched the Grand Prix in the Cyber Lions category at Cannes.

A double Grand Prix winner, 'Livestrong' for the Nike Livestrong Foundation, went one better in medium-agnosticity by inventing a completely new medium - the chalkbot.

Lance Amstrong returned to the Tour de France for one reason - to raise awareness about cancer. Words of hope and strength from thousands of people affected by cancer in some way were chalked out on the entire Tour de France route by the chalkbot. 36,000 messages were received, and once the chalkbot chalked these messages onto the route, senders received GPS-tagged images of their chalked messages.

Traditional media such as film, print and OOH were still used, but to strengthen the messaging rather than dominate it. By breaking down the silos between various mediums and embracing completely new mediums, Wieden + Kennedy Portland and the Nike Livestrong Foundation have given us a campaign to remember.

We often get very close to our own work, and as a result deviate from the simple truth that we are talking to humans. We also break our work into silos and think in terms of TV, print, OOH, digital, PR, etc. But agencies and marketers who embrace the principles of human nature and medium-agnosticity are able to deliver the best work. These were the agencies and marketers who scored at Cannes Lions 2010, and they have shown us the way forward.