Adidas and FCB Canada Win Direct Grand Prix at Cannes for ‘Runner 321’

An inspiring runner with Down syndrome helped Adidas and FCB Canada take the Grand Prix at Cannes for the Direct category.

“Runner 321” is a campaign that urged marathons and race organizers to save bib No. 321 for runners with Down syndrome—the number represents trisomy 21, a full copy of chromosome 21, a number that correlates to Down syndrome.

Adidas was looking to make sports more inclusive, and they found a perfect star for the campaign in Chris Nikic, an Adidas-sponsored athlete with Down syndrome. Nikic is the focus of a short film, Rebellious Optimists, and he talks about running in the Boston Marathon, saying that every marathon should have a runner 321.

Chaka Sobhani, Direct Lions jury president and global chief creative officer at Leo Burnett, said that picking a winner out of the nearly 2,000 entries was a difficult task, stating that the winning work had to be authentic and scalable—not just a solution for one country. “It’s become one of the most creative and innovative and broad categories,” Sobhani said of the Direct category. “We saw absolutely everything.”

Direct gold winners

• Mondelez Europe (Oreo), “Oreo Cheat Cookies” by Saatchi & Saatchi Dusseldorf
• Marmite, “Baby Scan” by adam&eveDDB London
• Solar Impulse, “Pret a Voter” by Publicis Conseil
• Lalcec, “The Postponed Day” by Grey Argentina
• Oreo, “Oreocodes” by VMLY&R Commerce New York
• Mastercard, “Where to Settle” by McCann Poland
• Fondation Anne de Gaulle, “Anne de Gaulle” by Havas Paris

Creative Data Lions

Stella Artois has the oldest logo in the beer world, dating back to 1366. That’s a lot of history to cull from for any campaign, and Gut Buenos Aires decided to put data to good use to imagine what the drinkers of the beer from various eras would have looked like. Their efforts, which utilized art from over the centuries, landed them the Creative Data Grand Prix.

Gut developed an algorithm that analyzed paintings from different eras that cross-referenced data with the brand’s historical records to find the probability of the presence of Stella Artois in the paintings analyzed.

The campaign, which was created in partnership with the Bellas Artes Museum, was titled “The Artois Probability,” a collection of print and outdoor ads that showed the percentage probability of a work of art containing a Stella.

Creative Data Lions jury president Samantha Hernández Díaz, chief strategy officer, Gut Mexico City, said that with this campaign, playing with data doesn’t have to be boring.

“It speaks in a different language for the product in that category. It brings something fresh. It’s capable of connecting with young people,” she said in a press conference.

Creative Data gold winners

• Chipotle, “Chipotle Doppelganger” by Gale New York
• Show Racism the Red Card, “Fabric of England” by McCann London

Creative B2B Lions

In its second year of the award, the Creative B2B Grand Prix winner went to “Eart4” by AlmapBBDO in Sao Paulo. The creative, which made the Earth into an IPO, was designed for the B3 Stock Exchange in Brazil.

The campaign’s goal was to encourage new signatories to the UN Global Compact. On April 26, in a ceremony that featured the heads of major NGOs and businesses, the Brazilian branch of the UN Global Compact launched an IPO, which transformed Earth into Eart4, or Terr4 in Portuguese. It portrayed the Earth as a global company with 8 billion clients, many of whom are not performing up to task for the planet’s existence. It essentially made the Earth a publicly traded company, and it paralleled the environmental crisis and the financial market to help create a sense of urgency.

Creative B2B Lions jury president Tom Stein, chairman and chief growth officer, Stein IAS, said the idea of turning Earth into an IPO was an “‘Oh my God’ moment” that has stuck with him since first seeing the creative a couple months ago.

“It’s a fantastic idea, beautifully designed, fully integrated. It leaves you with a feeling of what the potential for b-to-b truly is,” said Stein.

Creative B2B gold winners

• Intel, “Certified Human” by Dentsu Creative Chicago
• Workday, “Rock Star” by Ogilvy Los Angeles and Chicago

Paul Hiebert contributed to this story.

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