U.S. shows strength in digital marketing at Cannes awards

NEW YORK -- American advertisements showed their strength in digital marketing Wednesday when the U.S. had its biggest haul so far at Cannes taking one of three Grand Prix awards in cyber as part of a 34-medal day.

The top prize went to an extensive 18-month marketing program by 42 Entertainment that included an alternate reality game for the movie The Dark Knight. Why So Serious, a recurring movie line by the Joker character, recruited 10 million players in 75 countries to participate in social networking, live events and treasure hunts connected through mobile devices and computers.

"The story kept getting more immersive and bigger and it showed what you can do with good storytelling," says Lars Bastholm, chief digital creative officer, Ogilvy North American and the jury president.

The 56th Annual Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival also awarded Grand Prix prizes to Queensland Tourism the "best job in the world" promotion. Thousands of people applied to be a caretaker for the Hamilton Islands in the Great Barrier Reef as part of a classified ad that required people to apply online.

The campaign is the most awarded campaign of the show and already won two other Grand Prix statues — one in public relations and one in direct marketing.

The third Grand Prix went to Fiat for a software program, Eco-Drive. The program gets downloaded from a computer onto a memory stick and gets popped into a USB port in Fiat vehicles.

The device tracks driving habits such as speed and acceleration so that when the USB stick gets popped back into the computer it shows the driver ways to reduce emissions and save money. It links with other Eco-Drive users and allows for challenges and ongoing tallies for dollar and emissions savings.

"The winners all had real world engagement," says Bastholm. "These are not things that solely live on the computer. They are something that impact people away from their computers."

In a category where entries were down 20% to 2,205, the U.S. scored 21 of the 80 awards issued. Gold Lions went to six marketers and their agencies including Frito-Lay and agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for its scary movie themed Hotel 626; Burger King and Crispin Porter + Bogusky for "Whopper Sacrifice" which gave away a Whopper to people who delisted 10 friends at Facebook and The Jewish Council for Education and Research and agency Droga5 for adstargeted to Jewish seniors in Florida to vote for Barack Obama.