Cannes Contenders: BBDO Shares The Work, The Work, The Work
“The Work. The Work. The Work.”
BBDO’s agency motto is to create and deliver the world's most compelling commercial content, delivered by its many offices around the world.
In 2024, ahead of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the global team at BBDO tell LBB about the work that they’re most proud of, and hope to win big this year. A global spread, this year’s list is comprised of work from Brazil, the US, Australia, Lebanon, the UK and more.
Here’s what the team put forward and had to say about what they created:
Volkswagen - 70 years
In celebration of Volkswagen’s 70th anniversary in Brazil, we used artificial intelligence to reunite Elis Regina, one of the greatest Brazilian singers of all time, with her daughter Maria Rita, a modern-day icon with eight Grammys to her name. The film blends VW’s 70th anniversary with the arrival of electric cars in Brazil by paying homage to a familial relationship that also revives the poetry of the past while looking toward a bright new future.
Meta - Thrillboards
Flipping the script on traditional 2D content, and the traditional 2D OOH that promotes it, AMV BBDO’s ‘Thrillboards’ activation offered passersby the chance to step into a billboard and experience the worlds of Ghostbusters and The Walking Dead, two worlds available on Meta Quest 3. The unique ambient campaign blurs the lines between the real and the virtual. Just like the new mixed-reality headset.
Pedigree - Tail Orchestra
A dog’s tail is one of the purest expressions of joy. So, what if we translated that joy into music?
Introducing Pedigree’s 'Tail Orchestra'. This experiment put pups centre-stage at the Polish Radio turning their tails into conductors of the most unpredictable symphonies. In just over a week, the work generated 15.6M organic social views of the long-form content and became the most successful organic content in Pedigree's history, sharing the joy with dog parents worldwide and changing their perception of Pedigree treats.
AT&T - Sleep with Rain
B2B campaigns are often too serious or unrealistically positive. We wanted to tap into the real anxiety of business owners and inject it with levity. What better way to challenge the tone of the category than to reunite America’s most popular sitcom, The Office, known for its business blunders? While other B2B campaigns ran away from the real struggles of running a business, we invited the audience to laugh at it, and made entertainment and humour the strategy to give them back the optimism they were missing. In the end, Sleep with Rain was one of the most successful B2B campaign made by AT&T Business in the history of the company.
AnNahar Newspaper - AI President
Lebanon did not have a president for the last two years. So we built one. Created by IMPACT BBDO, in collaboration with AnNahar Newspaper, 'The AI President' was created to offer an unbiased perspective on the challenges that the country faces today, and support political stability. By training Large Language Models on 90 years of impartial journalism from AnNahar since the 1930’s, the AI President analyses historical data provided and current events, to formulate answers for all political, legal and government questions. By tapping into this vast knowledge base, it has a deep understanding of Lebanon's past, as well as a keen outlook for the future.
Pedigree - Adoptable
Adoptable uses AI to put real, adoptable shelter dogs at the center of global advertising, by turning every PEDIGREE® ad into an ad for a shelter dog near you. Adoptable technology maps images of actual shelter dogs to a CGI rig, allowing the digital dog double to be positioned into any pose to suit any media format. Once the featured dog is adopted, it’s instantly dropped out of media rotation. To reduce the likelihood of return, Adoptable matches breed to the locations and households that suit them best through geo-targeting and First-Party Data. Within the first two weeks, 50% of shelter dogs featured had been adopted, with traffic to shelter site profiles increasing 6 times.
Meta - A Rip in Reality
We wanted people to experience the scale and immersiveness of this VR game without the need for a headset. So, using cutting-edge screen technology, we pulled the game from the headset and revealed it to our unsuspecting audience. As The Game Awards attendees left the theatre, they were confronted by a giant portal in the sky. A rip in reality. Built using a 3000 sq ft transparent screen, suspended 100ft in the air by hidden cranes. We gave them something memorable and unexpected, even when they were expecting gaming content, with a real had-to-be-there branded activation. The stunt racked up over 20M+ organic views and made Asgard’s Wrath 2 the #1 most downloaded Meta Quest 3 game during the holiday season.
Sheba - Gravy Race
The world of feline entertainment reached new heights with the launch of SHEBA’s Gravy Race, a unique and engaging event that captured the hearts of cat lovers worldwide. In the spirit of sports season in the US, the SHEBA® brand hosted an exciting and unique event called 'The Gravy Race', featuring some of the internet's most beloved cats in a thrilling competition to see who loves gravy the most. Eight famous felines, with a combined audience of over 55 million, competed head-to-head, with the fastest gravy licker earning the title of 'The Gravy Race Champion'.
GUINNESS - Foot Pints
GUINNESS has often used the look and shape of its iconic pints in advertising. In a new twist, the brand has actually made a product – a pair of black & white snow boots called 'Foot Pints'. These boots were made to leave a trail of GUINNESS footprints on the streets of Ireland and beyond when it snows – creating an enticing invitation to gather at the pub during the latest festive season. The 'Foot Pints' took centre stage in a 15s promo film for social media, playfully mimicking the seriousness and gleam found in sneaker launches.
Australian Youth Climate Coalition - NewsJacker
Despite the overwhelming scientific data proving that climate change is a real existential threat, 32% of people over 55 still don't believe that it’s a serious issue. Trying to change the minds of climate sceptics through conversations isn’t always easy. So, we created NewsJacker – a simple tool that allowed young Australians to hack the news feeds of older climate change sceptics and expose them to the truth. People simply shared a URL link with climate change sceptics they knew. It took them to an ordinary-looking website for a cookie recipe. However, metadata and inline frames built into the site, updated their online cookies, tricking the internet into thinking they were keen climate activists. Because of this, their algorithms started serving them scientifically accurate news stories about climate change, breaking them free from the cycle of misinformation.
