Cannes Lions 2024 Grand Prix Winners in Entertainment, Gaming, Music, Sport, Design, Digital Craft, Film Craft and Industry Craft

‘We Are Ayenda’ is the WhatsApp documentary that tells the story of the girls on the Afghan Youth Women’s National Football team, who fled Afghanistan with the help of the team’s former captain and activist Farkhunda Muhtaj.

As a UNHCR ambassador, Farkhunda has so far helped over 300 Afghan football players and their families escape the country, aided by WhatsApp’s safe end-to-end encryption. After their escape, Farkhunda coaches the girls she helped, who have now regrouped in a new team - Ayenda F.C.

‘We Are Ayenda’ presents audiences with the harsh reality of living in Afghanistan post the US’ withdrawal in 2021, through the eyes of the young women on the National Football team. ‘Don’t use SMS’, writes Farkhunda to the girls, while urging them to send their documents through WhatsApp and feeling comfortable enough to send voice notes on the app to the escapees. It’s a privilege granted through WhatsApp’s unwavering dedication to privacy which, in this case, has proven to save lives.

Entertainment Lions jury president Geoffrey Edwards, managing director, creative at Gale US, said: “‘We Are Ayenda’ is a powerful documentary film for WhatsApp, telling the story of 25 members of the Afghanistan Jr National Football team. We follow how they navigated their escape during the Taliban takeover of the capital city of Kabul in 2021 by using the safety features on WhatsApp. The film represents hope and demonstrates a perfect marriage of narrative storytelling with the brand playing a central and critical role. Stories like this represent the power that brands and entertainment have to Impact real change in the world.”

According to an insight found by Xbox and McCann London, 4 out of 10 football fans believe they could do a better job than England’s manager Gareth Southgate. To leverage football fans’ ‘know-it-all’ attitude towards the game, the gaming giant collaborated with McCann London, Sega’s ‘Football Manager 2024’ (FM24) and Bromley Football Club to launch ‘The Everyday Tactician’. 

For the campaign, McCann turned the popular FM24 game into a literal recruitment platform in order to help Bromley FC find a real-life tactician, jumping ahead of big football clubs usually known for snatching the best professionals for themselves. Only four months after launching the FM24 campaign, 23-year-old Nathan Owolabi survived a grilling from Bromley Manager Andy Woodman and was chosen for the role.

The Entertainment Lions for Gaming jury president Lydia Winters, chief storyteller at Mojang Studios, said: “‘The Everyday Tactician’ consistently stood apart through its unique point of view, community engagement, engaging storyline, and stellar business results, creating a multifaceted campaign that perfectly demonstrates a truth we already know in gaming – it can change lives, create confidence, and build transferable real-world skills. It not only disrupted a 130-year-old football club, but also the way society thinks about what gaming truly brings to the world.”

Recently, you may have found yourself humming ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ after the song went viral on TikTok, but what you might not know is that Bossa Nova – the genre of music this song falls under – is a 100% Brazilian musical genre that once dominated the entire world. The founding fathers (all white men) of Bossa Nova got to have their international recognition, but one of its mothers, Alaíde Costa, was erased as a result of racism, elitism and sexism in the music industry and beyond.

In 2023, New York was to celebrate Bossa Nova’s 60th anniversary with a show in Carnegie Hall - the same venue to which Alaíde was not invited in 1962, when Bossa Nova was first introduced to the world. And while the music industry and the world at large may have taken steps towards ending racial and gender-based prejudice, Alaíde was, once again, forgotten.

Johnnie Walker – a brand that celebrates bold people making bold steps – decided to correct this historical error and give Alaíde her rightful place in the spotlight. JW created a campaign rooted in earned media – they bought two pages in Brazil’s largest newspapers and created an ad retelling the Bossa Nova legend’s story. The campaign ultimately helped Alaíde reach Carnegie Hall just in time for the genre’s 60th birthday. At the age of 88, she represented Bossa Nova on the world stage and was the only artist to receive an over three-minute-long standing ovation.

Entertainment Lions for Music jury president, Madeline Nelson, US head of independent label relations at Amazon Music, said: “With the diversity of work, this year, our greatest challenge was to delve deeply into cultural insights, allowing us to understand unique perspectives. Johnnie Walker, as a brand that celebrates people’s journeys, took the deepest dive of all. It created a fully integrated campaign to honor the story of Alaíde Costa and re-write her name in the history of Bosa Nova. We had the opportunity to recognise work that will breed new levels of inspiration for the creative community and ‘Errata at 88’ does exactly that.”

The conversation around women’s football and the interest towards it has been boiling over the pot for some time now. The world is still torn – while it is evident that the women’s game is just as worthy as the men’s for some, others still need convincing. 

In fact, ahead of the Women’s World Cup last summer, no media organisation stepped in to buy the broadcasting rights for the event. The lack of interest on the media’s side was informed by an indifferent audience, a large part of which refused to watch women’s football without having seen any women’s matches or basing its opinions on biassed YouTube compilations.

So ahead of the tournament, Orange decided to change this. Basing the campaign film around football fans’ love of technical skills, Orange made the perfect Trojan horse – a never-before-seen compilation of actions from the French men’s team. 

Launched only on X, football fanatics watched Mbappé, Giroud and Griezmann in a sequence of incredible moves, not suspecting the plot twist. The video was, in reality, a compilation of cuts taken from the women’s team matches, disguised with the help of VFX to tackle the prejudices towards the women’s game.

Entertainment Lions for Sport jury president, Louise Johnson, CEO of Fuse UK and EMEA, said: “Orange's ‘WoMen's Football’ campaign brilliantly captures the meteoric rise of women's football through creative storytelling and innovative technology. By showcasing the prowess and excitement of the French women's national team, Orange aimed to challenge and dismantle outdated stereotypes about women's football. This campaign didn't just engage sports fans; it sparked widespread conversation, dominated headlines, and captivated audiences worldwide, proving that exceptional football transcends gender. The campaign's success, crowned with the Grand Prix accolade, highlights an exciting future for women's sports marketing, underscoring the power of positivity and creativity in changing perceptions and celebrating athletic excellence.”

When it comes to building inclusive cities, the world hasn’t done enough to truly aid the experience of the blind and visually impaired. Tactile paving is one of the universal systems that help those with visual impairments make their way through cities, but it is too simple for the way modern cities have developed – lines mean go and dots mean stop isn’t good enough.

Oftentimes they find themselves having to depend on the assistance of passersby to know if they’ve reached their destination, as the tactile paving system simply doesn’t have the capacity to tell those using it if they’re next to a bank, drugstore or restaurant. 

Peru’s biggest organisations for the visually impaired came together with Circus Grey and leading Peruvian cement brand Sol, to change this. Together they designed new tactile signage to enhance what we already have – a new, additional vocabulary that allows visually impaired people to recognise exactly what type of service or business is in front of them by simply tapping the sidewalk with their cane.

Design Lions jury president, Fura Johannesdottir, chief creative officer, Huge, Global, said: “The Grand Prix portrays that design is everywhere and can be at its best when it's 'invisible'. We loved that it is a global, inclusive and scalable design solution that can greatly improve people's lives and make the everyday better. We appreciated the simplicity of both the idea and the execution that was done through an old, but new medium. The Grand Prix for Design shows how great design solutions can be found in unexpected places, we just have to put on a different lens, look harder and see the world as it truly is.”

For this B2B marketing initiative, Spotify targeted brands, marketers and agencies through ‘Spreadbeats’, a music video animated entirely through spreadsheets. The video kicks off pretty simply - one coloured, bright green cell starts jumping around in its spreadsheet, soon to take off and enter new spreadsheets. 

Before you know it, the green cell has now started rushing through the woods, and through animated spreadsheet worlds. As the four-minute-long video progresses, the animation gets more and more complicated, moving into 8-bit video game visuals and then into stunning visuals one could never imagine creating on spreadsheets. 

The screen ends on a simple message - ‘Your ads work harder on Spotify, where everyone is feeling something’ - reminding brands that Spotify’s ad technology shows listeners the right ads at the right moments, keeping them audio-only when customers are listening and adding video when they’re engaging with the screen.

Digital Craft jury president, Kentaro Kimura, international chief creative officer and corporate officer, Hakuhodo, Global, said: “This work converted a very common and dry B2B media plan spreadsheet in Excel into a lively and exciting music video. They achieved an amazing level of craft in a very creative way through the use of decades-old technology instead of advanced technologies like AI. This highlights Spotify’s brand and how it stands out as unique among its competitors. The Jury unanimously decided to celebrate the Wow of great human creativity rather than the great use of technology.”

HORNBACH is the German DIY retail store known to come handy for those with big imaginations and ambitious projects in mind. Whatever home improvement adventure you come up with, HORNBACH will be there to provide you with the tools necessary.

However, ambitious projects are at an all-time low. City dwellers across Europe are paying more for less space, so their DIY dreams have shrunk proportionally. To keep its spot in the hearts of those who prefer to do it themselves, HORNBACH created ‘The Square Meter’ - a film celebrating the creativity, skills and mischief that one can employ when working with a smaller space. 

Creating numerous unique square-metre sets from scratch and filming in 1:1 aspect ratio made the quirky film one of the most memorable in the category, achieving over one billion impressions in Germany alone and making HORNBACK the number-one choice in its segment.

Film Craft jury president, Prasoon Pandey, ad film maker at Corcoise Films India, said: “It is not often that one gets to see all the cinematic arts come together so perfectly like synchronised swimming, to turn a DIY subject into a film with magical intrigue. This film is a wonderful reminder not only to all creatives and film-makers but also to clients that there is nothing called ‘low-interest category'.”

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) is a German national subscription daily newspaper dating back to 1949. Recently, FAZ has seen a decline in its readership, proportional to young people’s declining interest in reading the newspaper. To amend this, the paper has claimed that ‘There’s always a brilliant mind behind it’, in a series of photographs showing one distinguished figure reading the FAZ in each of its editions. 

In the series, the faces of the famous people have been hidden behind the paper, with readers being able to tell who they are only through their surroundings. The photographic series has seen Oscar winners, famous musicians, German chancellors, among others. 

For its 100th edition, the FAZ wanted to make a bold statement against the rise of the far right in Germany and across Europe. In the 100th instalment of the series, the paper took the picture of Margot Friedländer, 102-year-old Holocaust survivor, reading the newspaper while sitting at the centre of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Photographed by director Wim Wenders, the issue coincided with Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th.

Industry Craft jury president, Kalpesh Patankar, chief creative officer at Leo Burnett United Arab Emirates, said: “Striving for bold and honest work over and over again is how you create ‘iconic’ work. But what truly struck a chord with us here wasn’t just the iconic nature of the piece… It was the message: 'It’s important to me to be human'. In a time where the world feels divided, this work transcended our differences and dared us all to be human. Honest, beautiful, painful, hopeful, human.”