Achieves Its Best Performance Ever; Y&R Takes Home the Grand Prix in Media, a First for Turkey
Y&R closed out the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity with its best performance to date, winning 89 Lions, a 35% increase over its previous agency record 2014 win count of 66 Lions.
For the second year in a row, Y&R had more offices contributing wins than any of the other top winning global agency networks, with 30 offices taking home Lions across every single region. Y&R, which was the fourth most-awarded network, finished the festival with one Grand Prix, 10 Gold, 25 Silver and 52 Bronze Lions, as well as one Chimera.
Y&R has more than doubled its number of Lions since 2011, when it took home 44. In each of the years since, the agency has increased its number of wins incrementally, as well as the number of offices entering the competition.
Y&R Team Red Istanbul won its first ever Grand Prix, in the Media category, for its “Red Light” campaign for a Vodafone app. The win was also the first Grand Prix for Turkey.
The app, which was registered at Cannes under an alias name in order to protect its identity from men, allows women to call for help just by shaking their smartphones. Instructions on how to find and use the app are deeply embedded in videos and content targeted for women, intentionally designed to be so gender-specific that men never reach the hidden message. More than 250,000 women have downloaded the app, which constitutes 24 percent of all women in Turkey who use smartphones. To date, it has been activated over 103,000 times.
Y&R Nairobi took home a Bronze Lion in Press for “Stories from the Congo,” a first win for the country of Kenya. Bravo/Y&R Miami, Red Fuse LatAm and Prague, VML Mexico, Y&R Turkey, Y&R/NMNI Serbia, Y&R Budapest and Iconmobile also all secured their first Cannes Lions. Y&R Shanghai won 7 Lions, including a Gold in Media for Xiao Zhu air purifiers, with the “Breathe Again” campaign.
“The competition is tougher than ever – with the Cannes Lions receiving a record 40,000-plus entries, and organizations of all types and sizes entering their best ideas – which makes each one of our 89 wins that much more special,” said Y&R Global Chief Creative Officer Tony Granger.
Y&R Latin America had a strong showing, with Prolam Y&R (Chile) and Y&R Sao Paolo (Brazil) each taking home 8 Lions, including 4 Golds, 5 Silvers, and 7 Bronzes; while Australia’s GPY&R took home 12 Lions – 8 in Melbourne and 4 in Brisbane – including a Gold in Pharma for “Messages from the Front Line” for the Australia Defence Force.
In North America, Y&R New York and VML Kansas City, each took home 4 Lions. Y&R New York was recognized for work for Land Rover, and VML for campaigns for Gatorade and Wendy’s. Y&R Moscow won a Gold Lion in the brand new Creative Data category.
Y&R/Wunderman Singapore took home a Cannes Chimera for The Finish Line, a global health and development initiative proposed to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the sponsors of the Chimera award.
“We are very proud of our wins at Cannes this year, but singularly proud that our wins aren’t from one or two offices, but rather come from 30 offices across our entire global network. Every region is represented,” said David Sable, Global Chief Executive Officer of Y&R.
To see Y&R’s 2015 Cannes Lion-awarded work, click here.
