McCann Enjoys Success at Cannes Lions

McCann Central has been awarded two Cannes Lions Awards at this year’s International Festival of Creativity, for work with Vauxhall and domestic abuse charity, Refuge.

The team picked up a coveted Silver Lion for the Vauxhall Astra “Backwards Stories” Campaign in the radio automotive category, telling famous fairy tales in reverse to highlight the benefits of the Astra’s reverse parking camera. Created by Joe Ivory and Jamie Buckingham, Group Creative Heads at Velocity (the dedicated, specialist McCann agency for Vauxhall Motors based in Milton Keynes) and MRM Madrid, the teams collaborated with animators from around the world to bring the story to life.

The second award at the show was a Bronze Lion for the Refuge campaign ‘Turn to us’ which uses innovative, reversible poetry to raise awareness of domestic abuse and provide a reminder that no one should suffer in silence. The poems were produced for Christmas, Valentine’s Day and most recently, Father’s Day.

These accolades top off an incredible slew of awards already received for the Refuge campaign including The One Show and D&AD. More importantly, the charity has seen calls to its hotlines shoot up significantly in the immediate days after each advert has run.

The Refuge campaign was created by Zane Radcliffe and Ken Sara of McCann Bristol. Media for the final advert was negotiated by Universal McCann based in McCann’s Bristol office and everyone involved in the campaign donated their services to Refuge free of charge.

In total, McCann Worldgroup scooped 73 Cannes Lions Awards at this year’s prestigious event and was named Network of the Year for the first time in its history while our UK network took home 17 awards in its own right.