Hasta La Creative!

With half the week’s 16 Cannes contests decided, IBM is only the second big marketer to win a Grand Prix. The company won for its outdoor structures that make life a smidgen better in its “Smart Ideas for Smarter Cities” campaign. (The other major marketer to score a Grand Prix at this week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity was Heineken, the creative effectiveness winner with “Legendary Journey” by Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam.)

What it is: Each outdoor structure is a simple idea to make urban life a bit easier. In "Shelter," raindrop curves form a blue-and-white awning on an IBM billboard that offers shelter to pedestrians on a rainy day. In another execution, the billboard extends along the ground to form an impromptu ramp over a short flight of stairs. A third structure offers passersby a bench to sit on. On the normal billboard part, each carries the slogan “Smart Ideas for Smarter Cities."

Why it won: Praising the IBM campaign as “classic outdoor,” Jury President Tony Granger said: “We’d like to give the Grand Prix to work that could only live in outdoor." Mr. Granger, who is global chief creative officer of Young & Rubicam, said the campaign brings IBM’s smarter cities strategy to life, and “the design is great.”

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