Hasta La Creative!

The Philippines has won its first Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity  —  and it’s all thanks to a clever way of making using of old-school technology. Rather than trying to replace old analog cell phones all over the country, an outpost of Omnicom Group’s DDB dreamt up a way to make use of them to the benefit of citizens. 

What it is: A simple idea that used old-school cell phones took home the big prize in the mobile category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Tuesday. “TXTBKS,” developed by DDB Manila, won the Grand Prix. The idea was to solve the issue of the decreasing use of textbooks in a country where many people cannot afford tablets or e-readers and where most families own old feature phones. The campaign, done by client Smart Communications, collaborated with textbook publishers to condense books into text messages. Those messages were then put onto old SIM cards, which were repackaged into “Smart TXTBKS,” creating a new brand of textbooks.

The jury: The jury was chaired by Rei Inamoto, VP-chief creative officer of AKQA. He said mobile was an especially interesting category for him because it was so pervasive, but also so new. “I’ve judged a few categories at Cannes and this was the most passionate jury,” he said. “There were a lot of arguments and disagreements.” There were no women on the jury. When asked why this was the case, Matias Palm-Jensen, chief innovation officer at McCann Erickson, said that the problem could only be solved by the press going back to their countries and telling their representatives to change the ratio. He added that in Sweden they are mandated to ensure that half their jury members are female. He also said that he should not have to defend the jury composition. "I don’t want to feel uncomfortable as a man," he said.

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