Ogilvy Australia and DDB Sydney pick up gold at Cannes Lions 2022

In the second last awards evening of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for 2022 a number of Australian campaigns have been awarded for work nominated in the engagement categories.

Ogilvy Australia’s AAMI Rest Towns picked up a Gold Lion for Media, with the campaign’s media agency OMD Sydney also acknowledged by the award.

The campaign consisted of a road safety initiative encouraging young drivers to stop and rest every two hours in rural Aussie towns, that themselves were in need of economic recovery. AAMI identified the longest and most dangerous stretches of road where drivers are most likely to power through without stopping and selected specific rural towns where drivers could stop and rest.

Commenting on the win, Toby Talbot, chief creative officer Ogilvy Network ANZ, said: “I am so proud of the team at Suncorp and our own team at Ogilvy for this important piece of work. It really was a labour of love and involved many moving parts. Like all great ideas, it will live on too.”

DDB also took home a Gold Lion in Media for its Ad Break Championship for Volkswagen, with the media credit for the campaign going to PHD Sydney. Earlier in the week the campaign was also awarded a Bronze Lion in Entertainment.

The campaign posed the question, ‘Why watch ads when you can play them?’, giving TV viewers the chance to participate in a competition to win a Golf GTI by playing a car racing game on their devices.

Adding to its Grand Prix win for Innovation yesterday. Leo Burnett’s One House to Save Many took home a Silver Lion in the PR category. The campaign saw Suncorp work with its partners to design and test a prototype home that was fire, flood and cyclone-resistant, in response to the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters in Australia.

Of the win, Leo Burnett chief client partner Amanda Wheeler said:

“Winning a silver Lion for PR is a great reflection of how Suncorp, Leo Burnett and OMD worked together to get the category-changing story of One House to the public beyond traditional channels.

“The work included creating a documentary that ran on the Nine Network, the platform was then used to talk to Governments and industry leaders about focusing on resilience and building codes in the category and furthermore the story was picked up by more than 300 media outlets around the country.

“It’s been a fantastic effort and to have it recognised at Cannes is the ultimate prize.”

Howatson + Co bolstered to its growing collection of Lions for the Rejected Ales campaign for Matilda Bay, taking home a Silver Lion for Direct. The Silver marks the campaign’s fourth win at this year’s Cannes Lions with the agency already having picked up a Silver Lion in Brand Experience and Activation, a Silver Lion for Design and a Bronze for Industry Craft.

The festival’s final shortlist was also announced overnight, naming the contenders for the Film category, with Bear Meets Eagle on Fire representing the Australia cohort with a nomination for ‘Larry‘, which launched the new “flexible car insurance brand”, Rollin, for IAG. The spot featured Larry, a rolling fuzzy ball that raps along to Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance”.