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With just three Grand Prix, this year's Cresta Awards has marked itself out as one of the most desirable and hard-to-win creative awards in the world.
BBDO Canada, Dentsu Creative New York and Havas Paris took the three top positions with "outstanding projects and big ideas that challenge, deconstruct and redefine media" said the organisers of the competition, now in its 30th year.
The leading projects that were awarded a Grand Prix are:
● Missing Mateoka by BBDO Canada for Muskrat magazine. This re-telling of the 'Pocahontas' story delivers an alternative soundtrack to synchronise with the movie of the same name. First Nations' people rewrite the story as one of 'kidnapping, rape and murder'.
● Scrolling Therapy by Dentsu Creative New York for Eurofarma. An app that uses the phone camera to motivate and train Parkinson's sufferers to perform vital facial exercises.
● Anne de Gaulle by Havas Paris for Fondation Anne de Gaulle. A massive integrated week-long awareness-raising intervention that temporarily renamed the city's Charles de Gaulle airport after the iconic French leader's daughter, Anne, who was born with Downs' Syndrome.
The trio of works heads the Cresta leaderboard but there is great strength in depth from around the planet among the list. Besides the Grand Prix, 37 golds, 38 silvers and 79 Bronze trophies were awarded, with many new first-time winners among the recipients.
Cresta is unique in how it judges, taking the votes of its prestigious 120 jurors, who all work in isolation, and mathematically averaging to produce the scores. This system, and the semi-permanent jury, aims to apply a consistent and impartial grading from one year to the next.
"This year's voting saw our jury once again come through with a no fear or favour approach," says Lewis Blackwell, the CEO of Cresta. "There are slightly fewer Grand Prix because that's what their expert collective intelligence determined. There is a strong range of work across the gold, silver and bronze, and it is remarkably diverse in the categories that are being awarded. We have an absolute standard and the votes' tally doesn't mislead. It is what the grand jury honestly and expertly concluded, without any bias or pressures to conform. That's perhaps also why we see some surprise newcomers and other trends across the winners," he added.
Among the multiple winning agencies were Serviceplan/Plan.net (last year's overall network of the year), BBDO New York, Impact BBDO Dubai, Havas Paris, Saatchi & Saatchi ME, Leo Burnett MEA, MullenLowe MENA, Dentsu Inc. and a strong performance across several of the Dentsu Creative network offices.
As for Middle East-based agencies, the winners were:
Impact BBDO Dubai won 4 Gold including 3 gold for AnNahar’s “Newspapers Inside the Newspaper” and the 4th gold for EBM’ “Schoolgirl Newscasters”. Impact BBDO was the most awarded agency from the middle East at this year’s Cresta.
MullenLowe MENA won 3 gold, one silver and 2 bronze for Aurora50 “Fixing the BAIs” campaign.
Wunderman Thompson Riyadh won one gold and 2 silver for the “Subconscious Order” campaign for HungerStation.
Leo Burnett Dubai won one Gold, one silver and one bronze for K-Lynn’s “Self check-out”; also another silver and one bronze went for Home Center’s “The Homecoming”; and 2 bronze were earned for McDonald’s “Swings” campaign.
Leo Burnett Beirut won two bronze for its ABAAD “Dirty Laundry” campaign.
Saatchi& Saatchi Middle East won 3 bronze for Kinokuniya’s “Time to Read” print & OOH campaign.
Horizon FCB Dubai won a bronze for its DHL “Message Delivery” campaign.
Cresta was founded in 1993 and exists solely to encourage, discover and reward standards in creativity. As part of Creative Standards International, it is a sister organisation to the world's leading creative publication, Lürzer's Archive.
All winners can be viewed here.
