Cannes Contenders 2018

Every year, we ask a handful of creative directors from different parts of the world and with different perspectives on the industry to tell us which three pieces of work they think should be a shoo-in for Gold at the Cannes Lions festival in June.

Agency: adam&eveDDB, London 
Client: C.A.L.M. 
Title: Suicide Statues 

Went to see this. That feeling you get when you peer over a ledge from up high when your knees sink and your balls ache (maybe that’s just me and heights) - that’s how visceral it felt looking at this. Then to understand that each represents a real person who took his life and each had a real meaning to a family… impossible to put into words. Blown away with the effectiveness on what was undoubtedly a small budget. This year’s ‘Fearless Girl’? 

Agency: 4Creative, London 
Client: Channel 4 TV 
Title: The Human Test 

Fake personality test to get people to watch the new TV series of ‘Humans’, which uses a voice assistant to work out if you’re a human or a synth. A timely poke at the paranoia around robots… 

Agency: TBWA Paris 
Client: WWF 
Title: #toolatergram 

Nice use of the fomo egos of travel blogging… Nine Instagrammers posted pictures of beautiful places around the world then follow-up images of the blight that had fallen on those glorious landscapes to f**k them up. 

Agency: WMcCann Latam 
Client: Hospital de Amor 
Title: The Fall 

A really personal one: the rebrand of a children’s cancer hospital launched with a touching animation that manages not to trivialise or sensationalise the journey a family goes through when one of their children is diagnosed with cancer. I doubt very much if this is Gold fodder, but in terms of a small insight into that journey, it does its job well. 

(Editor’s note. Steven’s son has been critically ill, hence the relevance of this idea to him personally.)