The Publicis agency made history at Cannes Lions. The firm led by Juan Carlos Tapia has marked a milestone in the creativity festival by winning the Grand Prix For Good with the #SeguimosHablando campaign, in which journalist Javier Valdez, assassinated in 2017, ‘revives’ to give a message to the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This recognition, which is the highest award given in the global contest, is the second that Mexico has obtained in the history of the festival.
“We are happy, but in an unexpected way. We trusted a lot in this piece, in its cause, but the recognition came as a surprise, we did not come. It is a very special award for us, ”says Tapia, CEO of Publicis Worldwide Mexico.
In the 2021 edition of Cannes Lions, #SeguimosHablando is also crowned the most awarded Mexican campaign in the history of the event with nine lions: three gold in the Direct, Social & Influencer and Sustainable categories; two silver in Direct and Sustainable, three bronze in PR and Media, and the Grand Prix For Good, which is awarded to the best work created for charities, foundations, non-governmental organizations, non-profit organizations and artistic installations such as museums and libraries.
The winning campaign was carried out together with the organization for the defense and legal representation of journalists at risk, Propuesta Cívica. In its first stage, which saw the light in 2019, the Twitter accounts of four journalists murdered in Mexico –Javier Valdez, Miroslava Breach, Moisés Sánchez and José Armando Rodríguez ‘El Choco’– were reactivated to demand justice for their deaths and the from his colleagues in the country.
In November 2020, the second installment of the campaign arrived, in which Javier Valdez ‘revived’ to ask the president of Mexico to commit to generating policies for the protection of journalists and freedom of expression.
This year, Mexico closed its participation in Cannes Lions with 11 medals, nine from Publicis and two more that Leo Burnett won with Untouchables, a work carried out together with the Mexican startup Eva Center, which developed a method to detect cancer of the breast through thermography.
The campaign, which won a silver lion in the Health & Wellness category and a bronze one in Outdoor, arises in response to the low number of women who are screened to detect breast cancer early, since in many cases their husbands they forbid testing because they do not want them to be seen or touched by other people.
“We knew it would work from the first moment, because cultural insight is very strong in rural communities, and Eva’s technology has been more than proven over the years, in different field works,” says Horacio Navarro. , CEO of Leo Burnett. To date, Eva Center has carried out more than 20,000 studies, which has made it possible to detect more than 1,500 cases of breast cancer in time.
The first time Mexico won a Grand Prix was in 2015. Leo Burnett was the agency that obtained the highest award in the Health & Wellness category, he did it with Intimate Words, a work done for the Always feminine hygiene products brand.
In this campaign, which placed Mexico as the first country in Latin America to obtain a Grand Prix, the experts turned to sociologists, doctors, linguists and people from San Bartolomé Quialana, in Oaxaca, to create words that the women of the community could use to name their reproductive organs, which they had never mentioned because it was considered taboo.
This allowed them to better explain their symptoms and prevent diseases such as cervical cancer. The new words were brought together in a book that was distributed in the community.
The return of the Mexican industry
The best year of the national advertising industry at the festival of creativity was 2015, when it won 27 lions. The following year there were 13 awards he won, for 2017 he got 10, in 2018 the number of awards fell to nine and in 2019 only five medals were awarded.
“Mexico’s participation and the number of trophies had been in decline in the last five years. Although there are currently 11 lions for Mexico, we have not reached the figures for the best participations. However, we are raising and getting a significant amount back is something very valuable. (As an industry) we should be happy for the agencies that played a very prominent role in the festival, ”says Alfredo Alquicira, creative executive director of McCann Worldgroup.
For the creative, who was part of the jury of Cannes Lions 2021 in the Direct category and in Young Lions – the contest for young creatives -, the fact that the awards obtained are concentrated in a couple of agencies and cases should be a reason to encourage the industry to work and register more parts. “It is a boost for the union, because having more awards ensures a greater representation on the juries,” he mentions.
In this sense, the challenge facing the industry now is “to get on the standard that the winning agencies have just set and build a successful path for Mexico,” adds Gabriela Paredes, leader of Mediabrands Content Studio, who was part of the jury of the Outdoor category at the festival. “They set the example, we have to follow it.”
Experts agree that this year the festival recognized Mexico in categories in which previously they had not even been represented. For Alquicira this is a sign that the national industry is moving away from traditional formats, that its ideas and campaigns are beginning to compete in a more integrated way and that, in addition, they are obtaining recognition.
