You can view the Honda ad on the British Television Advertising Awards website here.
Honda's diesel ad cleans up at awards festival
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
Sat Jun 25, 7:14 PM ET
CANNES, France (Reuters) - An animated Honda television commercial that extols the virtues of hatred for its power to inspire change, in this case building a cleaner diesel engine, was lavished with top prizes from its peers in the ad industry on Saturday night.
The "grrr" campaign, which shows an engine flying through a colorful fantasyland backed by an infectious song by radio host Garrison Keillor, won the grand prize for TV and shared honors in the newly created titanium category, which recognizes innovation and best use of multiple media.
It was created by the London office of Wieden & Kennedy.
The "grrr" campaign with its "hate something, change something" refrain had been widely expected to win at the 52nd International Advertising Festival, after collecting numerous gongs at other competitions.
"It's unusual, irresistible, indefatigable and selling-point intensive," Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield wrote in a column earlier this week.
Meanwhile, TBWA's office in Paris won agency of the year for its cumulative awards across media during the festival. It is the third year in a row the agency, owned by Omnicom Group, has won the award at Cannes.
The victory could be a swan song for the agency's global chief, Jean-Marie Dru, who is being wooed for the top job at Paris-based Havas, the world's sixth largest ad group.
Havas Chairman and CEO Alain de Pouzilhac resigned earlier this week after losing a power struggle with the company's biggest shareholder, Vincent Bollore.
The London office of Omnicom's DDB agency took second prize overall and the DDB Paris branch was third.
DDB London won a bronze Lion, as the awards are called, for a popular Volkswagen Golf ad featuring a digitally altered clip of Gene Kelly dancing in "Singin' in the Rain." It won another bronze for turning Unilever's Marmite yeast extract spread into a blob of horror-film proportions.
Among the 30 commercials awarded gold Lions was a farcical Sony Playstation campaign created by TBWA\London depicting golfers being stalked by porn stars as if they were animals in a nature documentary.
Publicis' Leo Burnett agency won a gold for an Altoids campaign that had a similar twist, spoofing a National Geographic-like tour of Altoidia, where the natives are not affected by the ultra-sour candies.
In the newly created titanium category, three of the four winners were car companies, including Honda, which shared the prize with a campaign by Host for Virgin Mobile Australia.
Volvo Car's "Life on Board Project," from Fuel Europe, won for its interviews with real people about their lives while driving and a Mini Cooper campaign created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky also shared the titanium crown for a humorous campaign to spot supposedly counterfeit vehicles.
"Eventually I think the whole festival will move toward this category," said titanium jury president Jeffrey Goodby, the co-chairman of Omnicom agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
Advertisers are increasingly shifting money away from television advertising into a broader mix of media, which is why the industry created an award to recognize such work that didn't quite fit into any other category.
Though it is ostensibly for the best integrated campaign, Goodby said the jury decided it was to hold up "work that will show the way forward for the industry."
The festival also gave out prizes in radio for the first time. Anheuser-Busch's cheeky "Real Men of Genius" ads for Bud Light beer, which also have been transformed into a series of TV spots, won the grand prize in the category.
The ads created by DDB Chicago feature such characters as Mr. Pro Sports Heckler Guy and Mr. Hot Stock Tip Giver Outer.
Honda's diesel ad cleans up at awards festival
By Jeffrey Goldfarb
Sat Jun 25, 7:14 PM ET
CANNES, France (Reuters) - An animated Honda television commercial that extols the virtues of hatred for its power to inspire change, in this case building a cleaner diesel engine, was lavished with top prizes from its peers in the ad industry on Saturday night.
The "grrr" campaign, which shows an engine flying through a colorful fantasyland backed by an infectious song by radio host Garrison Keillor, won the grand prize for TV and shared honors in the newly created titanium category, which recognizes innovation and best use of multiple media.
It was created by the London office of Wieden & Kennedy.
The "grrr" campaign with its "hate something, change something" refrain had been widely expected to win at the 52nd International Advertising Festival, after collecting numerous gongs at other competitions.
"It's unusual, irresistible, indefatigable and selling-point intensive," Advertising Age critic Bob Garfield wrote in a column earlier this week.
Meanwhile, TBWA's office in Paris won agency of the year for its cumulative awards across media during the festival. It is the third year in a row the agency, owned by Omnicom Group, has won the award at Cannes.
The victory could be a swan song for the agency's global chief, Jean-Marie Dru, who is being wooed for the top job at Paris-based Havas, the world's sixth largest ad group.
Havas Chairman and CEO Alain de Pouzilhac resigned earlier this week after losing a power struggle with the company's biggest shareholder, Vincent Bollore.
The London office of Omnicom's DDB agency took second prize overall and the DDB Paris branch was third.
DDB London won a bronze Lion, as the awards are called, for a popular Volkswagen Golf ad featuring a digitally altered clip of Gene Kelly dancing in "Singin' in the Rain." It won another bronze for turning Unilever's Marmite yeast extract spread into a blob of horror-film proportions.
Among the 30 commercials awarded gold Lions was a farcical Sony Playstation campaign created by TBWA\London depicting golfers being stalked by porn stars as if they were animals in a nature documentary.
Publicis' Leo Burnett agency won a gold for an Altoids campaign that had a similar twist, spoofing a National Geographic-like tour of Altoidia, where the natives are not affected by the ultra-sour candies.
In the newly created titanium category, three of the four winners were car companies, including Honda, which shared the prize with a campaign by Host for Virgin Mobile Australia.
Volvo Car's "Life on Board Project," from Fuel Europe, won for its interviews with real people about their lives while driving and a Mini Cooper campaign created by Crispin Porter + Bogusky also shared the titanium crown for a humorous campaign to spot supposedly counterfeit vehicles.
"Eventually I think the whole festival will move toward this category," said titanium jury president Jeffrey Goodby, the co-chairman of Omnicom agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
Advertisers are increasingly shifting money away from television advertising into a broader mix of media, which is why the industry created an award to recognize such work that didn't quite fit into any other category.
Though it is ostensibly for the best integrated campaign, Goodby said the jury decided it was to hold up "work that will show the way forward for the industry."
The festival also gave out prizes in radio for the first time. Anheuser-Busch's cheeky "Real Men of Genius" ads for Bud Light beer, which also have been transformed into a series of TV spots, won the grand prize in the category.
The ads created by DDB Chicago feature such characters as Mr. Pro Sports Heckler Guy and Mr. Hot Stock Tip Giver Outer.
