Success at Cannes for Obama's Election Advertising Campaign

The extensive advertising campaign that got Barack Obama into the white house has been given acclaim and awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards. Advertising agency Droga5 won the Titanium prize for presenting an idea that is “provocative, challenges assumptions and points to a new direction” for ‘The Great Schlep’ campaign featuring Sarah Silverman intended to boost support for Obama amongst Jewish voters. In addition to a video where Silverman urged young "Jewish grandchildren" to travel to 'swing state' Florida and persuade their grandparents to vote Obama, the campaign also included an interactive website.

The Obama campaign also picked up the integrated prize for its innovative use of three or more different types of media to produce a convincing advertising campaign. It got recognition as a clever use of different media across the board from television, new media and online to grass roots door to door campaigning.

The film category also included aspects of Obama’s election campaign, where Charles Stone III, who created the famous Budweiser 'Wassup' ads in 2000, was given a special jury commendation for his 2008 reprisal of the classic ad. The new version saw the original characters who were once happy and chilled out going through tough times after eight years under George Bush, being posted to Iraq and affected by the Wall Street crash. Unfortunately this ad was not eligible to win a prize in the film category as the rules state that all entries must be commissioned by a commercial client and work towards promoting a corporate identity design, but the judges felt it deserved special recognition for being such a powerful political statement.

Another big winner was newspaper The Zimbabwean, for their campaign which used the country’s almost worthless banknotes on billboards, giving a whole new meaning to sign printing and scooping gold awards in both the Titanium and integrated categories. Other successful campaigns included the "dance" ad for T-Mobile featuring a huge dance sequence in Liverpool Street Station, and a paused bank robbery scene advertising a Philips TV in a unique interactive way.