IDEA BAKERY

As the boundaries between advertising, activism, content, entertainment, and art continued to blur, the last 12 months was an especially exciting time for awards. We’ve identified 5 big themes to keep from the last decade's final award-winning campaigns and baked them into a delicious “inspiration cake” that we think if applied to your brands will make for some interesting food for thought in 2020 and beyond.

Here are the most recent award-winning campaigns to take forward, including the Creative Arts Emmys, Cannes Lions Grand Prix, D&AD Festival, A.D.C Annual Awards and other respected mediums.

1- A Base of Brand Purpose

Incredibly, the idea of “purpose” is almost a decade old - it’s matured from merely being an inspiration for a brand’s CSR strategy to the central foundation of all brand activities. Nike’s “Dream Crazy”, The New York Times’ “The Truth is Worth It” campaigns and Carrefour’s “Black Supermarket” were praised for purposefully walking the walk and taking action in line with their values and beliefs at the service of their raison-d’etre.

2- A Sprinkle of Sound

A medium largely untapped until the recent surge in voice-activated AI and podcasts, sound offers a whole new landscape for functional storytelling and enriching heads-up user interactions. Mastercard excelled in this area by adding a sound dimension to its brand equity and Westworld went a step further by integrating Alexa into their user experience.

3- Fandom in the Flour

Gaming culture and the power of fandom finally went mainstream this year, with Wendy’s ‘‘Keeping Fortnite Fresh’’ campaign. Cannes Lions have introduced a new ‘‘Entertainment Lions for Sports’’ to showcase how brands can tap into fan culture and go beyond traditional “sportainments” model of engagement.

4- Equality Mixed with Inclusivity

The message has evolved from merely recognizing diversity to fighting for the rights of all minorities. Volvo, IKEA, Wavio’s SeeSound, Microsoft Xbox Adaptive Controller and Google’s Creatability all went beyond the clichés with campaigns, addressing gender, mental health and physical disability.

5- A Spoonful of Creativity at Every Step

Stop hiding behind ideas and master integrating the ideas with new media rapidly” - a call-out to creatives was the plea of Nick Law (CCO Publicis Group) during his keynote speech at Cannes Lions this year, something that Burger King has been doing very successfully in recent years and that earned them a triple Grand Prix win at the same festival. In addition, he believes that organizations should “build value through connective ecosystems by placing creatives in leadership roles” with whom agency creatives can collaborate.
Tiffany & Co showcased their Chief Artistic Officer Reed Krakoff live on stage in an interview with Derek Blasberg. (Head of fashion & beauty partnerships at YouTube) as a great example of this new way of working.