Cyber winners shine

19 Jun 2008

CANNES: Australia won a single Cyber Lion, while New Zealand doubled that effort with two, as part of a competition that forced the judges to address the blurring of the lines between mediums.

The judges doled out three Grands Prix, to Japan (for Uniqlo), Norway (Scandinavia Online) and the US (Trent Reznor/Nin).

Soap Creative won Australia's Cyber Lion, a Silver, for Foxtel, "See Something, Feel Something", while JWT Auckland won a Silver for Ford "Balloons" and Colenso BBDO a Bronze for New Zealand Book Council's "Read a book at work".

The US and UK tied for most number of Cyber Lions, winning 16 each, with the US's haul including the Grand Prix. London hotshop Lean Mean Fighting Machine won Cyber Agency of the Year, with second place going to Crispin Porter + Bogusky Miami, and third to Projector Tokyo.

Judge Sam Ball, creative partner of the Cyber Agency of the Year-winning Lean Mean Fighting Machine, said the jury judged according to two main criteria: whether the work was persuasive and whether it was original. "Then you go on to craft, execution and everything else," he said.

Jury President Colleen DeCourcy, chief digital officer of TBWA Worldwide, said the jury "spent a lot of time" deliberating over whether some entries fitted into the Cyber category or belonged in other mediums. "As what we do becomes more and more ubiquitous, it become part of other juries [mediums]."

This blurring of the lines, however, is affecting all aspects of advertising not just cyber and interactive, DeCourcy said, citing examples such as film versus viral film, stunts that fall into the promotions space, as well as events.

The US judge, Michael Lebowitz, founder & CEO of Big Spaceship, had this to say on the matter: "Our job is to find the innovation and insight in the work, and if you are in a medium that operates in real time and changes constantly, you can't worry about the rigidity of the categories."

The judges also noted that the Cyber category, in line with the industry as a whole, has evolved from a focus on techonolgy to recognising the insights into how people use technology. "We started with technology, but today it's more about the experience," Paul Clements, CD of TBWA Denmark, said.