Ogilvy and Dove/Unilever has been awarded the Grand Prix in both the Print and Publishing and Outdoor categories at the Cannes Lions Festival. The team also scooped two Golds in P&P and one in Outdoor, two Silvers plus a shortlist place in Health & Wellness for its campaign for beauty brand Dove at this year’s virtual Cannes Lions Awards 2021.
The striking global campaign ‘Courage is Beautiful’ for Dove, celebrates the strength and determination of front-line workers, visibly marked by the protective gear they wore while committed to carrying out their essential work during the coronavirus pandemic. Launched in April 2020, the campaign was devised and delivered within six days, by Ogilvy in the UK and Canada.
Daniel Fisher, global ECD, Ogilvy comments: “It’s an amazing honour to get a Cannes Grand Prix, but this one is even more special because it’s a testament to the wonderful teamwork that took place between two Ogilvy offices and our Dove clients during those dark and scary first few days of lockdown. We never set out to win awards with this work – in fact we didn’t even set out to make an ad campaign. We just asked the question, ‘what can we do to help?’ and it grew from there.”
The ad featuring real doctors and nurses was created by Daniel Fisher, global ECD; Brian Murray, chief creative director, Toronto; Juliana Paracencio, global creative director, London; Christian Horsfall, group creative director, Toronto and Pam Danowski, associate creative director, Toronto.
This is the first ever digitally broadcast Cannes Lions awards ceremony, covering two years’ work, following the event’s cancellation during the Covid-19 crisis last year. In total, 29,074 pieces of work have been entered to the Festival of Creativity from 90 countries for the event.