Industry Craft Lions: Cannes 2021 Decoded

Ogilvy London/Ogilvy Toronto and Dove have picked up another set of awards for 'Courage is beautiful - this time the Grand Prix campaign for its 'Patrick', 'Patricia' and Amanda executions.

They also won Gold campaign Lions for 'Patricia' and 'Amanda'. Rapp London won Gold for 'Sofa sans' for Ikea, and Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO won a Silver and a Bronze for 'Creativity is essential' for Bombay Sapphire.

Shelley Smoler, executive creative director of Droga5 London and a member of the Industry Craft jury, talked to Creative Salon about the trends she saw in this category and how to create standout work.

What trends did you spot amongst the entries?

As usual, the work that tapped into culture and reflected the global conversation stood out across every category, including Craft. Inevitably a lot of the work was related to the pandemic and the year we’ve had in general.

However, I loved that even though quite a few pieces of work referenced the pandemic, the work that won did it in a way that managed to convey the distinctive purpose and tone of voice of the brand it was communicating. Only that brand could have made it, and when you think about the copious amount of sameness we saw at the beginning of the pandemic, you quickly realise which brands know who they are, what they stand for and what their markets want to see.

I think that it’s when we’re all living through the same experience together that the importance of craft takes on an even greater meaning because its role is to make the work distinctive. The work that stood out was meticulously observed and rendered perfectly to represent the brand it was advertising. The insights defined the brand’s purpose sharply and the visuals were perfectly tailored to its sensibilities and tone of voice.

What advice would you give to marketers who want to produce standout work in this category?

People often think that to do well in the Craft category, the work either needs to be over-designed, over-written or over-produced by the most celebrated artists in their respective fields.

But this is not always the case. In fact, one of the pieces that I was most drawn to in the photography craft section wasn’t shot by professional photographers at all, but the way the images were chosen, cropped, retouched and put together all resulted in a perfectly crafted photographic execution that touched people on an emotional level.

So while the category certainly honours plenty of specialists who have spent lifetimes honing their skills, one of the things I love about the Craft category is that it has a built-in principle for judging: the best crafted pieces are always the ones that service the idea.