Cannes’ Cyber Grand Prix Trio: Arcade Fire Burns Bright; Old Spice’s “Responses” Resonate; R/GA’s “Tweet” Pays Off1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteCANNES, France, June 22, 2011, — Three Grand Prix honors were bestowed today in the Cyber competition at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., earned its Cyber Grand Prix on the strength of the Old Spice “Responses” initiative, which featured 186 personalized YouTube response videos from “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (played by Isaiah Mustafa) to Old Spice fans who commented on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Digg, 4chan and other sites. The campaign pushed the boundaries of what it means to be “interactive” and became an Internet sensation, generating some 52 million views on YouTube.
Also earning Cyber Grand Prix distinction was “The Wilderness Downtown,” an interactive music video created by @radical.media director Chris Milk and Google’s Aaron Koblin for Arcade Fire’s single “We Used To Wait” from their latest album The Suburbs.
With digital work done by B-Reel Films and deploying Google Maps and Street-view for Google Chrome Experiments, the music video takes a personalized approach by enabling users to input an address from their childhood which then places them at the center of the film’s story. Viewers see themselves in the film as they run through the streets of their old neighborhood and finally reach their childhood home. This is tied very closely to the song’s lyrics to make for a powerful emotional experience.
