The second day of Cannes is in the books, and we're starting to get a more crystalized view of the work that jurors are eager to award—and why. Nike now at two Grand Prix and counting: Nike's "Dream Crazy" featuring Colin Kaepernick took home its second Grand Prix on Tuesday, adding the Entertainment Lion for Sport Grand Prix (a new award making its first appearance in 2019) to its earlier top honor in Outdoor. On the off chance these end up being the last Grand Prix the campaign takes home, that would still be an impressive run, but it's more likely that it might keep up this winning pace over the latter days of the festival. Sport jury president Steve Stoute, founder and CEO of Translation, perfectly encapsulated many of the conversations we've had with jurors about "Dream Crazy" this week when he announced the Grand Prix: "We felt like that’s the benchmark of the risk that we want creatives to take going forward. In our discussions, [we talked about how] people do anything not to get fired. And we want people to do things and take that risk and put it on the line because with great risk comes great reward." Wieden + Kennedy has generally been mum on the highly polarizing campaign, but agency co-president Colleen DeCourcy did touch on it briefly (and humbly) during her on-stage talk with Alfonso Cuarón on Tuesday: "The Colin Kaepernick work we've done with Nike was effective, I believe, because the world wanted that piece of work. All things came together to create this moment, and all we had to do was shoot this piece of work." Adweek's Creative 100: Not to toot our own yacht horn (just kidding, we don't have a yacht...yet), but Adweek's party celebrating this year's Creative 100 lineup was definitely a highlight of Tuesday's daytime social calendar. We saw a tremendous turnout of Creative 100 honorees including Refinery29 co-founder Piera Gelardi (shown above with Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam creative director Geoffrey Lillemon), filmmaker Jason Harper, Beats by Dre VP of Global Creative Marketing Sam Bergen and many more. Actor Rainn Wilson also dropped by to talk about his creative process, as well. Speaking to the crowd of his fellow Creative 100 honorees, Sergio Gordilho, CCO of the hot Brazilian agency Africa, encouraged agencies to create case studies that move behind big earned-media numbers and instead focus on the emotional and cultural impact of a creative idea. He noted that the Budweiser "Tagwords" campaign his agency submitted to Cannes last year included no numbers whatsoever—and won a Grand Prix in Print and Publishing. The first big film winner: While the Film Lions aren't announced until the final Cannes awards show this Friday, we got an early look at the work jurors seem to be gravitating to on Tuesday with the announcement of Film Craft honorees. The big winner? Droga5, whose "The Truth Is Worth It" campaign took home the Film Craft Grand Prix. That certainly reiterates that the NYT campaign is a leading contender for the coveted Film Grand Prix, though it's actually been somewhat rare in recent years that both juries gave top honors to the same ad. When Dwyane Wade first saw his Budweiser ad: I was lucky enough not only to run into NBA legend Dwyane Wade at a yacht party held in his honor Tuesday night by Vayner X and Budweiser, but also to be talking to him when director Ritesh Gupta asked Wade what it was like the first time he watched the tear-jerking Bud ad featuring people whose lives Wade has changed for the better. Wade said when he was sent the final spot (from VaynerMedia, which picked up multiple Lions in the sports category Tuesday), "I was bawling, and I was an emotional wreck for hours." A splash of cold water (and not from the beach): Amid all the celebration and lionizing on Tuesday, we also learned an interesting fact about Grand Prix winners at Cannes. Turns out, consumers typically don't love them. This has been a subject of debate for many years, with some believing that Grand Prix picks are the peak example of "advertising created for people in advertising." Predictive marketing firm System1 put this idea to the test, literally, by analyzing consumer response to 75 gold- and Grand Prix-winning campaigns from the past eight years. Here's how my colleague Doug Zanger summarized the mixed bag of results from the study, which asked viewers to rank ads on a scale of one to five: "On the upside, Gold and Grand Prix winners are three times as likely to score well with viewers than the average TV ad. On the downside, only four Grand Prix winners scored a three or higher and half of Grand Prix winners scored only one star, including the highly lauded 'The Talk' for P&G last year and 2017’s 'The Truth Is Hard to Find' for the New York Times in 2017. Of the 71 ads tested, 53% scored a three or higher, compared to 16% of all ads rated. Awarded ads are eight times more likely than non-winning ads to get the top five-star rating." Real people, not actors: If you've watched Verizon ads in recent months, such as its Super Bowl ad thanking first responders, you've likely noticed they've featured real people in real situations. CMO Diego Scotti spoke at Adweek's Terrasse Talk on Tuesday and noted that the approach is a focused pivot toward more grounded advertising: “We have really pivoted to have a very strong focus on authenticity that to me is at the heart of really good brand marketing these days. It has helped us to really transform the brand from the perspective of how people connect with it." Keep an eye on Adweek's coverage throughout the week at Cannes, and if you're at the festival, drop by an Adweek event to say hi! —David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
david.griner@adweek.com | 