Cannes Contenders: Canada

Stok'd - Next To Stok'd

Angry Butterfly struck Cannes gold last year with Bill it to Bezos. This idea is similarly single-minded, cheeky and mischievous. 

To circumvent Canada’s rules around marketing cannabis, the campaign promotes neighbouring businesses of a cannabis retailer Stok’d  instead. Everything from a nail salon to a bookstore.

The thinking here is the epitome of joyful rebellion, and the execution is just as fearlessly silly. There’s no shortage of weed-puns in the scripts, or cheeky shots like a “perfectly rolled” bouquet of flowers. It’s a solid example of embracing a creative constraint to unlock a more interesting idea.

Like our shop, Angry Butterfly is a new, independent, partly female-founded agency. Needless to say, I’m cheering them on enthusiastically. At HWC, our mantra is "Grit Makes Great", and this is one of those gritty, swinging for great ideas we love.

KitKat - Have AI Break, Have A KitKat

There’s sure to be no shortage of AI-driven ideas, panels and Aperol spritz-fueled conversations at this year’s festival, and I think we’re all feeling a bit of AI fatigue reading about the ‘seismic shifts’ that are ‘revolutionising’ the industry. 

I also subscribe to the belief that - more often than not - AI should be the ‘how’ not the ‘what.’ All that said, fellow indie shop Courage did something pretty special with their AI-driven idea for KitKat.

Casting artificial intelligence as the exhausted worker burnt out from answering our tireless barrage of questions imbues the work with an inherently human quality that feels fresh amidst a sea AI-generated-images (and the AI aesthetic that dominates most AI ads.)

I commend Courage for how tightly this idea ties back to the product and brand without feeling forced. It’s a wonderfully simple and timely idea that brings 2023 relevance to a beloved, classic tagline. A beautiful example of iconic meets modern.

Kraft Heinz - Heinz Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch

My seven-year-old would be thrilled to know I selected something that started with T-Swift herself! 

Given the cultural force Taylor was this past year, it only makes sense that she would have some sort of presence on advertising’s biggest stage, even if only as a bottle of sauce.

This is a beautiful example of a brand successfully removing the bureaucracy that makes moving quickly impossible. More often than not, by the time advertising reacts to the cultural moment, the internet has already moved on. Not the case here, which is surely a testament to the relationship and trust that Rethink and Kraft Heinz have built. 

Their ability to “dip” into the moment cannot be overstated. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) 

World Vision Canada - Feed a child. Feed a Childhood.

This is creative that I’d love to see belch a little louder at Cannes. 

The execution is so wonderfully simple and charming that one could almost be forgiven for missing just how strategically solid it is. An ingenious executional device - children from around the world burping to the delight and disgust of their family members - brilliantly gets to the promise of what World Vision offers: a world with more full bellies.

I love how this work takes what we may find distasteful and turns it into something delightfully entertaining. Tonally, it’s also so refreshing for a humanitarian aid organisation proving that heavy isn’t the only way to evoke emotion.

My five year old was in uproarious laughter watching this. Here’s hoping the Cannes jury loves it as much as she did.

Tangerine - Jumping Through Hoops

A simple idea, well told. Rethink and Nick Ball’s tragicomedy for Tangerine about a dystopic, ring-ified world is a masterclass in craft. Taking a common idiom and pushing it to its executional limits.

I could geek out for a while about all the details on display here, how each elevates the story to new heights. The sad beige palette, the sombre workers dressed in drabby, stiff suits, the infinite beauty of endless stacks of paper, ‘hoops’ at varying levels of rust and decay…that phone with nothing but circular rings for buttons!

At Hard Work Club, we believe that yes, advertising can be art. This is a wonderful example of that. I love to see this level of craft coming from Canada - it is anything but the same old, stuffy bank ad. 

Doordash - One Delivery in Three Acts

Well, I had to pick one of our own, right?

This campaign directed by the prolific Henry Scholfield and created in collaboration with our amazing partners at DoorDash Canada tells a single story from three interweaving points of view: That of the customer, the chef and the Dasher, each in their own thirty-second spot.

Inspired by the world of theatre, we built a surreal neighbourhood world that moved right alongside our actors and dancers, shooting it all over the course of five days in Toronto.

What I see when I watch this work now is the gargantuan effort put in by our small but deeply committed Hard Work Club and DoorDash team. Everything from colour to choreography, casting to store signage was highly considered and a true team effort. Regardless of what happens at Cannes, there was a ton of joy in this journey.