Cannes Lions 2024: Film, Titanium, Glass and SDG winners

Film Lions

Headed by Tor Myhren, VP of marketing communications at Apple, the Film Lions jury awarded two Grands Prix this year. 

Since 2012 the festival has permitted two Grands Prix in Film to allow the jury to contemplate longer and shorter form work separately and, this year, we saw a two-minute and four-and-a-half-minute film win the big prize.

"[The jury] decided early on not to let case studies play a big role in their judging."

Orange's powerful film about women's football grabbed one of the two top prizes. Created by Marcel Paris, with production from Prodigious Paris, the spot cleverly and impactfully highlighted the sometimes inherent sexism in football by featuring the amazing skills, technique and passion of France's men's team, before the film flipped, showing that VFX has superimposed male footballers over the France women's team. 

While saying that the film itself might not, technically, have been the best film, Myhren also said, "sometimes the idea wins out over everything . To see it is to love it." He also said the he and his jury "decided early on not to let case studies play a big role in their judging". 

Above: Orange's Grand Prix-winning film.

The second Grand Prix was awarded to the Sydney Opera House's Play It Safe campaign, fronted by Australian comedian and musician, Tim Minchin. 

"We fell in love with its celebration of the creative spirit."

Created by The Monkeys Sydney and directed  by Kim Gehrig through Revolver x Somesuch, the film is a fantastic, ironic paean to people who play it safe, all the while celebrating the Sydney Opera House's 50th birthday and the amazing, diverse, creative array of talent that both built it and have performed within it.

Above: Sydney Opera House's Play It Safe.

"We fell in love with its celebration of the creative spirit," said Myhren. "Orange was the best film idea, Play It Safe was the best film."  

Before announcing the winners he said that the jury had noticed a few trends in the work they judged, the main one being that the length of the entered films had grown exponentially. "There was a lot of longform," Myhren said, "and 99% of it was too long."

Above [from far left]: Jury presidents Cindy Gallup, Gustavo Lauria, Phil Thomas [Cannes CEO], Tor Myhren and Debbie Vandeven.

Alongside the two Grands Prix there were 12 gold Lions, 16 silver and 26 bronze handed out. Apple picked up two golds for Fuzzy Feelings and Relax; Tractor; Reporters Without Borders won gold for its The First Speech campaign and Channel 4 also won gold for its ident film.

Click here to see all the Film winners

Titanium Lions

Headed by Global CCO at VML, Debbie Vandeven, the Titanium jury awarded four Lions and one Grand Prix from 200 entries, with the GP headed to Wieden+Kennedy Portland and Suprette San Francisco for their campaign for DoorDash, DoorDash-All-the-Ads. 

Vandeven said the jury was pleased to see big brands being very brave, and that the jury also very much appreciated the in-person presentation aspect to this awards category. Of the Grand Prix-winning campaign, which saw DoorDash extend its delivery to every single brand that was advertising across the Super Bowl, with one lucky viewing winning products from all the ads, she said that the presenters of that campaign "talked about re-thinking everything", and that the jury believed the campaign "made people in the US also rethink the DoorDash product."

The three other Titanium winners were JC Decaux's Meet Marina Prieto, DP World's The Move to -15, and Xbox's The Everyday Tactician.  

Click here to see all the Titanium winners

Above: DoorDash's Titanium-winning campaign. 

Sustainable Development Goals Lions

Gustavo Lauria, Co-Founder, President and CCO at We Believers, and this year's SDG Lions jury president, said of the 2024 crop of SDG entries that "it wasn't about trends, but about solving real problems," and that the winners in this category had "creative common sense". 

"It wasn't about trends, but about solving real problems."

There were 10 bronze Lions, five silvers and four golds handed out, with the Grand Prix going to Publicis Conseil Paris for it's Renault Cars to Work campaign, which aided those starting a new job by allowing them to use a Renault car for free during the three month probation period of their new role. 

"It does exactly what we should do in advertising," commented Lauria. "It helps people, and it's good for business too."

Above: Renault, Cars to Work.

Click here to see all the SDG winners

Glass: The Lion for Change

The 2024 Glass Lion saw three bronze, two silver and one gold Lion awarded, with the Grand Prix headed to Ogilvy Singapore for its Vaseline campaign, Transition Body Lotion.

Headed by the Founder and CEO of makelovenotporn, Cindy Gallup, Transition Body Lotion saw a specialised moisturising lotion created by Unilever for those transitioning from male to female. Thailand has the highest percentage of men who transition to women and this product was specially formulated for them.

"It is a fantastic demonstration of how driving social change is good for business."

Gallup told her jury that, for this category, they were "free to exercise extreme cynicism" but, in the end, the jury unanimously agreed that this campaign should be the GP winner. "It is," Gallup said, "a fantastic demonstration of how driving social change is good for business."

Above: Vaseline's Transition Body Lotion.

Click here to see all the Glass Lion winners

Grand Prix for Good

With charity and PSA ads unable to win Grands Prix in any of the main categories across the Cannes Lions event, this category takes all of the gold Lion winners across the week to find out who get the top prize. Judged by the Titanium jury, this year's GP for Good went to Reporters Without Borders for it's The First Speech campaign.

Debbie Vandeven gave special mention to CoorDown's Assume That I Can campaign, saying it was a very close call, but that, ultimately, Reporters Without Borders got the jury's vote.