Gary Steele’s Cannes Diary #2

Gary Steele, chief creative officer at DDB Aotearoa represented New Zealand on the Cannes Direct Lions jury. Steele, along with most of the other NZ and Australian jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

#TimeToCelebrate

And we are done.

After a solid 3 days of judging filled with intense discussions, lots of debate and possibly the worse coffee I have ever had, the direct jury is done and we have our final list of winners.

It was a gruelling task to sift through that body of work with hundreds of entries in the shortlist. Every piece of work made us question if this was direct. That question led to lots of interesting debates around each piece and why it is a standout. As usual, though the great work floats to the top and the work that stood out started to create a gap between the rest. That gap wasn’t very big though as this year’s quality of work was amazing and those that didn’t make it into the metal can still hold their heads up high. But we had to find the best in the category.

And boy did we find something special. The discussion for Grand Prix wasn’t an easy one as we had two very strong contenders but what came out on top is truly great.

And whilst we were celebrating giving away a Grand Prix. New Zealand was outside celebrating by bringing home a couple of them home too.

Well done to Special and Colenso for floating to the top of this amazing year’s body of work and making us all proud.