Overview
Cannes Lions is the advertising industry's biggest stage, and every June, agencies fly home with a trophy count. In June 2015, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, MullenLowe Group launched "Can Your Lions": a pledge to donate the value of every Lion the agency won to the World Food Program (WFP), to help feed people in earthquake-ravaged Nepal, and a challenge to the rest of the industry to make the same pledge. I designed and built the interactive web experience that carried that pledge beyond the festival grounds.
The Problem
Cannes is unforgiving toward anything that reads as performative, and the creative industry has high standards for craft and low tolerance for self-congratulation. An awards-show cause campaign that centers the agency's own trophy case is worse than no campaign at all. The experience had to keep the focus on the WFP's mission and the families it served, not on MullenLowe's Lions count, while still making the industry's competitive instincts feel like they were pointed at something worth competing for.
The Solution
The site reframed an abstract donation into something concrete: a Grand Prix Lion ($2,906) converted to 5,812 days of food; a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Lion ($1,280) converted to 2,560 days, at the WFP's rate of roughly 50 cents to feed a person for a day in a country in need of humanitarian aid. A "Facts" page laid out that math, a "Goal" page carried the mission and an explainer video, and a "Pledge" page tracked the running total as Lions were won and converted, extending the campaign beyond the festival grounds so the broader creative community could follow along and add their own pledges.
The Outcome
In 2015, the industry pledged 81 Lions, providing 210,612 days of food through the WFP. For 2016, MullenLowe and the WFP set a bigger target: pledge 400 more Lions and exceed 1 million days of food, continuing the partnership into a second year.
Let's press record.
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