Leo Burnett brings home a couple of French Lions
Leo Burnett Warszawa became the first Polish advertising agency to grab two Lion awards at world's largest International Advertising Festival in Cannes, which ended June 24.
"This year's festival was extremely competitive," said Darek Zatorski, the creative director at Leo Burnett. "However, it was easy for us to win the Golden Lion."
The agency won a Golden Lion in the media category for best special event/stunt. The winning ad was based on the closing of Ikea's Poznan store and a Leo Burnett-Ikea practical joke. Rather than informing the public that the company was simply planning to open a bigger outlet in the city, Leo Burnett employees staged fake protests outside the closed Ikea, calling for the Swedish firm to "give back our Ikea to us." Soon Poznan residents joined in the demonstration to keep the store's doors open. Poznanians even signed a petition protesting its shutdown. In the end, hundreds of people showed up at the opening of Ikea's sparkling new, expanded store. The campaign achieved its goal as Ikea saw a big number of clients pass through its doors and Leo Burnett picked up the prestigious Golden Lion.
"What really counts is an idea," said Jarek Ziebinski, managing director at the ad agency. "And, the simpler idea, the better effect. It (the Ikea event) was a great idea and there weren't any doubts (with jurors) about the decision."
The 47th festival also handed out awards for best film, press and poster and cyber piece.
Leo Burnett submitted 41 of the 15,000 entries from around the world. And 33 of those were in the press and poster category. Four of them reached the final rounds and one of them, an ad for Leo Burnett's media house Starcom titled "Tooth Decay" (Prochnica), won the Bronze Lion award in the advertising and media subcategory.
On July 8, in the town of Chalupy on the Hel peninsula in northern Poland, the digital television platform Wizja TV and Philips Polska, which supplies decoders to Wizja, were set to launch their summer promotional campaign. During the 44-day "Road Show" Wizja TV and Philips will take their presentation to 15 northern villages and cover 4,000 kilometers in the process. Wizja TV will travel in a specially designed, air-conditioned van equipped by Philips. "It's the best direct way of reaching our customers. We want our potential clients to experience in person the quality of our digitally broadcast image and sound," said Piotr Miroslaw, head of Home Access Solutions at Philips. The second summer promotional campaign will end in Gdansk on Aug. 26.
The absence of the Polish national football team in the Euro 2000 championship apparently didn't discourage the 9 million Poles who watched the first half of the final match starring France and Italy on TV last week. That smashing viewership record was beaten only 15 minutes later when 10.7 million viewers watched the second half of that match, estimated Osrodek Badania Opinii Publicznej (TNS OBOP).
Kredyt Bank will sponsor yet another Polish movie based on national literature: the production of "W pustyni i w puszczy" ("In Desert and Wilderness"), to be directed by Maciej Dutkiewicz. Three years ago, the bank supported the Jerzy Hoffman directed production of "Ogniem i mieczem" ("With Fire and Sword") with a credit line of zl. 17.8 million ($4 million). After the movie turned out to be an astonishing financial success, the bank became an exclusive sponsor of the promotion and distribution of "Pan Tadeusz," directed by Oscar-winner Andrzej Wajda. This year, Kredyt Bank is involved in the largest-to-date Polish movie production of "Quo vadis," based on the novel by Nobel-prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz. The bank's strategy stems from public opinion surveys conducted by Demoskop, which showed that 85% of respondents expect banks to financially support the development of Polish culture.
Justyna Wrobel contributed to this report
