Creativity’s superpower to drive business growth celebrated at global awards

The highly-coveted creative effectiveness category at Cannes Lions showcase the business impacts of creativity, according to one of the judges Publicis Groupe ANZ chief executive Michael Rebelo.

Publicis Groupe ANZ chief executive Michael Rebelo.

The power of creativity to deliver business impacts, market-share and return on investment has been demonstrated on the global stage, with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity recognising 16 brands as the pinnacle of creative effectiveness.

The annual awards recognise work that demonstrates how an effective strategy rooted in creativity has not only achieved its business objectives, but has generated positive customer outcomes and driven sustainable business impact over time. The category, which is only eligible to work that has been awarded at previous Cannes Lions in the creativity categories, provides a robust showcase of best-in-class case studies for businesses, marketers and agencies.

Speaking exclusively to The Growth Agenda from Cannes, Publicis Groupe ANZ chief executive Michael Rebelo, who was one of 10 members of the global jury, said the awards were a critical tool for marketers and agencies to demonstrate the importance of creativity for business success.

“These awards showcase how creativity can be the superpower for business that will lead to a superior competitive advantage, transformation and growth,” Mr Rebelo said. “And how that is unlocked through great ideas, great thinking and great strategy.

“What these awarded campaigns and brands demonstrate is the top-line growth, the market-share growth, the return on investment that creativity can deliver when done right and done well.”

The global awards apply a robust criteria to whittle the 302-strong entries in the category this year down to a shortlist of 20 entries and ultimately award 14 winners and the Grand Prix.

Mr Rebelo was joined by a diverse selection of senior marketing leaders from Unilever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Impossible Foods and Bacardi, alongside business and strategic leaders from Ogilvy, McCann WorldGroup, Sancho BBDO and Uncommon Creative Studio, to select the winners, crowning a series of marketing campaigns for Heinz ketchup as the world’s best example of how creativity can deliver direct business impacts and drive growth.

Mr Rebelo said the “It has to be Heinz” campaigns, which had been lauded with awards over the past few years for its creative executions and strong strategic insights, was an outstanding example of the cumulative and sustained effect of creativity to serve a multiplier of business results.

“Heinz is an iconic mainstay brand in a very competitive category, but they were facing a decline in their sales, because the generic ketchup category was stealing market share,” Mr Rebelo said. “They didn’t go and come up with a brand new campaign, they went back to what the brand is about, which is product quality, and they doubled down on it. They stayed focused and consistent and delivered brilliantly executed creative campaigns over the last three or four years.”

A still from the Heinz campaign that won the Grand Prix for creative effectiveness.

The jury looked for work that had “audaciousness and ambitious in its objectives”, that demonstrated bravery and the boldness of the idea, the effectiveness in terms of causality versus correlation in terms of how much the campaign led the results, and the final criteria was direction, with the jury assessing how significant the case study was in terms of defining industry practice.

Ultimately, though, Mr Rebelo said the work that rose to the top of the category demonstrated clear business impact.

“We were looking for direct sales growth,” he said. “We were looking for real strong, tangible market share goals. We were looking for ROI. Those that had done the modelling to get to an ROI would have done a lot better than those that didn’t. Results were critical; it was the strong results, the more tangible results that can demonstrate a link directly to sales and ROI that would rise to the top.”

Mr Rebelo said the Heinz work performed strongly across all criteria. “It was such a powerful strategy,” he said. “It was a brand being very brave, in the face of adversity.

“Delivering massive sales results in a competitive category with audaciousness, ambition, and bravery in the creative idea that can really draw up the causality of these campaigns, arresting the decline and grabbing market share back. It was the Grand Prix, without a doubt.

“It provides learnings for future brand marketers and agencies to a classic brief of reversing decline. The standard approach to reversing decline is creating a new platform. Because, when you’re faced with adversity, most think you need to launch a whole new brand platform and work out a whole new positioning and a whole new campaign.

“Heinz did not do that. What they did was commit to the brand heritage, to the consistency of the platform, and used creativity to bring it to life, to energise it, and to make sure that it resonates in new and interesting ways.”

Mr Rebelo said the category award winners were excellent examples of the importance of commercial creativity and should serve as strong justification against cutting marketing investment when faced with economic challenges.

“Too often we are at the top of the list when it comes to cost-optimisation, but what these awards should hopefully do is reclaim, undeniably, that when done right, creativity will have a multiplier effect on your investment,” he said.

“We’ve got to change that terminology from cost to investment and optimising that investment.

“It’s sometimes frustrating that despite all of these great examples, that we are still faced with these challenges. And our marketing partners still have to justify the role of marketing in organisations, the investment required to stimulate demand, to stimulate interest, to stimulate relationships with their customers, because you can’t move business if you don’t move people. This is commercial creativity applied to business problems and challenges, which is how you then deliver growth and sales.”

In addition to the Grand Prix winner, the jury awarded a total of two gold, five silver and seven bronze Lions. Among the winners, Mr Rebelo noted standouts such as Budweiser’s global campaign ‘Brand Home the Bud’ , which the brand produced in two days for the FIFA World Cup after the Qatari government’s last-minute decision to ban beer at all stadiums. The global sponsor was under pressure to create the new campaign, avoid significant losses from its global sponsorship deal and achieve positive results.

Mr Rebelo also acknowledged Australia’s Honest Egg Co, which scooped a bronze award for it Fit Chix campaign. The brand created the world’s first step counter for chickens to demonstrate the brand’s commitment to its free-range policy. The campaign delivered a 40 per cent increase in orders and a 222 per cent increase in stockists for its products.