By Mary Maddever and Jennifer Horn

It was a good, nay, great night for Rethink and Kraft Heinz in Cannes. The duo got to strut their way to the awards stage three times across three categories, for the first time in it’s history. Here’s why the work was deemed worthy of Gold.

Social & Influencer 

Eighteen. That’s how many times Rethink’s “Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch” has, so far, shown up across Cannes Lions shortlists. Naturally we’ve been watching and waiting for this one to land a medal. Today was the day.

The work – with the idea to hatch a new condiment born out of a single tweet – already collected two Bronze Lions in Media and one in PR earlier this afternoon. But this evening it was granted an enviable Gold in Social & Influencer.

Considering how loved the piece is across the competition, we asked why not Grand Prix? “If you unpack the campaign – and we had to do this because everything is social, and social is everything – it was driven by a lot of different channels,” Christina Miller, chief social officer at VML in the U.K. and Social & Influencer juror, told strategy.

While the insight to rebrand Kranch (which had been tanking in sales) as Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch (which blew up in sales) wouldn’t have come to light without social, everything else around the product was done without social. It wasn’t totally reliant on social like the piece the jury ultimately chose for the Grand Prix: “Michael Cerave” by Ogilvy PR in New York.

“Michael Cera seeded a conspiracy theory, which is very social by nature,” explained Miller. “Yes, it landed in a Super Bowl spot, but it was so much more than that. Without the conspiracy theory and all that social seeding around it, the idea wouldn’t have worked. They wouldn’t have been able to build that momentum. It would have just been a TV spot at the Super Bowl.”

Direct

“Heinz Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch” also won a Gold in Direct (one of only 10), giving Kraft Heinz and Rethink another Lion to pair with the Direct Bronze they won earlier today.

It was a big category, according to Direct Lions jury president Pancho Cassis, partner and global CCO at David in Madrid, who made the jury sit down together to rewatch it all, more than 2,000 pieces of work. Canadian judge Shelley Brown, CSO of FCB, told strategy they were the last jury – and people – to leave the building Sunday night and ended up getting locked in, until they found a cleaner to let them out.

She said it’s been a great year for Canadian creativity and added that, in Direct, necessity is the mother of invention, with Canadian budget constraints building strength in the category. “Canada has always had to be adept at finding exactly the right target. We’ve always understood that if we can get the audience to participate, we can build scale.”

The need for focus is explained by the breadth and the context of the category; Cassis says “today, direct is embedded in almost every campaign.” One theme noted in the work was consistency, building on brand platforms in the space. “Direct is work that finds people in moments that other methods wouldn’t be able to do. And then invites them to do something, and that reaction makes the work bigger, more engaging, shareable.”

The Grand Prix went to “The Everyday Tactician” for Xbox Game Pass, out of McCann London. The piece used the game to recruit a tactician for an actual team, and then created a sports documentary on how the new hire helped Bromley FC out. Cassis says that besides being super clever, the work exhibited patience – “something we don’t have time for as an industry.”

“They found an amazing insight, did a bet that the recruit could make an impact and then they made a show.” Cannes Lions CEO Philip Thomas added that the case had the best result ever: “Best season since 1892.”

PR

If there’s anything we know about Kraft Heinz, it’s that the brand has an appetite for creative bravery – globally, but most especially in Canada. It’s one of reasons the Lions festival invited the country’s own Diana Frost, chief growth officer at Kraft Heinz, to present on stage in Cannes this week. Here, she talked to an international audience about how to revamp the legacy brand for a modern audience by way of its creative, much of it led out of Rethink in Toronto.

That plucky fearlessness was not lost on the PR Lions jury. The group awarded “Heinz Fraud” a Gold tonight, and according to jury president, Kat Thomas of Havas-owned PR firm One Green Bean, “it was the bravery of leaning into a product challenge that excited us most.”

“It’s interesting that you’ve got this iconic product, and yet people still cut corners,” she said, adding that the jurors appreciated how smart the campaign was a customer acquisition tool (people could fill out a form and identify who was committing ketchup fraud in their neighbourhood). “It grew their sales database a hundredfold. It was a very smart mechanic.”

As for the Grand Prix, that went to “The Misheard Version” by Specsavers and Golin London, its second of the week. For the piece, Specsavers hired Rick Astley re-record his iconic hit single “Never Gonna Give You Up” with the lyrics people have misheard for years.

Thomas echoed a similar sentiment around creative bravery, commending the brand and agency for tackling a product – hearing aids – that nobody wants to talk about. “In some markets, there’s a stigma attached with hearing loss and there’s a stigma attached with getting older. So it’s quite a dry category and probably not known for its creative bravery.”