Creative Commerce is one of the toughest categories to crack in Cannes.
Both the creative idea and the transactional moment must happen in concert. It’s not easy to engineer, let alone win a Gold Lion, but Edelman accomplished both in their “SHT” piece (not in the literal sense, of course) for IKEA.
Standing for “Second-Hand Tax,” the “SHT” campaign aimed to fight back against the unfair act of making people in Canada pay double taxes on second-hand items. The retailer created a “counter tax” that meant dropping the price of its second-hand items by 13%, which meant customers ended up paying 0% on purchases.
Erin Kawalecki, CCO at Angry Butterfly and Canada’s representative on the Creative Commerce jury at Cannes, told strategy that in all her career, she wasn’t able to appreciate how incredibly difficult it is to shortlist, let alone win, a medal in Cannes until this week.
She added that after multiple, painful rounds of case-culling, the jury ended deliberations with a final tally of 19 Lions – two of which went to Edelman and Rethink in Canada (the latter won a Bronze earlier today). “SHT,” in particular, was a slam dunk when it came to making a connection between the activation and sales.
“It was just so easy to connect the dots between the idea and what it did at the moment of purchase,” said Kawalecki of the work that stood out among hundreds of shortlisted ideas. “I think what really helped push it to get a Gold was the craft. The writing was so pared back and smart and in the brand voice.”
That convergence of creative and commerce – while impenetrable in the IKEA case – was outdone by the Grand Prix winner, “Cars to Work” by Renault and Publicis Conseil in Paris. The work saw the automaker create a car leasing model for low-income job seekers in remote areas.
Before sharing the GP-winning piece with reporters, Digitas North America CEO and jury president Amy Lanzi said the group was looking for work that centered around what they dubbed “community commerce” – the process of using commerce to galvanize a community around a problem, such as access to credit in the Renault campaign.
