Gorkana’s Cannes Lions 2016 round-up

This year’s Cannes Lions festival may have highlighted the challenges PR agencies face to get recognition at the event but, as ever, there were wins to celebrate and lots of talking points. Here’s Gorkana’s round-up of news and views from last week’s event.

At the start of the week, Engine was announced as one of the winners of a Health Lion for the Missing Type campaign for National Blood Week.

Weber Shandwick, Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi London also gained bronze, gold and silver lions, respectively, for their work with health campaigns.

A total of 18 PR agencies were nominated for a PR Lion, including The Romans, Freud Communications, Engine London, Pitch and Taylor Herring.

However, out of the 18, only five PR agencies took awards home. Weber Shandwick-owned Prime Sweden secured three Lions; one gold, one bronze and one silver, and Edelman and its sister agency Zeno both received bronze Lions.

The US Ogilvy PR team received gold in the Young Lions PR Competition.

Mary Whenman, president at Women in PR and Communications Director at Callcredit Information Group, discussed her learnings as the only PR on a 10-strong judging jury for the Glass Lion: The Lion for Change panel.

PRCA’s director general, Francis Ingham, explained why Cannes 2016 will not be remembered with pride by PR agencies.

Top Tweets:

A great week for Missing Type, not such a great week for PR agencies around the world #canneslions #enginecannes https://t.co/Vb94gDy1Hc

— MHP Brand PR (@MHPbrand) 24 June 2016

Wow, that might the worst PR agency showing at #CannesLions PR category since 2010. Just 2 Gold Lions to PR agencies?

— Arun Sudhaman (@ArunSudhaman) June 21, 2016

Congrats to @ogilvypr winning young @Cannes_Lions for PR. #CannesLions #OgilvyCannes

— Nina Jasinski (@ninajas) June 21, 2016