2024 Cannes Contenders: Dentsu creatives place their bets

As the Cannes Festival of Creativity 2024 descents on the marketing world, agencies have shared their predictions for campaigns they think will pick up a Lion.  

Today’s spotlight is on Dentsu, where Alice Chou, chief creative officer for Taiwan at Dentsu Creative and Andreas, chief creative officer at Dentsu Creative Indonesia, place their bets on who they feel deserves a Lion. 

Here are their picks. 

Campaign: ‘Sammakorn NOT Sanpakorn’ 
Brand: Sammakorn 
Cannes Lions category: Film 

In Thailand, Sammakorn, a housing developer, often experienced name confusion with the revenue department, frequently being mistaken for 'Sanpakorn'. To resolve this, Sammakorn initiated a humorous campaign featuring a film that sympathetically and playfully clarified their role in selling houses, not collecting taxes. Additionally, they encouraged social media users to share their own name confusion stories, using this common issue to better engage their audience. 

Chou says: “Advertising often likes to hide flaws and highlight virtues, but when something seems too perfect, people tend to doubt its authenticity. This video humorously addresses its brand name's common mispronunciation, turning their weakness into entertaining content. Doing so showcases the brand's confidence and sincerity, ensuring that viewers won't forget the brand name after watching.” 

Campaign: ‘#A million logos’ 
Brand: Colgate 
Cannes Lions category: Direct, Use of Social Platform 

Colgate A Million Logos Case Study from nicolascourant on Vimeo.

In a campaign coinciding with World Smile Day and World Mental Health Day, Colgate launched the #FreeYourSmile initiative to tackle 'smile shame'. By utilising a database of 15,000 public images of smiles, they recreated these smiles into Colgate's logo. The brand also developed a Smile Generator AI tool on its website, encouraging users to create their personalised Colgate smiles on TikTok and Instagram, promoting the celebration of all smiles. 

Chou says: “While most toothpaste brands promote perfectly straight and white teeth, in this project, they showcased natural, genuine smiles with various imperfections. These smiles became the logos, highlighting the brand's celebration of inclusive beauty.” 

Campaign: ‘Wi-Fries’ 
Brand: McDonald's 
Cannes Lions category: Brand Experience & Activation, Creative Commerce, Direct Lions 

In Indonesia, where poor Wi-Fi quality frustrates many young people, some have discovered the fast Wi-Fi available at McDonald's. McDonald's capitalised on this by launching ‘Wi-Fries’, a feature on their app that rewards users with free fries when they experience slow home Wi-Fi. Utilising a popular online speed test API, Wi-Fries compares home Wi-Fi speed with McDonald's Wi-Fi, offering discounts on fries based on the difference. This initiative aimed to attract more young customers to their restaurants, which had seen reduced foot traffic due to the pandemic. The campaign was launched across 297 locations, reaching 6.8 million app users, increasing app usage by 60%, and achieving a 45% redemption rate. 

Andreas says: “This campaign brilliantly taps into a core Indonesian insight, transforming it into a delightfully cheeky yet impactful direct promotion. The execution perfectly embodies the brand's spirit, from the playful name and character design to its alignment with the Indonesian audience's personality.”