John Caples Awards entries now open.

The only direct marketing awards show judged solely on creativity. The only direct marketing awards show judged solely by more than 80 top-level creative directors. The only direct marketing awards show to enter if you're only going to enter one.

Entry deadline: Monday, september 28.

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Caples Awards

IKEA "Staircase Drawer"

The objective of the communication was to highlight IKEA’s innovative ways to save space. The idea presents IKEA store’s main staircase as a chest of drawers with everything inside neatly organised, highlighting the efficient use of space in an impactful and larger-than-life manner. Bronze Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: Lowe & Partners Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

IKEA "Home furnishing liner"

Persuade the Japanese consumers that home furnishing is a great and fun way to improve their life at home and succesfully launch IKEA's first store in Kansai region. They hi-jacked an entire train both inside and outside, furnished with IKEA extiles, demonstrating that a monotonous daily place can be transformed into a place full of inspiration, with just a piece of textiles. The train is a symbolic line connecting from the centre of Kobe-city to IKEA Portisland store, that represents “From the place to sleep To home to enjoy”. TV, newspapers, online and other media made the IKEA launch event/store opening a major story, creating extensive WOM. Opening day sales set the world record for all IKEA stores, with nearly 40,000 customers. Bronze Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: ADK Tokyo, Japan.

Rodney District Council "Grenade"

The Rodney district contains a highway that leads north of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. It’s one of the most dangerous roads in New Zealand and has a rising death toll due specifically to speeders. The message: Slow down. They wanted to prove how violent the force in a crash was, so they had an engineer calculate what a head on collision would be equal to in grenades. At 125 kph it is equal to 10 grenades exploding. To demonstrate this they blew up a car, collected the debris, reconstructed it with 1000's of pieces of string and invited people to see it. Visitors included the Government officials, TV3 news (News Zealand's main news station) and, but most importantly, a surprising number of 18-25 year old males. Bronze Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Auckland, New Zealand.

Anti Drink Driving Awareness Campaign "Art Against Driving - Phase 2"

They took parts from a car that was wrecked in a drink driving accident and fashioned a wheelchair out of the parts. They then displayed it at a college where this crude example of art imitating life, juxtaposed with a hard-hitting message, caught the attention of passers-by. Finally, they put up pledge boards for people to show their support for the campaign. In July 2008, they launched a college competition where students can create their own interpretations of the result of drink driving. Bronze Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: BBDO/Proximity Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Rodney District Council "Haunting Girl"

Speed around schools has always been a huge issue in the Rodney district. So to get people to slow down they created a poignant campaign that would get people thinking about how it would feel to kill a child. To launch the campaign they plastered the whole district with images of a haunting little girl. For two weeks people saw the mysterious girl on walls, poles, around schools, shopping malls, parks, road sides, etc. Then during week three of the campaign they placed a sticker over the girl revealing the line, “The kids you kill never leave you.” Silver Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: Colenso BBDO Auckland, New Zealand.

Dunlop Falken Tyres "Melody Road"

For the safety awareness of DUNLOP, a Japanese tire manufacturer, they tried to make a road which plays a melody when the car runs. This set place in cooperate of NAGANO Prefecture , Japan. By making a groove on a road, a melody will run out by a friction. The reason why this turns out to be safety awareness, is that the melody won’t turn out if the car is not running by 40km/h. Gold Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: Dentsu Razorfish Tokyo, Japan.

Earth Hour "Monuments"

In the third year of Earth Hour, it was time to turn the symbol of switching off the lights into real action against global warming. In December 2009, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to determine if policies are made to take action against global warming. They targeted this meeting as a critical opportunity for people of the world to make their voice heard. To unite the world to take action, they transformed the light switch into a vote, and held an election between Earth and Global Warming. They asked the world to VOTE EARTH by switching off their lights for Earth Hour, with the goal of presenting the votes to world leaders in Copenhagen. Over 4000 cities in 88 countries voted by switching off their lights. This transformed the world’s lights into a medium, to create a global mandate for change. Gold Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: Leo Burnett Sydney, Australia.

NYC & Warner Brothers "Oasis Dig Out Your Soul"

Oasis taught over twenty NYC street-musicians unreleased songs from their album "Dig Out Your Soul." Those musicians took to the streets to perform the songs – weeks before the album launched. Acclaimed directors, The Malloys, documented the whole event. Gold Cannes Lions Outdoor Winner.

Agency: BBH New York, USA.

Fantastic Noodle Cups "Pimp My Kettle"

The Cup Noodle market is keenly contested by a few major players – one of which is Fantastic. Whilst Fantastic is a strong player, the category is very susceptible to price promotion. Their campaign objectives were to drive sales and, in doing so, create a stronger franchise for the Fantastic brand to make it less vulnerable to price promotional activity by competitor brands. The key strategic leap was a decision to shift the target to Fantastic’s end consumer (Generation Y males) rather than Female Main Grocery Buyers (who for the most part, buy the product). After spending some time talking to their target audience, they told them that life is too much fun to take everything seriously – especially cup noodles. They decided that the best approach to this campaign was, to use the technical term, “take the piss”. They developed a campaign called ‘Pimp My Kettle’. This was a parody of the MTV programme ‘Pimp My Ride’, but instead of cars, it was kettles. The campaign had many touch points including interstitials and in programme content on MTV, a website, radio, outdoor, magazine, street press, PR and a sampling programme featuring a pimped up van that toured Australia. The website featured kettles that had been ‘pimped’ by well known cult artists, such as Ben Frost and celebrities, such as Harry Kewell. As part of their MTV negotiations, an event was held at the MTV Gallery, Sydney. On the night, they held an auction of the pimped celebrity kettles to raise funds for the Youth Off the Streets charity. Our celebrity ‘pimpers’ and some lucky consumers attended the event which was a PR success. During the campaign, they also ran 2 national sales promotions featuring ‘pimped’ up prizes. There were over 40,000 unique visits to the Pimp My Kettle interactive website. Tracking research showed strong lifts in awareness, brand preference, intent to purchase and best tasting noodles scores and nearly half of their target audience said they had seen the campaign. Most importantly, sales throughout the campaign period were up by 34%. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: OMD Sydney, Australia.

In Gandhi's Shoes "Currency"

Use the largest circulated paper in the world! In India, violence and crime are on the rise. India needs Gandhi's message of peace and non-violence, once again. And who better to spread the message than Gandhi himself. Every Indian currency note has a picture of Gandhi on it. They decided to make Gandhi talk again by using this medium. They made post-its in the shape of speech blurbs which had Gandhi's quotes on it. People stuck these post-its next to Gandhi's picture on the note. So now every time the Indian currency note exchanges hands, so will Gandhi's messages. Post-it notes in the shape of speech-blurbs were printed which had quotes of Gandhi. Over 300 shopkeepers at Sarojini Nagar, New Delhi, a very crowded market where a bomb blast killed 53 people in 2005, have volunteered to distribute these to their customers. Every time they hand out change they stick a quote of Gandhi on the curency note and then give. So every time the currency note exchanged hands, so will Gandhi's message. 1. Over 300 shopkeepers have volunteered to take the idea forward by distributing the stickers to their customers. 2. The notes with Gandhi's message are in circulation. 3. Gandhi had started talking 61 years after he was killed. 4. The media has picked up the story and the idea is getting coverage in popular newspapers and television channels. Gandhi is back in circulation. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Publicis Gurgaon, India.

Anti-Vandalism Campaign "Labels"

The campaign tries to raise awareness between the citizens regarding the importance of civic behavior. Currently the Town Hall’s expense to replace city furniture as a consequence of vandalism is one of the highest in Europe. This is why, it was essential to face the matter directly, making public the amount of unnecessary money spent for this matter. Target group: Since it is a campaign to raise social awareness the target group is all citizens of Navarra. Innovation: The concept that has been used is "Taking care of your city costs you nothing, Pamplona pays 1.5 million euros." The action involved hanging tags with prices on all those elements that belong to the Town Hall and that are susceptible to generate a cost due to their incorrect use. They have used a wide range of magenta tags, different in size and content. There were small tags, almost 15cm (for dog excrements) up to huge tags of more than 3 meters (for emblematic monuments). The reverse side of the tag explains the action: Example: The Town Hall of Pamplona invests 200,000 Euros each year to repair banks. “Taking care of your city has no cost for you, Pamplona pays 1.5 million Euros”. The effect obtained has been shocking and innovative. Citizens have become conscious of the great expense that vandalism acts mean. This campaign is an innovation given the spectacle and impact of the action. The whole city woke up coloured with magenta tags that made the amounts spent a real problem. The action recieved great notoriety and national media repercussion (TVE, Tele 5 TV, the Spanish leading television, Diario 20 minutos, …), locally (Canal 4 TV, Canal 6, Canal Sur TV, Diario de Navarra, Diario de Noticias, AND…), online news (20 Minutos, Atlas-news, Yahoo news…) as well as between all citizens. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Gap's Pamplona, Spain.

Taxi 7:24 Chevrolet "Taxi Rockola Chevrolet"

They needed to regain the leadership that the Taxi 7:24 Chevrolet was losing a year ago on the market. The target are colombian taxi drivers who had begun to lose confidence in their brand and in their taxi 7:24 Chevrolet. If a taxi driver transports and talks with so many passengers daily, they should have lots of good stories to tell. They found a natural way to bring the brand to the target and make them feel fully identified with the communication. The creative strategic solution was to convert the target into the main character of the campaign. Because of the target profile, radio became their principal media, however, media such as outdoor, ambient, print and TV allowed them to strengthen different moments of the campaign. The taxi drivers were so identified with the brand, that they looked at it again as a closer brand which generate's their trust. The perception of the taxi 7:24 improved so much with the campaign, that they achieved a 25% increase in sales. By December 2008, at the closure of the campaign, the monthly sales reached 52% more units than when they launched “Taxi Rockola”, and nearby competitors reduced theirs by 18% in the same period. They went from selling 289 units, to currently selling 403 units, for a total closure of the campaign with 2015 units sold. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Sancho BBDO Bogotá, Colombia.

The Green Party "The Coral Cemetery"

The Red Sea Coral Reef is being killed at an alarming rate – 70% is dead. The Green Party wanted to make the general public, especially reef tourists, aware of the alarming rate of destruction and the urgency of conservation. Their insight is that many people fail to believe that so much of the coral is dead. Their strategy was to communicate to people at the actual time and place where the coral had died in order to create awareness of the destruction and their role in its fate. They created an environmental installation of a “coral cemetery” consisting of 75 floating graves on the site of the Northern Red Sea beach. The graves carried the names of coral reefs that had died. The installation was created during the heavy tourist season targeting the short-term tourists who create the damage. By sign-posting the places where the coral had died we influenced reef visitors to take action and protect the areas where the coral was still living. The story also reached the wider public and was featured on national cable and terrestrial TV news (HOT, Channel 1) and the local press. By gaining extensive “free” media coverage, they succeeded in amplifying their message and putting the Reef’s fate back on the nation’s agenda. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Shimoni Finkelstein DraftFCB Tel Aviv, Israel.

Nikon "The sensory light box"

The location was a multiplex electronics shopping mall where various brands compete. Ideas were needed to create a differentiable brand image for the Nikon D700, starting from the entrance of the mall and eventually generating actual purchases. Seoul Sindorim Subway Station is one of the largest stations in Korea with daily passing population of five hundred thousand people. An outdoor light box equipped with a motion detector was installed at the connecting passageway at the station, along with a red carpet leading to the Nikon shop located in the mall. This interactive light box made people feel as though they became superstars walking down a red carpet for a luxurious award. This experience has created a very special and unique brand image of the Nikon D700 and succeeded in triggering purchase intentions. Strengthen a positive brand image of the Nikon D700 and maximize sales among passersby of Sindorim Subway Station (five hundred thousand per day). Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Cheil Worldwide Seoul, Korea.

Smart "Half Price"

Their challenge was to launch the smart in São Paulo - a city dominated by cars, with a huge public transportation deficit - on a very modest budget. There were no minicars in Brazil, therefore, smart was bringing a new concept in space usage. Their target was people who are deeply interested in cultural and social life and for this reason prefer to live in large cities even if they have to face an everyday battle for parking spaces. For either work or leisure activities, finding a parking space is tough, and people usually park their cars on expensive parking lots scattered throughout the city. Their insight came from one of smart’s major benefits, occupying little space and showing that this is a major advantage by appealing to the consumer’s most sensitive side: the wallet. Without a budget large enough for traditional media, how could we communicate the car’s main attribute, its space usage, to a great number of drivers? In Brazil, students, seniors and special card holders pay half-price tickets for cultural events. Following this trend, they created “smart half-price.” More than a promotion, the idea was to create a buzz and give visibility to the car’s greatest attribute: it occupies half the space of other cars. A partnership with a large chain of parking garages was established, and they placed signs at the entrances informing: “smart pays half-price.” Parking spaces were split in half to show the exact dimensions of the car. In doing so, they created an alternative form of street communication disguised as a promotion. The concept of “smart pays half price” was later extended to toll booths, car washes, ferry boats and even to unregulated curbside valets. Their results could not be calculated by the number of people that effectively took advantage of the promotion, but by the number of people impacted by the signs. The overall cost was low, even considering the subsided discounts, because there were very few smart cars on the streets when the campaign was launched. Not everybody took advantage of the promotion, but everyone saw the signs! They managed to communicate that smart occupies half the space of a regular car in 106 spots around Sao Paulo. An average of 25,000 clients was directly impacted per day in a moment when parking costs were a relevant issue. Traditional media would not offer the same impact and the same coverage with the same budget. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Ponto De Criaçao São Paulo, Brazil.

ANAD "Contemporary Beauty Ideal"

ANAD is a pro bono organisation. Its aim is to educate the public about the dangers of eating disorders. The problem is: the public knows about anorexia, but does not regard it as a serious, potentially fatal disease. Because the fashion industry still employs abnormally thin models. So no wonder that the beauty ideal of the 21st Century seems to be: the thinner, the better. That’s why some 500,000 young girls are currently starving themselves to death. They reach out to an audience that expects to see depictions of beauty. They show them that beauty ideals have changed. Drastically. So they painted three classic masterpieces for a second time, just slightly altered. And displayed the new paintings in renowned museums. Right between other masterpieces. Right where visitors would expect to find beauty. The surprise encounter with the altered paintings left a lasting impression on most visitors: some of them were truly shocked. Several local and national newspapers even ran articles about the campaign. Subsequently, the traffic on ANAD’s website increased by 16 %. And ANAD received some remarkably high donations. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Ogilvy Frankfurt, Germany.

Youth Off The Streets "The longer they're here..."

There are over 100,000 children living on the streets in Australia. As the name suggests, Youth Off The Streets is a charity that supports these young Australians as they work to turn their lives around and overcome immense personal traumas such as neglect and physical, psychological and emotional abuse. Their challenge was to increase awareness of youth-homelessness and prompt people to donate to Youth Off The Streets. A series of disturbing proven facts were at the heart of the idea. In the words of Father Chris Reilly, founder of Youth Off The Streets: “Once you’re on the streets, you’ll be sexually assaulted within two or three days, you’ll be a drug addict within five days, and be dead before you’re 21, if you don’t get help.” Put simply, the longer a child is on the streets, the worse it gets. They created life size, die-cut street posters of children, printed on low-grade stock and featuring a URL and phone number for donations. They then carefully scouted and selected a variety of urban locations in which they were confident the posters would rapidly degenerate. Their “The longer they’re here ...” street posters were thus an un-ignorable metaphor for exactly what happens to children on the street. As time passed, they were sun-bleached and slightly ragged, then torn, defaced and abused. Then finally, after weeks of crying out for help, they were gone. The campaign ran in December 2008. It attracted national press and radio and international online coverage. During the campaign period, a total of AU$92,000 in donations was received - enough to provide hot meals to over 200 kids every night for six months. Online donations increased by a massive 400%. 2x Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Lavender Sydney, Australia.

Belgium Association of Urologists "Dripping Monument"

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer amongst men. One of the symptoms is the increasing difficulty to urinate. However, when detected and treated in the early stages of disease, prostate cancer has a cure rate of over 90%. The Belgian Association of Urologists asked them to raise awareness about prostate diseases by convincing men to visit their urologist for a screening. But how can you reach all Belgian men without a media budget? They took Belgium’s most famous landmark: Manneken Pis, a small bronze fountain depicting a naked little boy urinating. Simply by lowering the water pressure they turned Manneken Pis into Manneken Drip. To the spectacle, they added a sign reading ‘Having trouble urinating? Have a prostate check today.’ The reactions were overwhelming. The dripping statue was an item in every possible newspaper and an issue on more than 15.000 websites. Their action got coverage on national radio and tv news. Urologists were interviewed to explain the problem on television. and EU Health Commissioner Markus Kyprianou spontaneously supported their action. But more important: the awareness campaign didn't miss its goal. Their message reached an estimated 85% of the Belgians. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Famous Brussels, Belgium.

FOMPI/C. A Cinemas "Piracy"

There are at least 1000 pirated movies resellers in their city. With pirated DVD’s going for a third of the price of a movie ticket, Cinemas are losing big. FOMPI--Fomento y Protección de la Propiedad Intelectual--, (Fund for the Protection of Intellectual Property) who represents the two biggest Cinema groups in the country, asked them to develop a new way to spread their message against buying pirated movies. They developed a continuous live advertising: Their own piracy resellers, and used PIRATED MOVIES AS THE MEDIA TO SPREAD THEIR ANTI PIRACY MESSAGE. Tey sold their pirated movies for the usual price of $1. After a few minutes the movie was played, it jammed and their message appeared on the screen: You get, what you pay for. The money you paid for this movie will be used to produce more copies like this one. If you don't want this happening to you again, don't buy pirated movies. They started in December with 300 movies. By the end of February they had produced and sold more than 3,000 using just the money people paid for their copies. The numbers are increasing every week, meaning that more people are being exposed to their message. Meanwhile ticket sales are slowly increasing versus a year ago. The word on the street about their movies has spread and now people are thinking twice before buying a pirated movie. At the end, Pirated movies turned out to be the perfect media to go against pirated movies. Bronze Cannes Lions Media Winner.

Agency: Leo Burnett Guatemala City, Guatemala.