07 Jul 2023
British Airways’ 500 Unique Billboards Win Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes
CANNES, France—The British Airways campaign “A British Original” has been awarded the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. The work was the first created for the brand by London-based Uncommon Creative Studio and featured 500 unique print, digital and outdoor executions.
Each nodded to the box-ticking question most travelers happen across when booking a vacation or work trip: “What is the purpose of your visit?” However, beneath the standard “business” and “leisure” options, the ad copy offered hundreds of alternatives ranging from “because this weather sucks” to “to eat a tomato that actually tastes like a tomato” and “I still love her.”
With no two ads the same, the scale of the campaign was designed to capture people’s wide-ranging travel motivations and to help British Airways stand out from other airlines post-pandemic. It was also built to adapt based on location, time of day, weather and the news cycle
Jury president Javier Campopiano, Grey’s worldwide CCO and global CCO at WPP’s Coca-Cola agency OpenX, said “beneath the surface of what first appears to be a classical campaign, [the creatives] found different ways to express emotion through this idea.” “It shows an iconic brand can become more iconic,” he added.
