GLOBAL – FRANCE, JUNE 19, 2013 – DM9 JaymeSyfu has rewritten the record books on Philippine creativity, winning the country’s first-ever Grand Prix in Mobile, a category where agencies are rushing to showcase their creative savvy ahead of clients shifting budgets to the platform.
The Grand Prix was awarded for its ‘TXT BKS’ campaign for client Smart, one of the country’s biggest mobile communications operator, in a category with 101 shortlisted entries overall.
DM9 took the stage Tuesday, the same night JWT Manila scooped the country’s second-only Gold Lion in 60 years of Cannes competition for a series of graphic posters for client Energizer Philippines’ Schick Exacta 2 razor product and followed Y&R Philippines’ Bronze Lion for Maynila’s ‘Dengue Bottle’ (see accompanying stories).
Speaking to adobo, an elated Merlee Jayme, DM9’s chair and chief creative officer, said: “I’m still in a state of shock. This is the first-ever Grand Prix for the Philippines and it’s also our first-ever Mobile win, which makes me very proud for the country.”
Short for textbooks, the ‘TXT BKS’ campaign saw the agency work with the mobile giant to craft a creative solution to the perennial problem of school children ending up with scoliosis from carrying heavy bags of text books to class.
Textbooks were thus loaded onto SIM cards provided by Smart and installed on old Nokia handsets, providing relief to public schoolkids and a recycling solution for the growing pile of old mobile gadgets.
“We were studying the shortlisted and were surprised that we won the Grand Prix for this very low-tech campaign,” Jayme added.
Mobile Jury President Rei Inamoto, the chief creative officer and VP of AKQA, USA/Japan, echoed Jayme’s observation. He praised the simplicity of the campaign but said the choice was “unexpected and potentially controversial, because it was not the most technologically advanced campaign entered”.
He and his fellow jurors had asked themselves three questions as they judged: “Is it connected? Is it portable? Is it pervasive?” The jury was in agreement that the ‘TXT BKS’ campaign had ticked all three boxes while demonstrating that mobile can be persistent and wide reaching without having to be “hypermodern” and “high tech”.
In particular, jurors praised the use of old technology to solve a perennial problem of access to textbooks, noting that the initiative was only possible though the mobile channel.
