Cadbury and Ogilvy Mumbai take Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix

Cadbury and Ogilvy Mumbai took the Grand Prix in the Creative Effectiveness category of the 2023 Cannes Lions awards with a campaign that deployed AI to create personalised ads for local stores across India ahead of Diwali.

Why it matters

Creative effectiveness is the category for work that works: campaigns need to first win an award for creativity at the Cannes Festival the year before, and then they must prove that the work led to commercial success. So, of course, this is up WARC’s alley.

Cadbury’s ‘My Ad’ was arguably doing AI before it was cool, but in an interesting way that deployed the technology to democratise big-budget creative. It also bucks a tendency toward earned media-seeking stunts that had been juries’ focus over the last few years, by foregrounding an ad that drove sales and distribution.

But it’s also an early AI-enhanced campaign that speaks to several big ideas emerging around the technology: how to deal with digital rights, in this case an actor, when computers can make the actor say whatever they want; and how AI can assist an idea and increase accessibility.

The winners

Cadbury’s Shahrukh Khan (pictured) – My Ad takes the Creative Effectiveness Grand Prix with a campaign that grew the brand’s penetration by assisting the small stores that account for two-thirds of Cadbury’s gift-focused products ahead of Diwali.

In addition to the Grand Prix, the jury awarded three gold Lions, five silver Lions, and seven bronzes. WARC subscribers can find them here.

What the juries say

Jury president Devika Bulchandani, global CEO of Ogilvy, thanked her jurors – “a crazy bunch of people” – and celebrated the fact that the campaigns “that rose to the top” in the judging were generally food and beverage brands “fundamental to the human condition”.

Bulchandani explained that the jury retained a broad definition of effectiveness in the judging process, but looked for serious treatment of the effectiveness presented in the case studies: Did it create economic value for the business and present a holistic view of that effectiveness at scale?

Cadbury was notable for being a deeply innovative campaign – “in the 10%” of innovation budget – but its “sales results were undeniable.”

“It had an ecosystem economic value, because it did bring in small business into it and had cultural impact,” the jury president noted. 

A perspective on AI

The campaign deployed AI in a limited manner. Tahaab Rais of FP7 Dubai, a member of the jury, commented that it was a good example of responsible AI, and an instance of the tight control that is necessary when deploying the technology. The data collected “was restricted to what the brand had control over; it wasn’t something that the public could control.”