Grey SA scoops Silver Lion at Cannes

11 July, 2011 – Full-service agency, Grey South Africa, was awarded a Silver Lion for radio in the category fundraising and appeals for its radio campaign for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France.

The campaign features “the voices” of global freedom icons Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Junior.

While the ads seem to contain snippets taken from the original recordings of famous speeches made by these liberation stalwarts, it’s only towards the end that you realise the words have been changed slightly to say the exact opposite of what was originally intended.

As the significance of this sinks in, the voice over says, “If Nelson Mandela made this speech at the Rivonia Trial in 1964, who knows where we’d be today? One voice can make a difference. Use yours and help us take the Mandela legacy forward. Visit nelsonmandela.org.”

The second version ends with the voice over, “If Martin Luther King Jr. delivered this speech to civil rights supporters in 1963, who knows where we’d be today?”

According to Cath Ireland, Grey Advertising executive creative director, the ads form part of a greater campaign to reposition the Nelson Mandela Foundation as the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory. “The Foundation has shifted focus slightly to be seen as an organisation that continues the Mandela legacy of social justice. This campaign was the starting point and aimed to mobilise individuals to embrace the philosophy of a just society and to continue Madiba’s legacy in a very personal way,” she explains.

The ads were conceptualised by the Grey SA Johannesburg office under the guidance of Ireland. The scriptwriters were Wynand Prinsloo and Wihan Meerholz, and the production company, Sterling Sound.

Ireland adds that the team worked incredibly hard to create the very authentic sounding speeches. “It was a massive technical challenge to do the ads; editing them from the archives into completely new pieces was quite complex, but we were delighted with the outcome,” she says.

In addition to its Silver Lion win, Grey SA was also shortlisted for an additional six entries into Cannes this year. The agency’s win at Cannes follows its recent Silver CLIO win in the 2011 CLIO Awards, held in New York in May. The agency won for its compelling campaign for the Endangered Wildlife Trust.