4Creative win UK's only Grand Prix at 2013 Cannes Lions

24 June 2013

4Creative took home the UK’s only Grand Prix at the 2013 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity of the acclaimed film Meet the Superhumans; which formed the heart of Channel 4’s biggest ever marketing campaign for the 2012 Paralympic Games.

On top of the most celebrated award in Film Craft, the campaign (conceived and produced by 4Creative) also earned Channel 4’s in-house creative agency a very prestigious Gold in the Film Lions.

In what proved an incredibly successful night for 4Creative, further accolades within Film Craft included a Silver Lion for Editing and two bronzes for Best Production Value and Best Use of Music - all for Meet the Superhumans.

Other campaigns from 4Creative to receive global recognition included new channel 4seven (Gold), as well as the thrilling Grand National horseracing campaign (Bronze), taking the total number of Lions to an unprecedented level for Channel 4.

Joe Pytka, Cannes Lions jury President said of Meet the Superhumans: "It's a profoundly emotional commercial because it deals with people with tremendous restrictions on their physical capabilities…Every aspect of the commercial is perfect. The cinematography is profound and subtle. The editing is clever enough in places it has to be clever, but then honest in the other places. The music is completely unexpected and appropriate. The more we saw it, the more we loved it."

Dan Brooke, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Channel 4 said: “2012 was a giant prosthetic leap forward for Paralympic-kind and Channel 4 is honoured to have played its small part in that.”

4Creative’s Meet the Superhumans has received recognition at the most highly regarded award ceremonies this year winning a Black Pencil and four Yellow Pencils at the D&AD Awards, multiple Gold Awards at Creative Circle and British Arrows where the ad was awarded ‘commercial of the year’, a Grand Prix at the Marketing Society Awards (jointly with Sainsbury’s); it was Campaign magazine’s Campaign of the Year in 2012 and was also voted one of TED’s Ads Worth Spreading.

Ends.

Notes to Editors

4creative boilerplate

4Creative is Channel 4’s multi-award winning creative agency and was recently named Creative Review’s Ad Agency of the Year.

Headed up by Chris Bovill and John Allison, 4Creative acts as both creative agency and production company across all advertising output for Channel 4 and its family of brands.

In 2012, 4Creative were responsible for the multi-award winning Paralympics campaign ‘Meet the Superhumans’. The 90 second film celebrated the herculean efforts of Paralympians, capturing their grit and determination intercut with an insight into their back-stories – set to the epic Public Enemy track, ‘Harder Than You Think’. The film received widespread acclaim and has earned 4Creative multiple awards including the UK’s only Grand Prix at the 2013 Lions, a Black Pencil and four Yellow Pencils at the D&AD Awards, multiple Gold Awards at Creative Circle and British Arrows where the ad was awarded ‘commercial of the year’, a Grand Prix at the Marketing Society Awards (jointly with Sainsbury’s); it was Campaign magazine’s Campaign of the Year in 2012 and was also voted one of TED’s Ads Worth Spreading.

Following this, 4Creative were behind the thrilling, critically acclaimed ad campaign for The Grand National, broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time this year. The film saw Liverpool city take the place of Aintree’s race course and featured ten horses racing through streets, allotments, back gardens, parks and ponds; jumping cars, fences and park benches and won a Bronze Lion at Cannes 2013.

Most recently 4 Creative were behind the highly praised marketing campaign for Channel 4’s Mating Season which explored dating through the eyes of a recently bereaved older man, Arthur - a Galapagos Tortoise.  Through a series of trails the campaign followed Arthur on his emotional journey to find love in the 21st century and through his eyes, viewers experienced just how complex the dating landscape has become.

www.4creative.co.uk