Cannes 2015: Tomaz Mok on judging for Outdoor Lions

Mok left Cannes before we could get him on video, but he shares his post-judging impressions with Campaign Asia-Pacific below.

The out-of-home (OOH) category is truly challenging for the 18 jury members. It is the largest category among all with more than 5,000 entries. And the work covers a wide range from conventional 2D print posters, the latest technological special builds to interactive outdoor experiences.

The first round of preliminary screening already took two full days. The festival separated 18 jury members into three groups and each jury has to give scores to around 50 portfolio albums. It is the most labour-intensive exercise to be standing up and flipping through these over-10kg portfolio albums.

The second round of screening was scoring the case videos that covered categories like small-scale special solutions; special builds; live advertising and events; interactive outdoor experiences; transit; digital screens; non-formatted digital outdoor integrated campaigns led by outdoor. In addition, the cases included three other outdoor craft categories that covered copywriting, illustration and photography.

520 pieces of entries were selected after two long days of screening. Out of this long list, under the leadership of the OOH jury president Juan Carlo Ortiz, we went through each and every category and reviewed the work in order to reach a consensus shortlist of 469.

The Lion medalist debate happened on the fourth day and it lasted for about 15 hours in order to select all trophies.

We evaluated each and every piece of work with an OOH perspective, judged on what environment the piece of work was displayed in, and most importantly, whether the interactive outdoor experiences or events were truly led by outdoor. The judgment has to be well balanced between creativity and believability.

It was so obvious that many entries appeared repeatedly in several categories other than OOH. We believed some might have also been entered in the Press category, especially the most conventional 2D print creatives. However, the jury members can easily eliminate the unqualified.

The winning work (Grand Prix: Apple iPhone 6 'World Gallery') is truly satisfactory with a majority vote. It represents the unique characteristics of today’s wide range of OOH advertisements. It demonstrates the uniqueness of the powerful product through a 2D print impression, yet communicates vastly through channels ranging from PR, news to social media. And with the latest technology this campaign travelled across borders and culture.

Among other medalists I particularly like are: Holograms for Freedom/Spain; The Gun Shop/USA; Audi Disappearing Billboards/Germany; Samsung’s Safety Truck/Argentina; Ecofill’s Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black/Colombia; Airwick’s Flower Dog/Mexico; Coca-Cola’s Together Love, Together Peace/France; and XiaoZhu Breathe Again/China (see work below).

Hear words of wisdom from the other judges:

• Jean Lin (video), global CEO of Isobar as well as Cyber Lions jury president
• Yanyan Yang (text), creative director of Baidu, on the Cyber Lions
• Jimmy Lam (video), vice chairman & chief creative officer at DDB China, on the Direct Lions
• Kitty Lun (video), chairman and chief executive officer of Lowe China, on the Press Lions
• Delia Liu (video), chief creative strategy officer at WizAd China, on the Mobile Lions
• Anna Chitty (video), managing director of PHD China, on the Media Lions
• Johnny Tan (video), chief creative officer of BBH China, on the Design Lions
• Graham Fink (video), chief creative officer of Ogilvy & Mather China, on the Titanium and Integrated Lions

Catch up on Campaign Asia-Pacific's Cannes coverage at campaignasia.com/cannes2015 and coverage by the entire Campaign global team at cannes.campaignlive.co.uk.