The official Cannes Lions app is great. But what if there were two? So we created an app called “Cannes Meow”. Equal parts real-time response, analysis, and medal count utility, it promised, “all the cattiest content from Cannes.”

We launched with hyper-targeted social ads in the week leading up to the festival. For 10 days, our Toronto-based real-time war room ran on Cannes time. We made more than 300 pieces of graphic, text and video content – ranging from daily and nightly recaps, trend reports, stats analysis and data-driven infotainment. We also used it as a platform to engage with some of the festival’s biggest thought leaders and socialites, from David Copperfield to John Cena.

To complement the content and engagement engine, the app also included a live medal leaderboard. Because Lion wins tend to be reported by media outlets with regional biases and audiences (e.g., Canadian media report on Canadian medal performance), there was no single source to find all the shortlists and winners – for every country. Our app addressed the whitespace by releasing all award data live at the very moment that day’s award show.

Our brand new, data-first creative agency had no business being at Cannes. And yet, we had the audacity to put ourselves at the heart of the most critical, discerning peer group in the industry. Given Cannes profile, our connection to the FCB global network, and our mandate for the work to be catty (read: sassy), the risks were huge. Still, less than a week after our rebrand:

– FCB/SIX was among the most retweeted at Cannes.

– We had trended at the top of #CannesLions for the full 10 days.

– We turned just over $1,000 in social media spend into more than $500,000 worth of impressions.

–South Africa based publication Biz Community was using our app to report on medal counts.

– We had PR-worthy work in the international market.

– It's been recognized at two international award shows (Webbys and One Show), further extending its value as self-promo.