McCann Erickson Worldwide celebrated its 100th anniversary in several formats throughout the world. Each country organised its own party and in Brazil, McCann celebrated the date with a black tie-style party for 500 distinguished guests.

We feel this is a winning entry, because, above all, it proves that a good idea in media does not depend on the investment involved in its execution. In this case, costs were only operational and the results were impressive, creating, high impact and brand awareness.

Throughout the party, a speedy team of professionals from the 'O Estado De S. Paulo' newspaper, produced 500 customised samples that were given to the guests at the end of the party, wrapped around the next day’s normal edition. The high impact of this action surprised everyone and brought McCann even closer to its distinguished guests: our clients, suppliers and friends.

The customised newspaper edition, given to each of the guests, registered McCann’s important 100th anniversary in grand style and, due to the novelty character of the action, these samples will certainly be carefully kept by all guests. Considering their surprise when they saw themselves portrayed in a first-page picture and imagined that it was the real edition of the following day, we feel that awareness of the McCann brand will be engraved in the mind's of its 500 guests.

Registering the guests’ presence in a new way, we creatively replaced the first page of the main Brazilian newspaper, 'O Estado de S. Paulo' (official Brazilian representative at the Cannes Festival). The newspaper registered the arrival of the guests at the party with pictures amongst other stories about McCann. The guests were creatively transformed into the front page headlines of the next day’s edition.

Jens Olesen