Cannes: the best of the second best

Last week the jurors of Cannes awarded Dumb Ways To Die an unprecedented 5 Grands Prix, as well as 18 Golds and some other Lions of various colours.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the case study thing:

It’s a nice campaign, but I must admit I got through about two of its three minutes before turning it off (no offence to the people involved).

Around the time its creators were rustling up an excess baggage payment for the flight home, one of London’s CDs was pointing out that by far the biggest ad/PR/Promotion/Innovation/Titanium thingamijig from last year won nothing, presumably because no one entered it:

The Red Bull space jump was seen live by millions around the world and it was universally positively received and perfect for the brand. The organisation and promotion of said stunt beggars belief and (sorry, little cartoon characters) was a far bigger and more impressive achievement than DWTD.

So my next question is: if the very best in the world aren’t entering Cannes, why not?

I’d say it’s because they’ve just created a worldwide stunt where a man jumped to Earth from space, so they might just be finding it a little tricky to give a toss about a tin lion (though that didn’t stop the makers of London’s Millennium Wheel or the Milau Viaduct from entering them into D&AD a while back – sheesh).