UK comes top in direct Lions at Cannes with 23 wins

by Jules Grant,, Brand Republic 24-Jun-04, 07:00

CANNES – The UK has picked up a whopping 23 Lions in the direct category this year, while Australia has taken the Direct Grand Prix for its Virgin Mobile 'Warren' campaign.

The UK single-handedly beat every other country with its number of awards. Publicis Dialog won two Gold Lions for the UK, both for its "Hype" campaign for HP.

Other Golds were awarded to Euro RSCG Worldwide for its "Fatty cigarettes" work for the British Heart Foundation; Saatchi & Saatchi for its NSPCC "Someone to turn to" campaign; Harrison Troughton Wunderman for "Invisible It Man" for IBM; Lowe Plus for Egg's "What's in it for me?"; 20:20 for its "Obsession" campaign for Lotus Cars, and Tullo Marshall Warren for its "Guinness loyalty" campaign for Diageo.

The UK picked up another 15 awards in the Silver and Bronze categories, which can be seen here.

As well as picking up the Grand Prix, Australia picked up another four awards, with the US and Germany being other top contenders with six and eight awards respectively.

Howard Draft, chairman and chief executive of Draft Inc, chaired the direct jury. A total of 1,209 entries from 41 countries were submitted, an increase of 8% compared with last year.

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