Author: Suren Karakhanian

Cannes Lions 2023 kicked off the 70th edition of the Festival by announcing winners across five categories on day one. The categories included Outdoor, Print & Publishing, Radio & Audio, Health & Wellness, and Pharma. 

Entrants from Armenia and Nigeria made history by being the first to take home a Lion for their country; Bronze Lions in Radio & Audio and Health & Wellness Lions respectively. 

Simon Cook, CEO, LIONS, said, “We’re delighted to honour our first Lion winners who are raising the creative bar on the global stage. Thank you to all of our exceptional Jurors who have given their time, dedication and expertise to define the creative benchmark for the Festival’s 70th edition.” 

The Outdoor Lions received 1938 entries, out of which, 59 Lions were awarded. Around the globe, agencies went with 9 Gold, 19 Silver and 30 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘A British Original’ by Uncommon Creative Studio, London for British Airways.

Commenting on the win, Outdoor Lions Jury President, Javier Campopiano, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at Grey and Global Chief Creative Officer of OpenX From WPP, Grey/OpenX, said, “Under the surface of a classical OOH campaign, lays a platform that can hold an infinite amount of human truths, stories, desires, emotions, that can be crafted to connect with people wherever they are in their lives, geographically or emotionally.”

The Print & Publishing category received 814 entries and 26 Lions were awarded; 4 Gold, 7 Silver, and 14 Bronze Lions, and the Grand Prix went to ‘Newspapers Inside The Newspaper Edition’ by Impact BBDO, Dubai, for AnNahar Newspaper.

The Print & Publishing Jury said, “The Grand Prix was awarded to a brave piece of work that put into action a publication-based idea to defend the sanctity of a free press, and did it in a way that we hope sends a signal to the industry on how eternally innovative the future of publication can be.”

Radio & Audio Lions awarded 22 Lions out of the 715 entries received. 3 Gold, 7 Silver, and 11 Bronze Lions were awarded and the Grand Prix went to the ‘Phone It In’ campaign by Colenso BBDO, Auckland for telecommunications company Skinny, New Zealand. 

1297 entries were recorded in the Health & Wellness Lions, out of which 37 Lions were awarded: 6 Gold, 13 Silver and 17 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘The Last Performance’ By Special, Auckland, for Partners Life. This disruptive piece of work challenged Kiwis to rethink preconceptions around life insurance, encouraging New Zealanders to take action. 

Pharma Lions gave out 13 awards; 2 Gold, 4 Silver, and 6 Bronze Lions. The Jury awarded the Pharma Grand Prix to ‘Scrolling Therapy’ for Eurofarma by Dentsu Creative Buenos Aires / Dentsu Creative New York / Dentsu Creative Chicago. 

The Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good was also announced and the Grand Prix went to ‘Working with Cancer’ for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), by La Foundation Publicis Chicago / Publicis Conseil Paris / Le Truc New York / Digitas New York / Saatchi & Saatchi Health, New York / Publicis Groupe UK, London. 

Special awards also awarded: 

The Healthcare Network of the Year

Rank: 

• 1. FCB Health
• 2. Klick Health
• 3. PUBLICIS 

Healthcare Agency of the Year

Rank:

• 1. AREA 23, an IPG Health Network Company, New York, USA
• 2. KLICK HEALTH, Toronto, Canada
• 3. 21GRAMS, Part Of Real Chemistry, New York, USA

TEHRAN – A restoration project on a centuries-old Armenian cemetery in the ancient city of Masjed Soleiman, in southwestern Khuzestan province, has come to an end, an archeologist has said.

 The graveyard dates back to the period of oil exploration and belongs to the Armenians who inhabited the region during that era, Ziba Salehi explained on Sunday. 

The project involved repairing the cemetery walls and organizing the gravestones, she added. 

Masjed Soleiman was the site of the first oil well in Iran and the Middle East.

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites of Susa, Tchogha Zanbil, and Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, yet it is a region of raw beauty that its visitors could spend weeks exploring. The province is also a cradle for handicrafts and arts whose crafters inherited from their preceding generations.

Lying at the head of the Persian Gulf and bordering Iraq on the west, Khuzestan was settled about 6000 BC by a people with affinities to the Sumerians, who came from the Zagros Mountains region. Urban centers appeared there contemporaneously with the first cities in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium. Khuzestan, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, came to constitute the heart of the Elamite kingdom, with Susa as its capital. 

ABU/AM 

There have been reports of the road being totally closed after June 15 when shots were fired in an incident

in which the South Caucasus countries said in separate statements that one Azerbaijani and one Armenian border guard had been wounded. "Such steps lead to increased tension and are not conducive to maintaining a normal atmosphere around the ongoing process of normalising relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia with Russian assistance. We call on Baku to unblock the Lachin corridor in its entirety," said Zakharova.

Baku has denied imposing a blockade, but has said it has taken what it called "relevant measures to investigate the reasons for this provocation, as well as to ensure the security of the border checkpoint." Azerbaijan in April established a checkpoint at the entrance to the corridor following months of disruption caused by people who called themselves Azerbaijani environmental activists, a step it said was essential due to what it cast as Armenia's use of the road to transport weapons.

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in Karabakh's separatist government until February, on Thursday accused Baku of trying to "ethnically cleanse" the enclave by imposing what he called a goods and energy blockade – allegations that Azerbaijan denies. Azerbaijan's foreign minister told Reuters in an interview Baku was rejecting a demand from Armenia to provide special security guarantees for the enclave's ethnic Armenians ahead of a new round of peace talks, saying they were sufficiently protected.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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