WPP Wins The Highest Honours At Cannes Lions 2024

It has been a good Cannes Lions for WPP, indicating that the company’s creative transformation journey has been in the right direction. WPP has won the Creative Company of the Year for 2024. Last year Omnicom had won the top honour and the company takes the second position this year.

“I am absolutely thrilled for our clients, people and agencies whose brilliant work these awards recognise. To win Creative Company of the Year for WPP and Network of the Year for Ogilvy, with The Coca-Cola Company being named Creative Brand of the Year for the first time in its history, is a remarkable achievement. Thank you to everyone who has made this such a successful Cannes Lions for WPP and our fantastic clients,” commented WPP’s CEO Mark Read.

The Big Wins
WPP agencies won a total of 160 Lions, including a Titanium, six Grand Prix, 27 Gold, 43 Silver and 83 Bronze Lions, with winners representing 41 different countries including India (five Lions).

Rob Reilly, Chief Creative Officer of WPP said, “Creative excellence comes down to three things – people, process and passion. But to do it at scale takes an unwavering partnership between our brilliant agencies and our brave brand partners. Thank you all for believing in the transformational power of creativity.”

The Creative Company of the Year award is given to the company that earned the most points across its agencies.

It is interesting to note that The Coca-Cola Company, whose global marketing partner is WPP Open X, was named Creative Brand of the Year for the first time in its history. In an interview earlier in the week with BW Marketing World, Reilly had indicated the good work done by the company and the growth it was seeing in its business outcomes.

Ogilvy which won the Regional Network of the Year for Asia is also named the Creative Network of the Year.

“It was inspiring to see so many agencies with unbelievable work this week. Our industry moves forward when we all come together to celebrate and champion the undeniable impact that creativity can have on our clients’ businesses and the communities we live in. I’m extremely proud of Ogilvy’s performance, but I am also incredibly gratified that collectively as an industry we proved that creativity always wins,” commented Devika Bulchandani, Ogilvy’s Global CEO.

WPP’s Global Wins
Ogilvy’s David won a Titanium Lion and Grand Prix for JCDecaux’s Meet Marina Prieto, while WPP Open X led by Ogilvy won a Grand Prix for Coca-Cola's Recycle Me and Ogilvy PR (Onefluence) also collected a Grand Prix for CeraVe’s Michael CeraVe.

VML’s Scholz & Friends won a Grand Prix for The 100th Edition for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as did Grey for Sol Cement’s Sightwalks and Ogilvy and Mindshare for Vaseline’s Transition Body Lotion. AKQA’s Pink Chip for DEGIRO and UN Women picked up no less than three Gold and two Silver Lions, capping a performance that saw wins from every WPP network across every discipline.

WPP’s media agencies EssenceMediacom, Mindshare and Wavemaker had a very strong festival, with GroupM ending the week as the industry’s leading media group with 90 Lions, up from 59 last year.

Noor Fathima Warsia

BW Reporters A veteran journalist in business and corporate journalism, Noor Fathima Warsia is the Group Editorial Director of India’s oldest business publication, BW Businessworld. In her role, Noor leads the editorial initiatives across BW Businessworld’s flagship product and communities focused on education, startups, healthcare and wellbeing, media & marketing, gaming, HR and legal among others. In a career spanning more than two decades, Noor has led the publishing of the flagship BW Businessworld magazine and its community magazines, guided the online editorial team and led communities such as BW Marketing World apart from working on editorial-led IPs such as BW Most Influential Women, BW India’s Most Sustainable Companies, BW Top 50 Marketers and more.