The UK failed to pick up any major awards in the digital or radio categories at this year's Cannes Lions, the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, prompting one juror to call it a "wake up call" for British agencies.
In their worst performance since 2007 in the digital category, known as the Cyber Lions, UK agencies failed to win a single gold.
"The UK had a good showing in the number of Lions won but none of them were gold," said juror Malcolm Poynton, chief creative officer at SapientNitro, which won three top awards several years ago for its "Best PR job in the world" campaign. "That is a bit of a wake-up call and a kick up the arse for the industry in the UK."
The UK has one of the highest proportionate spends of ad money on the internet, close to £5bn last year, accounting for 28% of total advertising spend on all media, according to the Internet Advertising Association.
Poynton said he believed that part of the problem might be in an over focus on developing traditional digital advertising in paid-for media – such as banner ads – while other countries are being more innovative with their campaigns.
"If you look at paid-for media, and the digital work winning, it is not typically stuff that has run in a paid-for environment," he added. "The UK seems a little bit behind in that sense, making campaigns for other media such as social, and by that I don't mean just Facebook."
The poor digital performance follows a surprise 10% drop in the number of entries from UK agencies across the combined cyber and the new mobile category, which was introduced this year.
The 270 UK entries across the two digital categories represent levels not seen since about 2005, with the UK and France the only two countries in the top 10, based on total number of entries, to record a year-on-year drop in submissions.
Overall the number of entries to the cyber and mobile categories was 3,423, well up on the 2,458 last year, leading to some soul searching among jurors.
There was more bad news for UK agencies in the radio category with no gold awards again, despite a year-on-year rise in entries from 47 to 82.
This extends the UK run of no major awards in radio to six years – one gold was won in 2006 and none since.
The UK was saved from a humiliating showing at the top table by Unilever in the press category with a gold lion for two ads from BBH London for the Lynx/Axe brand. This came despite a 65% surge in the total number of UK entries from 242 to 399.
On Tuesday DLKW/Lowe saved some face for the UK by picking up a gold in the mobile category for a campaign called Pennies for Life for the Microloan Foundation.
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