The extensive advertising campaign that got Barack Obama into the white house has scooped a number of awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards. Advertising agency Droga5 won the Titanium prize for presenting an idea that is “provocative, challenges assumptions and points to a new direction” for ‘The Great Schlep’ campaign featuring Sarah Silverman intended to boost support for Obama amongst Jewish voters. In addition to a video where Silverman urged young “Jewish grandchildren” to persuade their grandparents living in ’swing state’ Florida to give Obama their votes, there was also an interactive website as part of the campaign.

The integrated prize was also given to the Obama campaign, for its innovative use of three or more different types of media to deliver a powerful message. It got recognition as a clever use of television, new media, online and grass roots door-to-door campaigning.

The film category also included aspects of Obama’s election campaign, with creator of Budweiser’s classic ‘Wassup’ ads, Charles Stone III, being awarded a special jury commendation for his 2008 reprisal of the classic ad. The new version saw the original characters who were once happy and chilled out and where they had ended up after eight years of George Bush, suffering under the recession and being posted to Iraq. Unfortunately this ad was not eligible to win a prize in the film category as the rules state that all entries must be commissioned by a commercial client and work towards promoting a corporate identity design, but the judges felt it deserved special recognition for being such a powerful political statement.

Another big winner was newspaper The Zimbabwean, for their campaign which used the country’s almost worthless banknotes on billboards, giving a whole new meaning to sign printing and scooping gold awards in both the Titanium and integrated categories. Other successful campaigns included the “dance” ad for T-Mobile with a whole crowd dancing together in Liverpool Street station, and a paused bank robbery scene advertising a Philips TV in a unique interactive way.