Canada's Top Business-Building Communications Campaigns Honoured At The 2016 CASSIES Awards

Grey Canada's "Groceries Not Guns" program for Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America and Leo Burnett's "#LIkeAGirl" campaign for Procter & Gamble tie for Grand Prix

TORONTO, Feb. 18, 2016 /CNW/ - Tonight, Canada's top 47 business-building communications campaigns were recognized by the advertising industry's most prized competition, the CASSIES awards, Canada's only industry awards program recognizing business effectiveness based on rigorous published cases.

For the first time in the award show's 23-year history, the competition's top honour, the CASSIES Grand Prix, was awarded to not one but two results-proven programs:  Grey Canada and Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America's "Groceries Not Guns" program, and Leo Burnett and Procter & Gamble's "#LikeAGirl" campaign.  In addition to tying for Grand Prix, both programs earned gold CASSIES awards in the Canadian Success On The Global Stage and Best Insight categories.

"Both programs have been applauded at the industry's top creative competitions, but what's really remarkable are the impressive and meaningful results they achieved," said Jani Yates, president, Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA), CASSIES chair.  "One put pressure on a grocery store to change its open-carry gun policy and the other turned a phrase that has become an insult into an empowering message for girls.  Both these brilliant programs yielded strong business outcomes and deserve the Grand Prix."

Other gold winning campaigns from the competition included:

• DDB Canada's "Stickboy" campaign for the Vancouver Opera production in the Best Matching of Message to Medium category;
• Ogilvy & Mather "Nabob – Respect the Bean" campaign for Kraft Canada in Packaged Goods;
• Rethink's "Better Beef. Better Eggs. Better Chicken" campaign for A&W in Retail; and
• Sid Lee's "We the North" program for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment – Toronto Raptors in the Best Insight category.

"Canada has a rich history of business-building communications and the caliber of Canadian work from this past year was no exception," added Yates. 

The panel of distinguished judges awarded a total of 47 CASSIES, including eight gold, 16 silver, 21 bronze and two Grand Prix to 47 of Canada's top business-building communications campaigns spanning 12 categories including: Automotive; Best Insight; Best Launch; Canadian Success On the Global Stage; Best Matching of Message to Medium; Packaged Goods; Events, Seasonal & Short-term; Long-term Success; Sustained Success; Off To A Good Start; Retail; and Services.

Celebrating its 23^rd anniversary, the CASSIES awards show was held on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at the Carlu in Toronto. Winning case studies will be added to the comprehensive CASSIES case library at www.cassies.ca, as well as on warc.com and appear in the February/March issue of strategy magazine.

ABOUT THE CASSIES
The pre-eminent CASSIES awards show, celebrating its 23^rd year, is Canada's only industry awards recognizing business effectiveness based on rigorous published cases. The CASSIES are presented by the Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA), The Association of Creative Communications Agencies (A2C) and the Association des professionnels de la communication et du marketing (APCM) and produced by strategy magazine. The current 2015 sponsors are: Globe Media Group – Platinum Sponsor; ThinkTV – Gold Sponsor; Black & ACTRA Toronto – Silver Sponsors; Millward Brown – Judging Sponsor; Canada Post – Direct Mail Partner; DDB Public Relations – PR Sponsor; Sandbox Advertising – Creative Sponsor. Since its inception in 1993, the CASSIES has recognized the business achievements of over 500 campaigns from Canada's top advertisers and communications agencies.  All award-winning case studies can be viewed in the Case Library section of the CASSIES website at www.cassies.ca, as well as on warc.com (World Advertising Research Centre).  

SOURCE CASSIES

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