After Dumb Ways to Die swept all before it at Cannes, John Mescall is taking a holiday. But first he's off to LA to film an ad for one of the world's biggest brands. Then he can hit the roads of Colarado to reflect on a crazy week.
Dumb Ways took 28 Lions in all. That's five Grand Prix, 18 Golds, three Silver and six Bronze - a Cannes record for a single campaign. It came just days after McCann Melbourne took a Black Pencil and five Yellow Pencils at D&AD in London.
Mescall was running on vapour come Friday night. Judging awards by day and collecting them by night, then finding time for sleep after the obligatory rounds is a tough gig. But any adman in the world would swap places with him. It's the campaign that everyone wishes they had done, according to such luminaries as Sir John Hegarty and Lee Clow.
After D&AD Mescall "had an idea" the campaign might do ok. But he's just delighted that it resonated with so many people.
So where did it come from? Mescall said it started with Metro Trains. Marketing manager Chole Alsop "didn't want the usual Public Safety Announcement. She didn't know exactly what she wanted, but didn't want the usual."
McCann's answer was a cross media campaign, a song on iTunes, and a game that launched in April. It's had some 11 million downloads and some 50 million video views. Did McCann make anything from advertising against it?
"No we didn't want to go down that route." Mescall said he didn't actually want to charge for the song on iTunes, just for
the message to be shared with as many people as possible. "It was never about the money."
While it won in traditional categories such as print, radio, outdoor and film, Mescall is in no doubt about the medium that has made Dumb Ways to Die so popular.
"You couldn't have done this 15 years ago. People said the internet would kill our industry. But it hasn't. It has saved our industry."
Now Mescall's off to save what remains of his voice with a road trip in the Rockies. What might be playing on the car stereo is anyone's guess.
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