MediaCom Wins Silver at Cannes Branded Content and Entertainment Lions Awards Gala

CANNES, France, June 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- MediaCom added a third Cannes trophy to its collection today, winning a Silver Lion in Branded Content and Entertainment at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity for "The Beetle Shark Cage."

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MediaCom was one of only a handful of media agencies to be shortlisted or named a winner in the category. "The Beetle Shark Cage," led by MediaCom USA, received its honour in the sub-category, "Best brand or product integration into a feature film, existing TV show and/or series."

The campaign brought the Volkswagen Beetle to Discovery Channel's popular Shark Week in a spectacular way. Working with shark photographers and engineers, MediaCom turned the iconic car into a fully operational underwater shark cage. Cameras followed the process from designing and building the cage to actually driving it in shark-infested waters. The result was an exciting original series that aired on TV and online during Shark Week.

Tonight's win makes "The Beetle Shark Cage" a two-time winner at Cannes this year, as the initiative also won a Bronze in the Media Lions category earlier this week. The effort has been previously recognized by the Festival of Media Awards, One Show Entertainment Awards and Creative Media Awards.

"When the Cannes Lions added the Branded Content and Entertainment Awards category in 2012, it was recognizing a change in how consumers interact with brands: a change we proactively tackled when we launched MediaCom Beyond Advertising, our own global team of experts that helps clients grow via the creation and distribution of branded content," said Stephen Allan, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of MediaCom. "'The Beetle Shark Cage' has become an excellent example of an MBA success that is both refreshingly creative and effective, so we couldn't be more excited to see it acknowledged at the most prestigious advertising award competition in the world."

MediaCom received a total of eight shortlisted nominations at Cannes this week. In addition to its two wins for "The Beetle Shark Cage," the media agency won a Bronze Media Lion for "Moving the Store," an IKEA campaign created with SMFB in Norway that enlisted hundreds of local volunteers to help IKEA literally move a store to a new location.

About MediaCom 
MediaCom is one of the world's largest Media Communication Specialists, with billings exceeding US $25 billion (Source: RECMA) and 113 offices in 89 countries around the globe. Our "People first, better results" philosophy drives our strategy and reflects our belief that putting People – employees, clients and consumers – at the core of our business leads to optimum business results.  The MediaCom family of companies includes such leaders in their fields as:  MediaCom Interaction, our global digital and interactive marketing agency, with future-forward proprietary technology that works to grow clients' businesses;  MediaCom Direct, our direct response experts, creating close, measured connections with consumers; MediaCom Beyond Advertising, content specialists, helping to reach consumers with communications they welcome and value; and MediaCom Business Science, focused on helping clients achieve maximum sales return.  MediaCom Worldwide is a member of WPP, the world's largest marketing communications services group, and is a part of GroupM, WPP's media agency group which is the largest worldwide.  For more information, visit www.mediacom.com.

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About GroupM 
GroupM is the world's leading global media investment management operation. It serves as the parent company to WPP media agencies including MediaCom, Maxus, MEC, and Mindshare. Our primary purpose is to maximise the performance of WPP's media communications agencies on behalf of our clients, our shareholders and our people by operating as a parent and collaborator in performance-enhancing activities such as trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. The agencies that comprise GroupM are all global operations in their own right with leading market positions. The focus of GroupM is the intelligent application of physical and intellectual scale to benefit trading, innovation, and new communication services, to bring competitive advantage to our clients and our companies.

About WPP 
WPP is the world's largest communications services group with billings of $66 billion and revenues of approximately $15 billion.  Through its operating companies, the group provides a comprehensive range of advertising and marketing services including: advertising; media investment management; consumer insight; public relations and public affairs; branding and identity; healthcare communications; direct, digital, promotion and relationship marketing; and specialist communications. The company employs over 153,000 people (including associates) in 2,400 offices in 107 countries.  For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

SOURCE MediaCom