Cannes Lions: 'Project Free Period' wins creative strategy Gold for Stayfree and DDB Mudra

A campaign for Stayfree by Mumbai's DDB Mudra to help women in the sex trade cultivate the skills to break out of prostitution has won Gold in the Creative Strategy Lions—one of only three golds awarded.

In 'Project Free Period', Stayfree partnered with an NGO to turn period days into opportunities to learn new skills. The campaign focused on women who actually looked forward to their periods—sex workers, who could use three days off to spend more time at home with family or catching up with chores. The campaign won the Grand Prix for Creative Strategy at Spikes Asia 2021. 

The other two Golds in the category went to Dublin’s Boys and Girls for Three Ireland's 'The connected island' campaign, and Starbucks campaign 'What’s your name?' by Iris London. The campaign, which depicts the key moment for a young transgender person when they try out their new name for the first time when placing an order in a Starbucks store, started life as the winner of Channel 4’s Diversity in Advertising award.

The Creative Strategy Grand Prix went to Goodby Silverstein & Partners for its campaign for Cheetos Popcorn, 'Can’t touch this Cheetos'.

There was one Silver winner from the UK: FCB Inferno for its Big Issue and LinkedIn collaboration, 'Raising profiles'. Another six Silvers were awarded: two each from India and Canada, and one each from Brazil and Portugal. The two from India went to Dentsu Webchutney for Vice Media's 'The 8-Bit Journo', and Ogilvy for Dove's '#StopTheBeautyTest'.

There were two Bronze winners each from the US and UK, with each of McCann New York, FCB Chicago & New York, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and McCann Bristol taking home an award.

Creative Data

Rothco, based in Dublin and owned by Accenture Interactive, won the Grand Prix in the Creative Data Lions for Warner Music Group 'Saylists'.

Two Golds were awarded, to VMLY&R Kansas City for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development 'Laugh Tracker', and Markenfilm Crossing, Hamburg for NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra 'For seasons – composed by climate data'. 

UK and US entrants won no Silver Lions, but there were two Bronze winners from the UK—for Wunderman Thompson and AMV BBDO—and one from the US, for R/GA San Francisco. Ogilvy bagged a Bronze for '#NotJustACadburyAd' for Mondelez India.