J. Walter Thompson Cannes 2015: Cyber win for J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam

On Wednesday, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity announced winners across the Cyber, Radio, Design and Product Design Categories.

J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam earned a Silver Lion in Cyber for “Taste the Translation,” a campaign for language service company ELAN.

Silver Lion Winner: J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam’s “Taste The Translation” for ELAN

J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam won the Silver Lion for ELAN, “Taste the Translation,” a clever campaign aimed at convincing people to use the impressive (but lesser known) ELAN translation tool over Google Translate. To do this, the team put both tools to the test… a taste test to be exact. Using ELAN and Google Translate, they translated a Japanese recipe with each tool and asked a chef to prepare the recipe translations. The dishes were then served to discerning diners. The victor? ELAN, which delivered a far tastier and, overall, more edible dish than its competitor.

In addition to this win for J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam, three of J. Walter Thompson New York’s Miami Ad School interns, Elton Rhee, Ludvig Pehrson and Louis Elsass, accepted Cannes’s Future Lion Award.

The triumvirate’s winning idea, “Chromebook_Type,” featured a self-powered laptop targeted to consumers who live without or are often unable to access electricity. The battery is powered by the energy generated from typing on its keyboard.

Summary: Google recently invested in SpaceX’s ambitious plans to deliver microsatellites across the globe and provide internet to remote areas of the world. But a quarter of the world’s population lacks electricity, meaning they still can’t access the internet. The chromebook_Type laptop would bring us one step closer to a world where knowledge is accessible to everyone, everywhere. Every key on the computer’s keyboard is installed with a Piezo-Electric nanogenerator that harvests energy from the pressure of typing, making it a completely self-powered laptop.

Congratulations to J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam, Elton Rhee, Ludvig Pehrson and Louis Elsass.