RT'S #1917LIVE TO COMPETE IN THE FINALS OF CANNES LIONS IN THREE CATEGORIES
MOSCOW, JUNE 20, 2018 — RT’S #1917LIVE, an international, historical social media re-enactment dedicated to the Russian Revolution, is short-listed in three categories for one of the world’s most coveted advertising and marketing awards.
Kirill Karnovich-Valua, author of the idea behind #1917LIVE, said: “The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a key industry event. Thousands of applicants seek to qualify for its awards every year. It is a great honor for our educational project to have made it to the Cannes Lions finals.”
An RT in-house team developed and implemented the project concept in its entirety. #1917LIVE will now compete for the Cannes Lions golden award in the “Cross-channel: Storytelling” category against some of the world’s largest brands: USA Network, Forbes Brasil, McDonald’s and KIA. The competition received more than 27 applicants, many of them projects produced by notable international PR agencies.
#1917LIVE also received a nomination in the categories “Use of Social Platforms” and “Use of Branded Content created for Digital or Social”. It will be competing against 213 and 140 projects respectively.
RT’s #1917LIVE project is one of the biggest-ever historical re-enactments on Twitter. Dozens of Twitter accounts were set up as key historical characters of the period, from the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin to common workers and soldiers, tweeting events from 100 years ago in real-time. Historians from the US and UK took part in the project, as well as the world-renowned Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.
#1917LIVE has already taken home 20 international and Russian awards, including the Best in Education award and gold for Best Overall Twitter Presence at the Shorty Social Good Awards, a competition honoring those who strive to make a positive social impact. In the advertising sphere, the project received honors at the Epica Awards and Shorty Awards, a competition celebrating achievements on social networks. At the prestigious international New York Festivals, #1917LIVE took first prize in the Digital Special Event category, while the promo videos for the project took home silver for Cinematography. RT’s #1917LIVE also won the famous Adweek ARC Awards, becoming the first Russian brand to do so. In April of this year, #1917LIVE won the People’s Voice Award at the prestigious international Webby Awards.
In April 2018, the same team behind #1917LIVE launched #Romanovs100 to bring the story of Russia’s last royal family to life through thousands of Romanov family photographs recently unearthed from within the national archives. The large-scale, cross-platform multimedia project takes place across four platforms – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – in order to retell the last decades of imperial Russia over the 100 days leading up to the centenary of the family’s execution on July 17.
Founded in 1954, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for professionals in the creative communications, advertising, and related fields. Over 32,000 applications were submitted to the Cannes Lions Awards in 2018 across all categories. The competition’s juries are drawn from among the top experts in each industry field from around the globe.
