Original Press Lions Grand Prix winner disqualified

The Press Lions Grand Prix has been awarded to Almap BBDO Sao Paolo's campaign for Billboard magazine, but only after the jury's original choice was disqualified at the last minute for having entered the Awards previously. The jury first awarded the Press Lions Grand Prix to Ogilvy Mexico for its Scrabble campaign for Mattel.However, moments before last night's awards ceremony was due to take place, organisers disqualified the campaign after realising it was ineligible for the 2010 Festival because it had been entered before.

Jun 24, 2010 07:00:00 AM | Article | Arif Durrani

The Press Lions Grand Prix has been awarded to Almap BBDO Sao Paolo's campaign for Billboard magazine, but only after the jury's original choice was disqualified at the last minute for having entered the Awards previously.

The jury first awarded the Press Lions Grand Prix to Ogilvy Mexico for its Scrabble campaign for Mattel.

However, moments before last night's awards ceremony was due to take place, organisers disqualified the campaign after realising it was ineligible for the 2010 Festival because it had been entered before.

In an embarrassing twist, it transpires the campaign was entered into Cannes 2008 but had failed to make even the shortlist.

Ogilvy Mexico claim they were unaware of the rules against submitting work more than once.

Almap BBDO São Paulo's campaign for Billboard campaign was elevated from a Gold Lion to a Grand Prix.

The campaign featured pictures of music stars, including Bono and Amy Winehouse, composed of a mosaic of images of other performers they are similar to - in Winehouse's case Sid Vicious, Billie Holiday, Marvin Gaye and Sarah Vaughan.

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