Grrr... Welcome!

Congratulations! Predictions has came true. Anyway, have you won the bet?
Wieden + Kennedy UK's "Grrr" ad for Honda has swept the board in Cannes, winning the Film and Titanium Grands Prix and the Film Journalists' Award. Two juries decide. Latest news from Cannes Advertising Festival.

According to Sean Thompson, Art Director and Copywriter for the ad, which launched last October in cinemas and on TV, it is not so much a commercial as a philosophy for life.

Honda's Chief Engine Designer, Kenichi Nagahiro, when told to design the company's first diesel motor, said he hated diesels because they were noisy and dirty, so he would be radical.

"We thought the word hate was very powerful and that hate could be a positive thing if it made things better," Thompson said.

He, Richard Russell and Michael Ruffoff wrote a song, Can Hate Be Good? Which they planned to sing on the ad, but then decided Garrison Keillor would sound better.

Then they turned to the visuals. And decided they needed animation to create a "hate world". Zenith won the pitch and spent five and a half months producing "what they described as Liberace's golf course-over-manicured and just too perfect, to reflect Hate World", Thompson said.

He added: "Advertising doesn't tend to go beyond the idea, but this ad does with a philosophy for life.

"We get some fantastic emails from people including one from a woman who runs a drug rehabilitation centre. She said the philosophy that hate can make things better was great for them to use and they asked for the DVD to show in therapy sessions."

The ad has brought an online game as well as a string of awards-rich compensation for W+K's disappointment in Cannes two years ago when its "Cog" ad for Honda failed to lift the top prize.