Lisbon International Advertising Festival's 'Win a Crow, Win the Respect' is a 2018 film by Buzziness that uses the city's crow mythology to reframe creative
Lisbon International Advertising Festival Bets on a Crow to Earn Respect
"Win a Crow, Win the Respect" is a 2018 Portuguese film campaign created by Buzziness for the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, using the city's medieval crow mythology to position the festival's Crow trophy as the ultimate mark of creative distinction in Portugal's advertising and entertainment industry.
The campaign was published in Portugal in July 2018 and belongs to the Recreation and Leisure category, reflecting the festival's role as a cultural and professional gathering point for the country's creative community. Its single film asset distils a layered argument: that winning at the Lisbon International Advertising Festival is not merely a competitive achievement but an act of cultural affiliation with the city itself. The Crow trophy is directly linked to Lisbon's coat of arms and the legend of São Vicente, in which two crows accompanied the relics of the patron saint to the city, according to lisbonadvertisingfestival.com. That symbolism transforms an advertising award into something weightier — a piece of civic identity.
Buzziness, operating as Lisbon Creative Consulting, produced the work under the creative direction of João Gomes de Almeida, with copywriting by Francisco Machado. The campaign's strategic intent is to elevate the perceived value of the festival's recognition among Portugal's advertising professionals by grounding the award in narrative rather than ceremony. In a market where international festivals such as Cannes Lions and D&AD compete for the attention and submission budgets of Portuguese agencies, anchoring the Lisbon International Advertising Festival's trophy in local legend creates a proposition that neither rival can replicate. The film reaches professionals working across the Media and Entertainment sector, as well as the broader Recreation and Leisure industry, positioning creative excellence as an aspiration bound to place and story. Clapboard rates this campaign 58 out of 100.
Buzziness identified a specific tension in the Portuguese advertising awards landscape. The Lisbon International Advertising Festival competes for relevance against globally recognised platforms, and the strategic insight driving "Win a Crow, Win the Respect" is that local prestige must be built on local meaning rather than on borrowed international authority.
The festival's Crow trophy carries a narrative weight that no imported award framework can claim. By foregrounding the São Vicente legend — in which crows are guardians of the city's patron saint, as documented by lisbonadvertisingfestival.com — Buzziness reframes what it means to win in Portugal. The trophy is not a replica of global validation; it is an artefact of Lisbon's own civic mythology. This repositioning speaks directly to Portuguese creative professionals who might otherwise measure their achievements primarily against Cannes Lions or Clio Awards submissions, both of which draw heavily from larger advertising markets.
The broader market context underscores why this narrative strategy was timely. Television remained a dominant medium for advertising in Portugal during this period, consistent with global patterns in which television represented a commanding share of total advertising expenditure, according to dentsu-ho.com. Simultaneously, digital advertising was expanding its share of the global advertising market at a significant pace, as reported by dentsu-ho.com, intensifying competition for audience attention and professional recognition across all categories including Media and Entertainment. In Portugal specifically, the Recreation and Leisure sector encompasses cultural festivals, making the Lisbon International Advertising Festival a participant in a competitive attention economy alongside entertainment platforms and live events. Buzziness's decision to lead with mythology rather than metrics is a direct response to that environment, creating an emotional proposition that outlasts any single year's performance data.
Martim Condeixa directed "Win a Crow, Win the Respect" for production company Show Off Films. The work earned a 2019 shortlist at the CCP — Clube de Criativos de Portugal — in the category of Craft, Film, Direction, credited to the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, Show Off Films, and Martim Condeixa, according to clapboard.com. That recognition signals that the film's distinction lies substantially in its directorial execution rather than its conceptual novelty alone.
The creative team assembled by Buzziness brings together João Gomes de Almeida as Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director with Francisco Machado as Copywriter. Their collaboration produces a film in which the copywriting and direction work in alignment: the script draws on the São Vicente legend to construct a tone that is earnest without being reverential, and Condeixa's direction translates that register into a visual language that feels grounded in contemporary Portugal rather than historical pastiche. Actors Ana Lopes and André Barata perform in the film, grounding the mythological narrative in recognisable human terms, as documented by clapboard.com.
Additional production credits include Paulo Rebelo, António Corrêa d'Almeida, Filipa de Almeida, Susana Lourenço, Inês Mingote, Vítor Rebelo, and other collaborators, per clapboard.com, indicating a production scale appropriate to a festival campaign designed for lasting institutional impact. The film's single-asset format is itself a creative choice: rather than fragmenting the narrative across multiple executions, the campaign concentrates its argument in one cohesive piece. That economy of expression aligns with the copywriting ethos evident in the campaign's title — six words that compress mythology, competition, and professional aspiration into a single declarative proposition. For a campaign operating in Portugal's Recreation and Leisure category with a Film medium, the craft shortlist validates the directorial discipline that holds the piece together.
No verified performance data for "Win a Crow, Win the Respect" is publicly available. Audience reach figures, submission rate changes for the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, or measurable shifts in brand perception within Portugal's advertising community have not been disclosed by Buzziness or the festival.
What the record does confirm is industry recognition. The campaign received a 2019 CCP shortlist in Craft, Film, Direction, according to clapboard.com — a meaningful signal from the Clube de Criativos de Portugal that the film met a standard of directorial craft worth distinguishing. For a campaign whose purpose is to elevate the perceived value of an awards festival in Portugal, a craft shortlist from the country's principal creative awards body constitutes a structurally coherent outcome: the work arguing for the importance of Portuguese creative recognition itself received Portuguese creative recognition.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on its ability to make a single, irreplaceable claim. Because the Crow trophy is uniquely tied to Lisbon's civic mythology, as established through the São Vicente legend documented by lisbonadvertisingfestival.com, no competing festival can adopt the same positioning. That structural differentiation is durable in a way that metric-driven campaigns are not. For an institution operating in the Media and Entertainment and Recreation and Leisure sectors within Portugal, long-term brand equity built on cultural narrative is a more defensible asset than short-term engagement figures. The Clapboard Score of 58 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its cultural positioning with discipline but remains constrained by the niche institutional audience it addresses and the absence of measurable public outcomes.
"Win a Crow, Win the Respect" is a 2018 Portuguese film campaign created by Buzziness for the Lisbon International Advertising Festival. It uses Lisbon's medieval crow mythology — rooted in the legend of São Vicente — to position the festival's Crow trophy as a symbol of creative distinction within Portugal's advertising and Recreation and Leisure community.
Martim Condeixa directed the film for production company Show Off Films. His direction earned a 2019 CCP shortlist in Craft, Film, Direction, according to clapboard.com. The creative team also included Chief Creative Officer João Gomes de Almeida and Copywriter Francisco Machado, both from Buzziness in Lisbon, Portugal.
The Crow trophy connects directly to Lisbon's coat of arms and the legend of São Vicente, in which two crows guarded the patron saint's relics, according to lisbonadvertisingfestival.com. Buzziness used this mythology in the campaign to make the festival's award irreplaceable — a piece of civic identity that no international rival operating in Portugal can replicate.
The campaign received a 2019 shortlist at the CCP — Clube de Criativos de Portugal — in the Craft, Film, Direction category, according to clapboard.com. The shortlist was credited to the Lisbon International Advertising Festival, Show Off Films, and director Martim Condeixa, recognising the film's directorial execution within Portugal's Media and Entertainment sector.
Buzziness, operating as Lisbon Creative Consulting in Portugal, created the campaign. João Gomes de Almeida served as Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director, with Francisco Machado as Copywriter. The film was produced by Show Off Films and published in Portugal in July 2018, targeting the country's professional advertising and Recreation and Leisure audience.
Clapboard rates "Win a Crow, Win the Respect" 58 out of 100. The score reflects disciplined cultural positioning and a craft-recognised directorial execution, balanced against the campaign's narrow institutional audience in Portugal and the absence of publicly available performance metrics for the Lisbon International Advertising Festival's Recreation and Leisure category film.
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