The Unfiltered History Tour, a mobile-based guided tour that exposes the true story behind stolen artefacts on display at the British Museum, has won the Radio & Audio Grand Prix at Cannes this year.
The campaign was designed by media platform Vice World News and Dentsu Webchutney, Bengaluru and Mumbai, to shine a light on the dark truth behind the British Museum’s collection – and the illicit journeys that brought various objects to the UK.
For example, a Gweagal shield is displayed in the British Museum as an artefact that was obtained on British explorer Captain Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific. In reality, Captain Cook and his men shot the shield’s owner and returned with it to England.
The experience invited users to locate 10 stolen objects in the museum, revealing the artefacts’ history through Instagram AR filters and through audio clips narrated by a person from each object’s country of origin. The audio clips were also made available as podcasts, which were downloaded 21,583 times. The initiative generated 32 million social impressions and 5,200 hours worth of ‘unfiltered’ tours.
The Grand Prix winner was one of almost 1,000 entries, said jury president Mariana O’Kelly, global ECD at Ogilvy US. The sheer variety proved the ‘limitless potential’ of what has always been a fairly traditional category, she said at a press conference this morning. ‘We saw audio being used in NFTs, we saw branded radio stations inside games, we saw it inside WhatsApp, on product… So audio is definitely not a traditional channel anymore. It is pervasive and organic in its use.’
