Is Stoli admitting to ghost ads at the last Cannes?

While doing my daily search through the news for interesting things to post I came across a press release from Stoli for their new multi-million dollar "Frozen" campaign starting this month, created by Publicis NYC. The campaign aims to inform people that Stoli vodka is best served ice cold.

The odd thing about the press release is that it states that the ads were previewed at Cannes this year- and won Bronze Lions in the outdoor/out of home category. But how were these ads eligible for a Lion if they ads are just breaking now?

One guess is that it ran in Europe- although the press release does not clearly state anything about that.

The new Stoli campaign already has received considerable acclaim, even before it was unveiled to the general public. The three "Frozen room" executions won awards when previewed at the recent 2004 Cannes International Advertising Festival competition.

"Before it was unveiled to the general public"- so, what the hell does that mean?

So the way in which the press release is worded, it sounds like the ads were just previewed at Cannes - which would make it not eligible to win. We call these ads that have not run ghost ads or scam ads.

I have tried to contact two different people to see if there is some clarification they could add, but so far no response in the last two days.

And the worst part about this press release- not an article by a journalist- is that if there is a mistake - either by admitting to entering a set of ads to Cannes which had not run, or by mudddling the information so badly that it appears that that is the case - it's by their PR person or someone in-house.

If any of you know where or when these ads did run prior to Cannes, please let us know.