Hasta La Creative!

Slim production budgets have created a culture of “canny innovation and rat-cunning that has typically played out well on the fast-emerging new Cannes categories,” like promo/activation, cyber and media, Mr. Nobay said. Marketing budgets also tend to be smaller, and media is relatively more expensive. John Mescall, executive creative director at one of this year’s most talked-about shops, McCann Australia, credited tight budgets with spawning more interesting integrated work. Russ Mitchinson, planning partner at DDB Australia and a Cannes juror, said there is also more opportunity to take risk because it’s a smaller market. “If [a creative risk] doesn’t work out in America or Europe, that could be a massive, massive business issue.”

Mr. Mescall said agencies also tend to be less hierarchical and structured, which he suspects allows for a greater flow of ideas. Mr. Mitchinson noted that both Australian and New Zealand agencies pride themselves on work that produces business results and a heritage of quality, putting a premium on strategic planning and better creative output.

And of course, there’s the economy. According to the World Bank, Australian GDP per capita was just over $61,000 in 2011, the latest year for which figures are available. Compare that to the U.S., whose GDP per capita was just over $48,000. That “helps advertisers buy into brave work,” said Mr. Mescall.

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