If you’re on your way to Cannes this weekend, AdPulp is happy for you. If you’re not on your way to Cannes to collect your Lion, you can stay up on the festival via various social media outlets detailed in the following infographic created by Ghergich & Co. and ImageBrief.
The post The Quick Guide to Cannes Lions 2015 appeared first on AdPulp.
AdPulp is for ad grunts, by ad grunts. We’re not Adverati. We can’t be, we’ve never been to Cannes. We know our place. And we’d like to think we know you, dear reader. We know you, because we work with you, we meet you for coffee or beer and we may even listen to you […]
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Baffled about what to do with your worst-performing employees? Reward them with a trip to the Cannes Lions festival in the south of France this summer!
That’s the tongue-in-cheek message of the festival’s official ad campaign, which launches Monday. Don’t think of it as a reward. Think of it as an investment in creativity. After all, as the tagline points out, sending underperforming staff to Cannes as delegates is “cheaper than severance.”
Photographer Dan Burn-Forti shot both the print ads and the online videos, created by McCann London.
“Although our campaign is humorous, it makes a very sensible point. Why should being a Cannes Lions delegate be the preserve of the already excellent?” says Rob Doubal, co-president and chief creative officer of McCann London. “If we really want a more creative world, as we all profess, we should also be encouraging the not-so-excellent performers to be inspired by Cannes Lions.”
So, if your boss hasn’t penciled you in for a Cannes trip, now’s the time to evolve your approach from sucking up to just plain sucking.
The print ads:
The videos:
A creative team from DDB Sydney gives the Cannes Lions logo a sex change—and proposes a “Cannes Lioness” category—as a way of challenging the creative festival to reward work that reverses the trend of gender-based objectification in advertising.
The 90-second video below, “Sex Sellouts,” explains the idea, though the judging criteria for the proposed category are awfully vague. (We’re told the Lioness honors work “that changes the culture of objectifying women in order to sell stuff,” but that’s about it.) Still, using industry awards to inspire ad professionals “to go against the strategy that sells so many hamburgers”—and by extension, fuel a broader media-driven conversation in society—is ironically appealing.
The video was created in response to the brief “Change the conversation around sex,” and it won gold in the third round of Young Glory, an ongoing competition for advertising students and professionals. DDB worldwide creative chief Amir Kassaei evaluated the entries. Lest anyone think he simply tossed a prize to his own network, however, Young Glory maintains that the creators weren’t identified in the judging phase. (Nepotism in ad awards? Never!)
Philip Thomas, CEO of the Lions Festivals, appears to be a fan. “We love the thinking behind DDB Sydney’s idea,” he tells AdFreak. “The representation of women in this industry, and in society at large, is something Cannes Lions feels a responsibility to address. Last year, we launched the ‘See It Be It’ initiative to accelerate creative women’s careers in the industry. This year, we’ve been working hard, together with the industry, on a big idea that we’ll be ready to announce in the next two weeks. It’s really encouraging to see that the whole industry—veterans, rookies, male and female—is at a stage where we want to fight for the same vision.”
Never underestimate the power of chutzpah.
Oddly enough, it took a German ad man to prove that point. One of the last stories from Cannes-Lions making its way into the headlines concerns the bold actions of Michael Trautmann, CEO of German-based Thjnk.
ICYMI, Bono was discussing AIDS awareness and his foundation (RED) when he brought Jony Ive, Apple Design SVP, on stage and gave the backhanded compliment heard ’round the hipster nation. Following the applause and passing of the Kool-Aid at Genius Bars, Trautmann did the unthjnkable.
And it worked.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
After spending the week at the 2014 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the good folks over at MRY have pulled together some key takeaways from their experiences overseas.
David Berkowitz, Chief Marketing Officer
The biggest surprise for my first year in Cannes was how much the festival resembled another that I’ve been going to for years – South by Southwest. Everywhere along the most populated areas of the Palais and the Croisette were banners for tech brands such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Pinterest, Spotify, and the Mobile Marketing Association. Yachts flew flags of companies such as Celtra, Vibrant Media, and True[x]. Even more traditional brands such as the Daily Mail and Clear Channel were heavily touting their digital offerings. On the main stage, celebrities followed suit, with Patrick Stewart taking a “dronie” (a selfie powered by a drone) for Twitter, and Kanye sharing the secrets behind his famous wedding photo on Instagram. Meanwhile, Volvo Trucks won in B2B for a YouTube campaign, while British Airways triumphed in out-of-home awards for a billboard powered by real-time flight data. 2014 is the year tech totally took over the Lions, and there’s no turning back.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
“Simon the Ogre,” a two-minute mini-epic commercial from agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay, was popular in the U.K. earlier this year but went largely unnoticed in the U.S. before winning a silver Lion at Cannes last week.
We won’t spoil the plot of the effects-driven film, but Fredrik Bond’s direction is solid, as are the editing and performances. Some viewers apparently didn’t like what they saw, though, and the U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority received at least 80 complaints soon after the ad’s debut “for causing offense to people with disfigurements and for trivializing disability.”
I have a different critique. I think it’s a memorable spot that makes its point in a novel way, but Simon behaves less like an ogre than a big mopey baby. Dude, suck it up! Slap a smile on that monstrous mug!
brightcove.createExperiences();
There is a struggle happening for the soul of Adland right now. It doesn’t help that many young, talented people prefer to work in tech, where the perks are stellar and the challenges never-ending. Hell, wine runs from water fountains in Silicon Valley and other pockets of technical innovation like Boulder and Austin.
How are ordinary citizens of Adland to compete?
Insert Contagious, a company that helps brands and advertising agencies understand and adapt to shifts in marketing, consumer culture and technology. Addressing the Adverati at Cannes last week, Contagious execs Nick Parish and Will Sansom helped ad people feel better about themselves and their chosen profession.
Let’s listen in.
Parish and Sansom managed to weave Bill Bernbach, Howard Luck Gossage and Mary Wells Lawrence into their talk. Hey, that’s what I would do if I was on stage. Show your alliances and some knowledge of what came before.
“Creativity should not serve technology. Technology should serve creativity,” reasoned Sansom during the talk. Sounds good. But you know what sounds better? Technology and creativity both in service to real customers’ needs. The question for marketers today is so much bigger than what any ad campaign can offer. The question is how to provide something useful, or something beautiful, that also works as marketing.
Coca-Cola is one brand with answers to these non-rhetorical questions. Whether you drink their soda or not, it’s hard not to be impressed with the company’s innovative efforts to provide clean drinking water in Africa and Latin America.
The post Marketers Are Innovators, So Please, No Lagging appeared first on AdPulp.
It’s all over but the hangover.
In case you missed out on the drunk fun in France and have yet to read all 13 interviews with Sir Martin Sorrell, here’s all the convergence you can handle via the makers of an app we’ve never heard of:
But wait, there’s more!
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
CANNES, France—All this past week, Cannes Lions judges and presenters talked endlessly about how the best ads are those that inspire and even improve the world.
So, why was the festival’s most awarded campaign an unapologetic (if tongue-in-cheek) homage to selfishness and greed? One whose centerpiece video has a relatively meager 500,000 views on YouTube—and was, in fact, the only ad jeered by attendees at Saturday’s award show here?
The Harvey Nichols holiday campaign “Sorry, I Spent It on Myself” from agency adam&eveDDB took home no less than four Grand Prix, making it the second most awarded campaign in the festival’s history. (McCann Melbourne set the record last year with five Grand Prix for “Dumb Ways to Die.”)
The campaign centered on the creation of cheap products, such as gravel or rubber bands, sold in Harvey Nichols stores with the label “Sorry, I Spent It on Myself.” The video showed customers giving these crap gifts to relatives and loved ones at Christmas while enjoying expensive clothing and handbags for themselves.
It’s a good campaign, and may well have deserved the Integrated Grand Prix. It also won the Press Grand Prix, the Promo & Activation Grand Prix and a Film Grand Prix—one of two awarded in that category, along with Volvo Trucks’ “Epic Split.” And it’s that Grand Prix in Film—where it bested some truly powerful and popular pieces of cinematography—that’s the real head-scratcher.
At a press conference Saturday afternoon, the Film Lions judges gushed about the spot’s “boldness” but struggled to explain how it merited such lofty accolades. I asked them how it could possibly have been a unanimous selection as one of the two best pieces of advertising film in the past year.
“To take greed and make people laugh and smile about it is, I think, incredibly difficult,” said jury member Pete Favat, chief creative officer of Deutsch L.A. “And as a film, it’s a perfect piece of film.”
I disagree, and it was clear I wasn’t alone when, during a screening of the ad at Saturday’s big award ceremony, some derisive whistling could be heard.
To illustrate why its Grand Prix selection was so baffling, we’ve decided to highlight some of the work it beat for the top spot. You might not agree that any one of them was Grand Prix material, but you’d be hard pressed to argue that they’re lesser films.
Below are our picks for seven ads that could have, and should have, ranked higher than Harvey Nichols:
• Lacoste: “The Big Leap” by BETC Paris
Somehow this stellar piece of cinematography only won a silver Lion in Film. French journalists told me they felt the video was largely snubbed at Cannes, where it was shortlisted in Film Craft but awarded no Lion in that category.
• Wren: “First Kiss” by Durable Goods L.A.
While this viral juggernaut with nearly 85 million views has its share of critics, it’s hard to deny it was one of the most compelling, talked-about and just plain interesting videos of the year. Judges clearly liked it quite a bit, awarding it bronze and gold Lions in Film and a bronze in Film Craft.
• Coca-Cola: “Parents” by Santo Buenos Aires
Surprising, funny, perfectly crafted. It’s just so damn good. Judges liked it enough to give it a gold Lion in Film.
• Guinness: “Sapeurs” by AMV BBDO
A real story, told really well. This piece starring a super-stylish group of Congolese gentlemen won a silver Lion in Film and a bronze Lion in Film Craft.
• Lurpak: “Adventure Awaits” by Wieden + Kennedy London
Anyone who’s ever made a food ad (or, hell, watched a food ad) will realize what a masterpiece of innovative visuals this is. It won gold in Film Craft.
• Skype: “The Born Friends Family Portrait” by Pereira & O’Dell
It’ll make you smile. It’ll make you cry. It’s a touching piece of documentary that’s as stylish as it is emotional. But oddly, it didn’t win any Lions in Film. (It did win two silver Lions and two bronze Lions in Cyber and a bronze in Branded Content & Entertainment.) Read the story behind the story in our interview with creator PJ Pereira.
• Volvo Trucks: “The Epic Split” by Forsman & Bodenfors
The other Grand Prix winner in Film, and deservedly so. Let’s revisit it to remind ourselves how different these supposedly equal spots are.
What do you think? Did the Film judges overreach, or was the Harvey Nichols spot really that good? And what would you have selected?
Maybe not so much?
Unilever stays fairly busy with a range of products running the gamut from food to personal care to just about anything that requires advertising to maintain its market share.
According to a blog post in the Wall Street Journal (and a stage appearance at Cannes-Lions), Unilever CMO Keith Weed is a bit terse about the industry’s new digital direction. Weed believes that advertising “is chaos and is only going to get worse.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Thanks to your overwhelmingly positive response to the first post in this series, we’ve decided to deliver again, relieving your not-in-Cannes regrets by collecting only the very sharpest quotes from those lucky enough to be there…and sober enough to tweet coherently.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Here’s a very special delivery from French agency BETC. It’s called “Birth,” and it’s a minute-long promotional film touting the annual Young Director Award that will be presented Thursday at the Cannes Lions festival.
Norman Bates (great name!) directed the impressively offbeat outing that presents—in a single, flowing shot—the “debut effort” of a young filmmaker. And I mean, a very young filmmaker. So young, in fact, that she’s still inside the womb. But not for long.
This marks the second notable “in utero” spot in recent weeks, following Grey London’s British Heart Foundation PSA that used CGI to create some amazingly realistic womb footage. (Someone else held the camera for that kid, I guess. Lazy unborn slacker.)
BETC’s commercial is more lighthearted, offering a memorable riff on “giving birth” as a metaphor for creativity, with dashes of cheeky humor punctuating its labor of love.
Since you, like us, are currently sitting at your desks rather than enjoying the surf, sun and creative brilliance of the Cannes Lions Festival, we took it upon ourselves to share the experience…via the best and worst quotes from the event as collected/recollected on Twitter.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
CANNES, France—Maybe India’s Internet Baby isn’t as horrifying as he seems?
If you think about it, the preternaturally social star of the MTS Telecom campaign—who learns to cut his own umbilical cord immediately after birth—is actually someone to be revered, at least according to the agency that created him.
We thought he was creepy, as most CGI infants are when they do adult-like things. The ad’s utopian vision of ever-younger digital natives also seemed dystopian, to say the least. The ad will make you “weep for humanity,” we wrote, adding that Internet Baby must be stopped. (Others, including Time magazine, later agreed with us.)
But Sajan Raj Kurup, founder and creative chairman at Creativeland Asia—which is hoping the ad snags a Lion at Cannes this week—sent us an email in which he suggests we may have missed the cultural import of the spot. He urges us to look at it in a different way—as beautiful, not terrifying.
Check out his full email below.
Dear Tim,
You have mentioned how the MTS Internet Baby spot will make one weep for humanity. You have also appealed that somebody must stop the Internet baby. As someone who wrote the spot, may I sincerely ask that somebody not to stop my little Internet baby. Very humbly, here’s why:
I live in a country where millions of babies are born into poverty. Hunger in their life manifests itself in many terrifying ways. From basic amenities, to education, security and healthcare.
The Internet and mobile phones arrived in my country in the late ’90s. Today, India is the fastest growing telecom and Internet market. Beyond the economic benefits, there is huge social upside to it. Internet and telecommunications has perhaps been the greatest social leveler in my country. It has begun to empower even the most socially backward Indian in the remotest corner of the country with information, with access, with knowledge, with education, with true power.
I would like to hope that this empowerment continues. And it transcends age-groups, caste, religion and social standing. I would like to hope that every baby born in my country is born to the Internet. The Internet that empowers him or her to start life like any other baby in an urban Indian home, European or an American home. For then he would have knowledge available, at the touch of a button. The same button a child in London presses when he needs to know. The same button that empowers a child in Tokyo.
It is natural for a handful of people to think that this is freaky or unnatural. Remember even the motorcar was called evil by some people a hundred years ago. But let not the playful thought of an Internet-empowered baby at birth terrify us. Let’s not stop him.
There’s no telling how far this generation of Indian children, those born for the Internet, will go. They will definitely go farther than their fathers did. They might even go farther than kids in the developed world. Let them go. Let them break barriers.
Debates and point of view are essential. They are what make our business a lot more fun. But that doesn’t change facts. Technology and the Internet are getting deeper into our lives. And the MTS Internet Baby has made people stand up and take notice.
I would like to invite you to Mumbai after Cannes Lions to witness firsthand India’s flourishing creative scene and our country’s “Internet Babies.” I promise it would be something you would never forget—and you would weep for humanity. With a mixture of joy and excitement.
Yours sincerely,
Sajan Raj Kurup
Founder & Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia
To commemorate the birth of the Internet Baby, Creativeland also ran a promo in which it christened babies born on MTS India’s founding day (which happened to be within the launch month of the spot) as Internet babies and gave away free Internet connections. See that case study below.
Spoofing its own long-running “Cable Effects” TV campaign, Grey New York has released the invite video for their Cannes Lions soiree, which takes place on June 19 on the roof of the JW Marriott on the Boulevard de la Croisette. It appears that the agency has hired the same person to provide VO for the clip, where like previous efforts in the “Cable” campaign, a poor soul’s imbibing at Cannes leads to chaos. From the looks of it, the shenanigans that occur at a Grey bash are typical of what goes down every year in the French Riviera. We’re just jealous we’re not able to go, but if we were, we’d surely hope for a better evening than this guy.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
The ad campaign for the 2014 Cannes Lions festival amusingly celebrates creativity by spoofing the utter lack of it.
In five ads produced by McCann London, well-known ad execs—from Amir Kassaei and Cindy Gallop to Benjamin Palmer and Ted Royer—pose for comically clichéd stock photos. "You'll come back as pumped as a stock photo model," says the headline on each execution.
The ads are even styled like stock photos, with faux watermarks and keyword and credit info. The five executions were "shot in generic office spaces in New York and London with models dressed in bland office attire befitting the stock image style," says McCann.
Max Oppenheim shot the images. "It was a challenge to find just the right visual language to pull off this series," he said. "I was very careful to select neutral locations, styling and wardrobe to capture the generic world of stock. And it helped massively that all the 'models' understood how great the idea was and threw themselves into their performances. They were pumped!"
See all five ads below.
This month’s Advertising and Interactive Annual issue of Applied Arts Magazine features some unusual creative thought from Zulu Alpha Kilo. ZAK is guest art directing for the magazine, and the agency decided to produce a thought experiment that would challenge the way industry insiders perceive quality work. In short: the issue’s winning work was rejudged by “regular” consumers, and the results were quite different.
In the accompanying video, we don’t get to see what work was praised by critics and panned by consumers, but we are told that 70% of the critically-acclaimed work wasn’t as acclaimed when consumers were judging. The remaining 30%, praised by both, went on to have success at Cannes. Such a large split brings up a compelling debate about what makes certain work good, accessible, and appealing to the public. It’s the same debate that comes with any creative format, be it movies, music, art, but when consumers are involved, their opinions should help qualify what makes something good or bad. How much those opinions should count, I’m not sure. This type of experiment may not lead to easy answers, but at least it asks some very interesting questions.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
We’re sure many of you on the East Coast have already checked out by this point, but here’s a short film anyways produced by Jack Morton Worldwide that somewhat documents the Cannes Lions experience. Beginning with shots of creative notables including AKQA CCO Rei Inamoto in some sort of meditative pose as they ponder the questions being asked, the video eventually gives us a sense (especially those of us who’ve never made it out there) of what it’s like to win, or just be at the week-long event in general. That’s good enough for us at this point, thanks.
Regarding the doc, which also features the likes of David Droga, Jack Morton director of moving image, EMEA Adam Norris tells Campaign Brief, “Cannes Lions is far more than an industry event; it’s the key gathering of creative minds from across the globe. Creating the documentary is a singular opportunity to shine a light on this world and reveal what makes Cannes unique.” And we suppose it basically does.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Um dos filmes mais emocionantes do ano passado – e que exatamente por isso mesmo ficou com o GP de Film Craft em Cannes -, Meet the Superhumans acabou de ganhar uma sequência, The Return of the Superhumans. A volta acontece para divulgar o Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games, jogos que marcam o primeiro aniversário da Olimpíada de Londres.
Apesar de seguir o mesmo conceito do primeiro filme, The Return of the Superhumans não causa o mesmo impacto, provavelmente por conta da expectativa criada pelo antecessor. A fotografia em preto e branco, entretanto, cria a tensão necessária para lembrar que outros recordes podem ser estabelecidos, e que os super-heróis paralímpicos estão sempre dispostos a superar obstáculos e enfrentar novos desafios.
Mais uma vez, a assinatura é da 4Creative para o Channel 4.
Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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