Hasta La Creative!

It’s been a few days since Cannes closed the books on its 2013 clusterfuck, but what the hell. Fresh off of taking the creative helm at DDB California, Deutsch L.A. alum Jason Elm gives us his observations from the event, in which he discusses going 24 hours without iPhone on purpose. Take it away, sir.

Every year, my iPhone becomes an increasingly critical part of my Cannes experience. A few years ago, I’d use it to reach people and take photos, but now it’s almost never in my pocket: I’m using it to Google things I find interesting, taking notes or voice memos, tweeting, using the Cannes app to capture the work and schedule my day, reviewing office emails, texting my friends over here and using six different social media apps to keep tabs on people nine time zones away in California.

It’s now a persistent input/output extension of my brain while I take in the festival and its surroundings. But, is it enhancing my experience or getting in the way of it?

This year, I found out by negotiating the hustle and bustle of the Festival without my iPhone for an entire day: from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed, I wouldn’t so much as touch the phone. When I told people I’d be doing this, most of them looked at me like I was insane. But, it was actually a big eye-opener to just how constantly I use my phone (sorry, “connected mobile device.” But, I’ll simply call it a phone because, well, that’s what we say. )

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Catering to current trends of craft and crowdsourcing, Clear Channel Outdoor commissioned two “high-profile billboard muralists” to handpaint people’s tweets on a giant canvas during Cannes. And by smushing enough ideas together on a 16m x 4m screen, they’ve set a couple records: This was the world’s first hand-painted micrography billboard made entirely of tweets, and also the world’s first gigapixel image searchable by tweet.

To gather relevant words, CCO started Twitter debates with questions like, “Who owns the creative agenda?” and “Is technology redefining creativity?” People were into it: over the four-day period, the campaign delivered a total campaign reach of 15.7 million impressions on Twitter. “Who owns the creative agenda?” trended number two worldwide. As the responses streamed in, social media visualisations of the #canvas Twitter content were displayed on CCO’s website, digital screens at the festival, and a high-resolution projection to a separate 18m x 5m canvas located on the roof of the Le Grand Hotel.

It’s a sweet reflection of the spirit of Cannes, one that could have only been more accurate if it involved alcohol. See if your tweet was chosen here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Maybe someday USA TODAY will hire me to cover Cannes for them. Until that day, we’ll have to do with Michael Wolff’s coverage.

Apparently Wolff wandered into a party where Jay Sears from Rubicon Project, “the leading technology company automating the buying and selling of advertising globally,” was explaining how in three years 50% of all media buying will be automated.

Wolff says he has no idea what that means.

I have, however, been failing to understand this long enough to have begun to comprehend that what we don’t understand is now transforming the media business in ways that we don’t understand at our own peril.

Here’s a video description of what it means:

For ad buyers, Rubicon offers a single access point to premium inventory at massive scale — reaching more than 96.7% of the entire U.S. internet audience.

Wolff, in his confusion, does note that prices of digital advertising have “relentlessly dropped since it became clear that digital supply would ceaselessly outstrip demand.”

But now smart publishers using new automated tools could start to make prices go up again, Wolff contends. “Automation could be used to counter automation, in other words.”

The post Media Buyers, You’ve Been Disintermediated By The Modern Abacus appeared first on AdPulp.

Chris Zander, managing director/partner at Venice, CA-based prodco, Backyard, chimes in from the French Riviera and talks about why Cannes is still worth attending. So, we’ll indulge and live vicariously through him for the next few days. Stay tuned for more and you can follow Zander at @realchriszander.

I’ve come to Cannes eleven times over the past thirteen years, and most of the trips have blurred into each other.  Whenever somebody asks me what has changed since my first trip here, I usually answer that nothing has really changed but some of the faces.  Tuesday night here could always be counted on for being quiet…the calm before the storm.  But last night, for the first Tuesday night ever, the restaurants and bars were packed.  The streets were buzzing, and the Carlton was overflowing like the typical Thursday nights of the past.  Digital and Innovation have finally caught up to TV.  There is a palpable energy here, and a bigger SXSW-type of crowd.  There is an energy of excitement…what is coming next??

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While yours truly languishes in the humidity shrouding NYC as of now, we’ll be receiving daily Cannes reports from one Chris Zander, managing director/partner at Venice, CA-based prodco, Backyard. As he awaits his flight to the French Riviera, Zander, who will be be going rogue in a sense for the duration of this year’s Cannes Lions, tells us in his first submission, why go in the first place? Consider this an introduction post more than anything if you will. Stay tuned and you can follow Zander at @realchriszander.

Tonight, I’ll be on Delta 82 to Nice with half of the advertising world.  The next five days will be a whirlwind of dinners, drinks, villa parties, networking, late night dancing and late morning jogs.  This year my travel partner will be Kris Mathur, my good friend, Backyard’s esteemed executive producer, and the real Most Interesting Man in the World.

If you want the Cannes Ad Festival updates, you are in the wrong place.  I won’t be buying a delegate pass.  I tried going “official”  one year, and went to multiple sanctioned events.  It wasn’t for me.  I discovered that short list screenings were a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep.

My guess is that at least half of the annual attendees are in Cannes as unofficial delegates.  Walk around the Gutter Bar before the sun comes up next Sunday morning, and you may see one or two happy people carrying around Gold Lions…maybe.  Trust me: if the crowd was limited to the award winners and delegates, the festival wouldn’t be nearly as fun, crowded, and colorful, and almost everybody would be asleep by midnight.  There would be nobody in the street to pose for pictures with the Leopard Ladies.  The energy level would be severely reduced, and the opportunity to be taken on day trips to Saint Tropez would we greatly diminished.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Perhaps in an effort to indulge everyone’s inner-stalker, Made @Sweden will release the Yellow and Blue Pages, a comprehensive contact list for the top creatives who work in the country’s communication industry. Before the guide comes out on June 16 at Cannes, Made @Sweden is pumping up the publicity, taking out ad space in the festival’s program and daily newspaper to promote the literal and figurative open book. Take a second to focus on how European this it. I’d be stunned if American professionals did the same thing. Farfar alum/current McCann Europe chief innovation Matias Palm-Jensen, who may or may not be a character from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is even giving out the phone number to his summer home. I think Made @Sweden is underestimating how relentless and annoying people can be when given a chance to anonymously contact someone, but the openness is certainly refreshing in theory.

After the jump, you can also watch clips for Civil Rights Defenders and the Natalia Project, two ventures nominated at this year’s Cannes associated with the Made @Sweden creative academy.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

There’s not too much to say about this video. A creative advertising student, who wishes to stay anonymous at the moment, has made this one-minute digital pitch aimed at senior-level industry folks (from CDs to CCOs to CEOs) who have yet to pick out an errand boy or girl for the upcoming 2013 Cannes Lions Festival. The animated video is cloaked in some 80′s synth beats, pastel colors, and dry narration humor, which may not be your thing, but if it is, the anonymous creator wants you to find more information at the “Personal Assistant de Cannes” Facebook page. In return, the student is hoping to receive a Cannes Young Lions pass and accommodations  We’ll leave it up to you to decide if this is clever or cheesy or irrelevant. At times like this, it’s better to just report the facts and see what happens next.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Os russos Dmitry Chigirin e Oleg Izosimov são roteirista e diretor de arte, respectivamente. Em junho deste ano, eles foram ao Festival de Cannes com um objetivo: conseguir a melhor carta de recomendação do mercado criativo de todos os tempos. Para isso, eles pediram ajuda a 33 criativos de todo o mundo, ganhadores de Leões de Ouro, GP e membros do júri: cada um deles precisaria somente escrever uma letra do alfabeto em uma folha de papel e assinar.

É claro que explicaram para os participantes o que iriam fazer, e aproveitaram para filmar tudo. As recomendações estão todas no site Dmitryandoleg.com. Entre os criativos de todo o mundo, destaque para os brasileiros Adriano Alarcon (Giovanni+DraftFCB), Eduardo Marques (Ogilvy), Sérgio Valente (DDB) e Guga Ketzer (Loducca).

E você, o que achou da ideia dos caras? Toparia fazer algo parecido?

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Meu segundo ano de SxSW Interactive e meu segundo ano de promessas de uma cobertura apavorante que acaba não acontecendo. Vou jogar as desculpinhas da conexão wifi cai-não-cai, da vontade de refletir sobre cada assunto, do cansaço… Mas a real é que na semana de SxSWi eu não quero perder um segundo. Eu gosto de escrever com calma, revisando, deixando o texto marinar alguns dias e é isso que vou começar a fazer com este texto aqui, que lanço fora da ordem cronológica ou algo que o valha em edição extraordinária. Lá eu fico andando de um lado pro outro, ouvindo muito e conversando com desconhecidos de vez em quando.

No último dia de SxSW, já no estágio pó da rabiola da barrinha de energia, fui na palestra do CCO da (badalada) AKQA, Rei Inamoto. O título, “Why Ad Agencies Should Act More Like Tech Startups” me lembrava diretamente do painel que mais explodiu minha cabeça ano passado, “Do Agencies Need to Think Like Software Companies?“.

Cannes é a Enciclopédia Brittanica. SxSW é a Wikipedia.

Inamoto abordou tema sozinho, mas com a ajuda de seis especialistas que entrevistou em vídeo, usando trechos da entrevista no telão e discorrendo em cima. Não foi uma palestra definitiva, afirmando se uma agência deve ou não deve se comportar como uma startup (ainda bem). Mas foi ótima para mostrar as diferenças claras entre as duas filosofias, para o bem e para o mal de cada lado. Foi uma das minhas preferidas do evento todo por falar diretamente sobre um assunto que esbarro todo dia no trabalho.

Eis que hoje, depois de 24 horas entre aviões e salas de conexão, no recôncavo do meu lar, vejo galera da publicitariosfera twittando (com um ar de chupa!) um artigo do japinha para a AdAge: SXSW Reminds Why Cannes Is Still King. Vai lá ler, eu espero.

Nas palavras twittadas do próprio:

Enquanto isso, diz ele, Cannes Lions é focada, celebra a inovação e a criatividade. Cannes tem meia dúzia de painéis e o SxSW tem 6 mil.

Até aí concordamos. O problema é ele dizer que, com isto, Cannes é a melhor e devemos deixar o SxSW pra lá. Aí ele mostra que não só não entendeu a pegada do festival texano como periga também não estar entendendo muito para onde nosso barco está indo.

Em primeiro lugar, o SxSW não é um evento de publicidade, não é um evento para publicitários e não existe para celebrar nada relacionado ao mundo da publicidade. O evento interativo teve um tema (entre mais de 20) chamado “Branding and Marketing”, que tinha umas 4 ou 5 salas dedicadas e é onde a maioria dos publicitários circulava. (eu mesmo fui em umas 5 palestras deste núcleo) Mas, só para termos uma ideia, estas salas (ao contrário do ano passado) não ficavam no principal centro do SxSW, o gigantesco Austin Convention Center. (o número total de palestras aumentou do ano passado para este e alguns temas tiveram que se mudar) De repente ele ficou chateado justamente por ver seu painel limitado a uma salinha com uns 100 ou 200 mulambos. (eu entre eles)

Além disso ele mesmo explicou a diferença, só que achou a diferença ruim: SxSW is the live version of the Internet.

É aí, amigo, que mora a diferença. Cannes é a Enciclopédia Brittanica, SxSW é a Wikipedia. Quem faz Cannes é a organização, quem faz o SxSW é você. Eu mesmo saí de lá com a sensação de que não fui tão feliz na minha escolha de palestras quanto o ano passado. Cannes te entrega as coisas de bandeja. O SxSW dá a responsabilidade nas suas mãos. No SxSW qualquer zé mané tem chance de palestrar. Qualquer um mesmo.

Cannes é onde se celebra o que foi feito. SxSW é onde se escreve o futuro.

De certa maneira o CCO reconhece seu erro de expectativa lá pelo meio do texto quando diz “For marketers attending for their own education, it’s best that you have a well-versed guide who can show you around.” Que foi exatamente o que o ECD da minha agência fez: usou as dicas de todo mundo da comitiva (incluindo a minha) para saber onde ir.

Eu ouvi essa opinião de que “Cannes é mais focada, SxSW é mais cachorro louco” de vários publicitários lá mesmo em Austin. Com a diferença: todo mundo já combinando de voltar ano que vem.

No fim das contas é o famoso cada um com seu cada um. Cannes tem sua finalidade e SxSW tem outra. O que não vale é tentar desqualificar um ou outro evento porque sua classe profissional não teve o destaque que você achou que deveria ter.

PS caso não tenha ficado claro: este texto foi escrito por um cara que nunca foi a um Cannes Lions. Quem quiser pagar minha ida este ano é só entrar em contato!

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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