My first ever visit to the Cannes Lions International Festival
of Creativity, was like losing my virginity. Just like the first
time, I'd thought about it a lot, wondered what it would be like
and the anticipation turned out to be much better than the actual
event. When it happened, it seemed to be over in a flash, but just
like the first time, it made a deep impression on me, something
that will be difficult to forget in a hurry.
As an agency, we've entered the Cannes Lions Awards every year,
we've had jury members, won a Gold Lion, had two Young Lions, and
yet, in nearly 30 years in the business, I had never visited. I
always believed it was something to be avoided, to be enjoyed by
others with more time on their hands, while I got on with the real
business. So this year, Richard Marshall and I made the pilgrimage
to the South of France.
For anyone out there who's never heard of the Cannes Lions, it's
the premier international festival of creativity. Indeed, last year
it changed its name from 'Advertising' to 'Creativity', to reflect
the wider scope of our industry which I applaud, considering the
overwhelming advertising agency presence at Cannes.
The event consists of three main parts. These are a
continuous stream of seminars, workshops and lectures, an awards
event, attracting some of the best work in the world and a MASSIVE
PARTY!
Attending the seminars and workshops gave me a fair indication
of the sentiment of the creative industries. Presentations on
social media, mostly saying the same thing 'the world has changed
completely', 'we can no longer presume an audience's attention',
'participation platforms' etc etc. Not a huge surprise to me, but
good to see the advertising community finally waking up to the new
world. I attended many of these seminars, including an interesting
presentation by a Japanese creative consultancy called 'Party'. I
loved its premise that 'new stories are crafted by new
technologies'. Its creative director and founder, Morihiro Harano
in a wonderful linguistic iteration declared: 'if you're doing
shit… stop doing shit!' very profound I thought. The work they
showed was truly excellent, and refreshing, it's not surprising to
me that awards are being won by these sorts of companies, ones that
have defied the conventions set up by the large advertising
agencies.
The Cannes Lions Awards are apparently the reason for its
existence. This year, there were over 30,000 entries in nearly 20
categories. What is interesting is where the entries are coming
from, and who's getting on the shortlists. I was there for the
first three days, and at that stage, the largest number of
shortlisted entries were from Brazil (236), followed by USA (175)
and Germany (171). The UK was at 104 shortlisted entries, while
countries like the United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Chile were
not far behind. In fact the most noticeable thing about the
Cannes Lions is how global and multicultural the event is. The
other great Cannes activity is partying. The whole of the Croisette
beachfront is taken up with different agency and group events. The
famous 'Gutter bar' was a little disappointing, and a lot
expensive. The feeling I get from Cannes is that it is a good
opportunity for the big network agencies to get together, and why
not? It probably saves agency groups millions in other forms of
global get-togethers.
So will I be back next year? Well, having saved myself for so
many years and finally succumbed, I'm definitely going to take
advantage of my new passion, even if I'll make sure I practice safe
Cannes.