What happens in Cannes doesn’t stay in Cannes. That’s the assessment of Arnie DiGeorge who was recently promoted to group creative director at R&R Partners, overseeing the advertising agency’s Las Vegas and Phoenix offices.
DiGeorge was part of the original creative team that developed the pop culture phenomenon, “What happens here, stays here,” for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. And while he’s never been to Cannes, DiGeorge said he clearly feels the long reach of the Lions International Advertising Festival.
“The Grand Prix winner resonates and reverberates everywhere,” he related. “Though The One Show seems to be the perennial favorite competition of the creatives here at R&R Partners, there’s no escaping the Grand Prix and the international reach of Cannes. It’s a marquee show. I remember our Vegas work being shortlisted there and you could feel the excitement at the agency over just that accomplishment.”
Indeed the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival appears to be resonating more than ever with industry folk as reflected in the fact that the 55th annual event, slated for June 15-21 in Cannes, has drawn more than 28,000 entries from 85 countries, an increase of 10.2 percent in total entries as compared to last year. Even without taking into account the new Design Lions category, the increase is still nearly six percent.
“We are seeing strong growth right across the categories and right across the world,” said Festival CEO Philip Thomas. “This is the fifth year in a row that we have seen record entries into Cannes, another indication that agencies and clients across the world are embracing creativity and wishing to showcase their work at a global level at the Festival.”
Thomas added that the Design Lions competition has “outstripped even our most optimistic estimates; with over 1,100 entries, it has established itself, in year one, as a major trophy to compete for, and will be a major Lion to win.”
Much of this year’s entry growth has come from the newer categories, with Promo (up 40 percent versus 2007), Media (20 percent) and Titanium & Integrated (33 percent) making particularly strong showings. But the more established categories have also scored impressively. There’s growth in Press and Outdoor, and Film has reversed a three-year trend of decline (up 3.4 percent), perhaps mainly attributable to the Film section being expanded this time around to include categories for films created for transmission on screens other than conventional TV and cinema.
Geographically, booming regions such as China, Russia, India and the Middle East have generated much entry action. But there are also more entries from the so-called “usual” players: the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Spain and Brazil.
Cyber appeal
The Cyber Lions competition tallied more than 2,700 entries this year. And keeping a watchful eye on all of them, literally, is Colleen DeCourcy, chief digital officer of TBWAWorldwide, New York, and president of the ’08 Cyber Lions jury.
“It’s great to have a really wide glance at everything that’s bubbling up in the world–not just the winners, the Gold, the short list but all the submissions themselves,” said DeCourcy. “Cannes is still this sort of mirror we use to reflect back at ourselves. And depending on what we see in that mirror, we can determine if we are raising the bar year after year. Are we fighting to hang onto the client or is our creativity progressing the industry? And it’s the entire field of entries that gives us the best glance at that–not just the best work culled from all those submissions.”
This is the first time DeCourcy has been a Cannes jury president, but it’s her third consecutive year as a judge. She served on the Titanium & Integrated Lions jury last year and on the Cyber Lions jury the year prior.
A prime dynamic she values about jury duty is comparing notes with other judges.
“Last year on Titanium I sat with Alex Bogusky, Chuck Porter, Mark Tutssel and Jon Kamen, among others, and got their insights and impressions about the work and what broke through for them. To have that kind of an exchange is invaluable.”
As for her Cyber presidential gig, DeCourcy says, “There’s so much talk about the power of digital. The reason I was so excited to do it [be the Cyber president] this year is for all that talk, all the repositioning, all the back and forth, how has that changed the creative expression of the form? How is all this showing up in the work?
“Digital moves at the speed of culture, always connecting, always changing–the challenge for us is to create content that fluid to meet the new marketplace reality. And at the Cannes Festival you can get a handle on how we as an industry are handling that challenge.”
Titanium
This year will be the first that Andrew Keller, partner/co-executive creative director of Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Miami and Boulder, Colo., attends the Cannes Fest. Keller has been fortunate to win Lions in the past but quipped that he’s been apprehensive about the sojourn to the south of France.
“I’m afraid that the year I go, I won’t win anything. The funny thing is that Crispin holds a great party at Cannes–a party that I haven’t been to all these years. I made excuses for not going, finally saying that I won’t go until I’m a judge.”
Well, this year Keller is a judge on the Titanium & Integrated Lions jury. And the attraction of jury duty for him was on several levels.
“For one, Cannes is one of the most revered shows within the industry. And Titanium is the category I really believe in deeply–it’s all about innovation,” said Keller. “While all advertising should always be innovative, this category has innovation in its DNA.
“If you make a bug spray,” he continued, “you have to keep evolving it or the bugs will stop dying. Advertising has to evolve by nature and the strongest evidence of that necessary evolution, I believe, is in the Titanium & Integrated category.”
Being a Cannes judge, continued Keller, “in a way gives you an unfair advantage. You sit down and spend a week or so seeing every piece of advertising created over the past year.”
The other prime allure of being a judge, noted Keller, is “getting the chance to talk with other judges, with people dealing with similar issues. That sort of camaraderie is what I love best in terms of judging these shows. Normally I don’t get the opportunity to talk to other people in the industry. My head is down and I’m either working on clients’ problems or I’m at home with my family–The Cannes Lions Festival represents one moment where everyone comes to one place and advertising is the most important thing in the world.
“It’s a moment you feel part of a special industry. And the judging camaraderie I believe will go deeper than other shows where you do the judging and then the show happens sometime later. Cannes judges are together for the judging and then the actual show where the award winners are recognized. It’s a week that signals that advertising is important and elevates it for a moment. And during that week you can learn and meet other people from throughout the industry who inspire you in many different ways.”
Film first This also marks the first time at Cannes for Joaquin Molla, founder/executive creative director of la comunidad, Buenos Aires, who is a judge on this year’s Film jury.
Molla is no stranger to judging industry competitions, having done jury duty at London’s D&AD Awards, Clios, The One Show and all the major Spanish language awards.
As for what drew him to the Cannes Lions Film jury, Molla explained, “The fact that I love television. I know that maybe this is not the coolest thing to say right now but that’s what I think. Therefore I love the television/cinema category in the Festival. It feels as if it was the soul of it–I think it has to do with the aura from the Cannes Cinema Festival.”
In terms of what he hopes to derive from the Cannes judging experience, Molla related, “The best part is the opportunity to look at all the work the world did in 2007. And to see how other judges from different parts of the world feel about that work. It’s inspiring. At least that’s what I feel every time I judge an awards show. It’s devastating but inspiring.”
Regarding the industry awards landscape, Molla said, “Personally I think there are too many award shows out there. But as an industry we have big egos to fit them all.
“The truth,” he continued, “is that Cannes is the one that crosses more layers of the advertising world. The one everyone is interested in and the place where all the industry gets together. It’s funny but it’s the only one that serves as an excuse to everyone. ‘Oops, sorry, I’m in Cannes that week.’ ‘Okay, don’t worry. Let’s make it the week after.'”
Branded fare
Part of that Cannes schedule consists of assorted seminars and panel discussions, several of which will explore emerging areas.
For example, a Monday afternoon (6/16) session will examine new models for branded entertainment and feature panelists David Lang, who’s president of MindShare Entertainment, Laura Klauberg, VP of global media for Unilever, and Anita Newton, VP of media and digital marketing for Sprint.
MindShare’s presence on the panel underscores the importance of media service agencies, which in recent years have played a lead role in creating new content forms to help deliver clients’ messages. Many of these projects fall under the banner of branded entertainment as an increasing number of marketers realize the value, impact and extra dimension that such initiatives can help deliver to their marketing plans.
Last year MindShare’s Lang brokered a collaboration between agency clients Unilever and Sprint to create the branded entertainment success In the Motherhood, a groundbreaking, multi-platform online comedy series. Leveraging MindShare’s relationships with the media and entertainment communities, the intiative saw the agency partner with Unilever and Sprint to marry original, user-generated ideas with Hollywood-caliber writing and production chops, making a substanstive splash in the developing new media landscape.
Lang, Klauberg and Newton will dsicuss the new models and relationships they are building to create viable branded content projects like In the Motherhood.
