The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival has become the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, a new moniker underscoring that even with its storied past, the competition has to change and evolve for the present and future–a dynamic also reflected this year in the freshman and sophomore class of Lions.
The former is the inaugural Creative Effectiveness Lions, designed to honor creativity which has shown a measurable and proven impact on a client’s business–creativity that positively affects consumer behavior, brand equity, sales and, where identifiable, profit.
Meanwhile, entering its sophomore year are the Film Craft Lions, which award Lions to work based on the quality of the direction, copywriting, cinematography or editing as well as the skillful use of music, sound design or animation.
Tim Broadbent, global effectiveness director of Ogilvy & Mather, helped design the Creative Effectiveness Lions and serves on its jury. He cited the legendary David Ogilvy as an inspiration for the newest awards to come to Cannes. “David Ogilvy thought creative awards were a waste of time. It might have sounded like sour grapes from anyone else, but he won more than his fair share. He thought celebrating failure was absurd. If a campaign did nothing for a brand, or for the client who had paid for it, it was a failure. Simple as that. Giving an award to a failed campaign was like putting lipstick on a corpse.
“Cannes’ long struggle against commercial reality is over. Clients matter, to Cannes and to the industry,” affirmed Broadbent who is based in Ogilvy’s Beijing office. “Clients bring the media and creative arms of Cannes together. Clients are Cannes’ fastest growing income segment. And what clients want, not unreasonably, is a demonstrable return on their investment in creativity. Hence the new Effectiveness Lions this year.”
Broadbent views the new competition as “an excellent way of celebrating creativity. Agencies and clients who believe their award-winning campaign paid back are required to prove it. We expected maybe 70 entries but actually got 140. The standard is pretty high, based on the entries I’ve judged. A couple are absolute standouts, in my opinion; I’d back them for Golds in the U.K.’s IPA Effectiveness Awards, which is the Olympics of effectiveness competitions. Several more are first rate. Only a few just don’t get it.”
Regarding the pitfalls in judging effectiveness, Broadbent related, “There are some predictable weaknesses. Creative awards often go to small budget and pro bono campaigns, where the agency can bully the client into running the work it wants to run. But often small clients can’t afford to do much research, if any. That’s a problem when you want to show it was the campaign, rather than some other factor, that was responsible for the sales increase. In practice, ‘real’ clients with real budgets stand a better chance of winning. Which is as it should be.”
Broadbent added that “scammers needn’t bother to apply. Cannes made huge efforts to eradicate this pest but it’s hard. Some agencies and creative teams are like the win-at-any-cost athletes who swig back steroids and beta-2 agonists regardless of the long-term cost. The Effectiveness Lions help. Just try writing an effectiveness entry for a client that doesn’t really exist, or for a campaign that never actually ran.
“Intelligent creative directors, which is most of them, know all this already, of course,” continued Broadbent. “I got nothing but enthusiastic support for the awards from Ogilvy’s creative community, and, judging by the entry numbers, creatives in many other agencies must have felt the same. For one thing, it’s potentially another Lion for their campaign without them having to do any extra work. Result!”
Broadbent conjectured that David Ogilvy would have loved the Creative Effectiveness Lions. “It would have been his 100th birthday at Cannes this year,” said Broadbent of David Ogilvy. “An awards show, which demonstrates that, yes, intelligent, fresh, witty, unexpected work does the business for brand and client would have been cream on his cornflakes.”
Ground floor Gareth Kay, associate partner/director of brand strategy at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, said that he’s excited to serve on the Creative Effectiveness Lions jury because it affords him the opportunity to have a hand in shaping this competition in its first year.
“At the same time, this makes judging slightly onerous. It goes beyond the normal pressure of being on a jury,” observed Kay, noting that he and his judging colleagues will be setting the standard for how this competition is structured, the foundation from which it will evolve.”
Kay is looking forward to the conversation and debate that will arise during the judging process given the mix of jurors which includes strategists, clients and researchers. “There are many interesting perspectives to be shared. I’m excited to see and hear how people at different agencies and countries talk about the work and how it works.”
While assessments of work may vary, Kay foresees one point of consensus–that there is a direct link between creativity and effectiveness. “Creativity is the best way to make work effective.”
Concurring with that observation is Tony Granger, president of both the Film and Press juries, and global chief creative officer of Young & Rubicam. “I am thrilled,” he said, “that the Festival has added a new and necessary category called Creative Effectiveness, which aims to demonstrate how an ad had a measurable and proven impact on a client’s business, consumer behavior and of course, by extension, brand equity and profit. I have never bought into the theory that work that delivers results can’t be creative. It’s an absurd notion, and I think this category will really kill that myth once and for all.”
Picking up on the theme of change–as reflected in the launch of the Creative Effectiveness category and the new name for the overall Festival–Granger related, “Cannes, like our industry, is evolving. We’re a reflection of our audience’s media behavior, and award shows are a reflection of our behavior. I think we’ll get to a point where there is no below the line or above the line, or online or offline…what is that line anyway?”
Regarding the newly dubbed International Festival of Creativity, Granger said this moniker allows the industry “to celebrate and share ideas across all platforms of media, connectivity and innovation.”
As for why he agreed to preside over the 2011 Film and Press juries, Granger explained, “Well, first of all it’s a huge honor. Cannes is the largest award show our industry has to offer. A true global event. I’ve been coming to Cannes since I was a junior in the business. I always leave inspired and hungry to apply what I’ve learned. I also love meeting people there–some I’ve known my entire career, and some who are bright new talent that keeps me excited about the future of our business.
“Both juries that I am chairing have really smart, talented people. I’m looking forward to getting to know them and to the excitement of immersing ourselves into the huge body of work that’s there for us to judge.”
Film Craft Lions Now in its sophomore season, the aforementioned Film Craft Lions are looking to build on an auspicious first year under jury chair Jon Kamen, chairman/CEO of @radical.media. This time around, lauded director Keith Rose, founding partner of South Africa’s Velocity Films, is slated to chair the Film Craft Lions jury.
“Making a commercial has always been a collaborative effort, a team sport,” related Rose. “This is a chance to acknowledge that by recognizing some of the individuals on that team who contribute to its success–those who contribute direction, cinematography, editing, music, sound, those who contribute their crafts to the realization of a concept and great creative. This is all done as part of the puzzle, not in isolation. If the execution isn’t complementing and advancing the concept, you’re doing the wrong kind of execution.”
Rose noted that he is looking forward to the judging process. “Interactivity isn’t about pushing a button and giving a prize. There is real communication, collaboration amongst your peers in the judging room, evaluating the work, discussing and debating it.”
Return to health Last year, Bob Scarpelli, DDB Worldwide chairman and chief creative officer, was slated to chair the Titanium and Integrated jury. But he was taken seriously ill , with Bob Greenberg, chairman/CEO/chief global creative officer of R/GA, serving in his stead at Cannes.
Thankfully, Scarpelli has fully recovered and can now fulfill the chairmanship he was supposed to assume in 2010.
This is a return to the chair for Scarpelli who back in 2007 was president of both the Film Lions and Press juries. He hearkened back to that experience to reflect on the value of judging at Cannes.
“Chairing both those juries in 2007 was a handful,” he recalled. “They are still probably the two biggest categories. You have to wrangle in all the people, all the points of view, the languages, the nationalistic feelings. It feels like you’re chairing a session of the U.N. But what I remember most is how interesting it is to hear the different points of views and ideas. It’s obvious when you have a great idea that deserves an award. But sometimes you need the proper context. In 2007 we had a couple of instances where we thought some ideas were good but the context took them over the top. I learned to go out of my way to get that context. To ask the juror of the country about the work we were judging from his or her country, to see if we were missing anything. There was an entry from India that was beautiful film. It was about a child who was blind. The film was of a very colorful ceremony. But we found out it was much more than pretty film when we talked to the Indian judge who explained how important the national holiday and its relation to blind children are to the Indian culture and history. You realize the scope of the idea, what it truly represented and as a result that film wound up winning a Lion.”
This year Scarpelli is looking forward to again learning cultural context as well as engaging in the spirited debate that goes on in the judging room. “Titanium and Integrated is a category designed to point us to the future, to honor the ideas that are taking the industry forward,” he said. “Awarding Film, Press, Craft, PR, Outdoor is one thing. The Titanium and Integrated Lion competition is the one that really rewards ideas that point to and shape our future.”
Judging those ideas takes a special kind of deliberation as Scarpelli and his jury colleagues will be looking largely at case study videos. “We’ll see how an idea came to life in all media–social and traditional,” said Scarpelli. “In the old days you’d be shown the work. Today it’s the work and case studies, how all the media work together. There’s also an art that has developed in putting together case videos. I’ve seen good ideas not win because the case videos weren’t presented as well. Sometimes how well the case video was done helps you win. Everyone on our jury is an accomplished person. We will see through a slick case video that doesn’t properly represent the work we’re judging. What we have to remember as judges is what we’re awarding. Our founder Bill Bernbach said that the ideas that take us forward to the future are the ones that are ‘the bravest.’ The men and women who will be in this business in the future are the ones who realize the future belongs to the brave.”
Diversity
Tiffany Rolfe, VP/executive creative director at Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Boulder, Colo., is slated to serve as a judge on the Cyber Lions jury. She takes her duties and the perspective she offers seriously.
“The judging committee should be made up of a variety of different people. I feel that a woman’s point of view adds to a jury. You probably have more men at the senior level of agencies. To have a male-focused judging panel would not be ideal. The more diverse the group of people in the judging room–men, women, different sized agencies and from different places and cultures–makes for a better representation of the audiences we seek to connect with.”
Rolfe said that participating in the community through such endeavors as serving on competition juries “keeps me inspired. We get so busy in our world of work that we don’t often get to see what others are doing. Cannes provides us with the chance to see on a global scale, to get a better handle on cultures and the relevance of how they communicate. And to debate over this with your peers in the judging room, to have vocal debate, is healthy and a learning experience.”
Clean slate Greg Hahn, an executive creative director at BBDO New York, will serve as a judge on the Film Lions jury. He is very much looking forward to the debate in judges’ quarters over the merits of certain work.
“My understanding is that the debate can be very charged emotionally,” said Hahn who is judging at Cannes for the first time. “I like the fact that the judges care so deeply from what I hear. They realize that getting a Lion is hard to do. You have to maintain that high standard in global competition.”
Hahn is looking to go into the anticipated debate “with a clean slate.” Noting that there’s work out there that has won at prior show this awards season, he is making a conscious effort to not pay attention to those results. I don’t want to have work labeled as award worthy in my mind. I want to react to the work naturally.”
By Design Conor Brady, chief creative officer of Organic, will serve as a judge on the Cannes Design jury. “I was happy when I originally saw the Design category become part of Cannes,” he recalled. “We are not looking just at traditional or digital. We are looking at design whether it be for digital, out of home, print, magazine, whatever. We are judging on quality no matter what the platform–how people interact with design, how design connects with people.”
In the bigger picture Brady observed that staying relevant is becoming more difficult for awards shows generally. “A lot of agencies are starting to look at advertising in a different way. They’re not just looking at a client brief. Things are changing every month. You have people building apps and putting them out there as a way of communicating. Most of the award shows are kind of a year or two behind that. The cycle has us awarding last year’s work this year–that’s a big time lag. How do you stay relevant as an awards show?”
At the same time, there are advancements that go towards attaining relevance. “I’m encouraged to see over the last three or four years that traditional agencies are winning digital awards, and digital agencies are being recognized for work on more traditional analog channels. Progressive clients are looking at agencies not as a type A or a type B. They see agencies as creative idea generators spanning all kinds of media.”
