A Planners Wrap on Cannes.

What I found most impressive was not the on stage appearance of P. Diddy, Jack Black or Vivienne Westwood but actually the speeches from two clients. Dana Anderson from Mondelez seems to be a regular guest speaker at Cannes & it is always well worth listening to her. She is in the excellent position to have worked at both agency and client side and in order to better understand our mutual relations, have a look at her speech online. This year she talked about „When things go wrong“ and how to deal with non-working relationships of client and agency – let it either be dodgy day-to-day work or an account review. She is extremely funny, smart and insightful. (This years speech is not uploaded yet, but check out the workshop from 2011 if you don’t already know it). And another worthy talk to check out is definetly this years speech from Coca-Cola on #workthatmatters, a longer explanation of chapter 4 from their "Content 2020 initiative". It is amazing to see both speakers not just showcasing great historic examples of one of the most iconic brands, but also to witness how Coke has always been able to be in close connection to people, their culture and what matters to all of us. The extremely slick presentation from Jonathan Mildenhall and Ivan Pollard of Coca-Cola made it very clear why the company was named marketer of the year at the festival.

I highly recommend to check out the Creative Effectiveness Cases. They are the „Uber Category“ from my perspective – as all the awarded cases had to be successful creatively in Cannes in the previous year and had now again to prove they work via hard facts. And the jury here is extremely picky – they only awarded 6 lions and a Grand Prix in total, out of 119 entries:

·      Insurance Australia Group: Australia’s largest risk mitigator 
·      British Heart Foundation, Hands Only: Hard, Fast & Effective
·      American Express: Small Business gets an official day
·      Coca-Cola: Share a Coke
·      Steinlager: Believe
·      John Lewis: From Crying to Buying
·      Heineken: The Journey (Grand Prix) 

In regard to awarded work I do not want to ponder further on the fact that it is a shame on how many agencies seem to only be able to capture a wagon full of lions via non-profit work. But rather highlight the work from some of the Gold lions that again showed how much focus lies on engaging people – via the freshness of cultural context, authentic connections or usefulness to their lives. Here are 13 examples not from our network – but work I have admired this year for creating something that matters:  

1.    OREO Daily Twist
2.    Bodyform SCA The Truth
3.    DOVE Real Beauty Sketches
4.    Heineken The Candidate
5.    Samsung NX The David Baileys
6.    Google+ Same Sex Marriage
7.    Toyota #TUNDRA Endeavour
8.    UTEC Water Billboard 
9.    Coke Small World Machines
10. IBM Smart ideas for smarter cities
11. RBS NatWest Get cash (Mobile Banking)
12. Adidas Neo Window Shopping
13. Intel The Beauty Inside

The DDB network was also awarded for great work that is right in that line – with McDonalds Our Food, Your Questions or useful product ideas that communicate just as well like SMART TXTBKS, Starhub Third Eye, 

The Secret Fishing Spots for Hutchwilco or the Trashbag Tents for Glad to name just a few. 

I have not added the category the cases where awarded in - as I see this as the biggest flaw within the festival. If I could wish for one thing: as the whole business has moved on to a more integrated look at creativity, Cannes Lions should do the same. And award the idea as it is, not according to the category it was entered in. There is no print, cyber, mobile separation in peoples lives - but just a recognition of meaningful work. There should not be in Cannes either.  (Naive wish, I know).