Day Three

Attended: Warner Bros- Passion in story telling, Google master class- the rebrief, nike, Twitter, PHD & eat big fish - challenger brands 


My Final day in At Cannes Lions began with breakfast here: 

OK, that's a lie it was actually a black coffee and a croissant to stay the hangover from the Young Lions party the night before as I rushed to my first seminar of the day - Warner Bros. Passion in story-telling for television. Their guest speaking was Michael Patrick King who had a rousing call to the audience - "Let your creativity be your sword". He said at as storytellers it was our job to break archetypes and defend ideas in a fragmented world that has exploded into opinions. What really came across was his willingness to defend his ideas even when controversial and the reminder that as well as telling stories with passion we also have to sell these ideas in with just as much passion. 


I then attended the Google re-brief session in the young lions zone. This was my favourite sessions of the entire festival. Google have come up with a fantatsic approach to looking again about the industry's approach to the banner ad. They have contacted the curators behind some of the world's most iconic brand ideas such as Coke's "hill top ad" and Avis' " We try harder" - on of the worlds most successful "challenger brands".

It was fascinating to hear these creatives reminiscing about the inception of these campaigns and how they were able to utilise the power behind these idea and continue their effectiveness through new media. Their advice was to utilise the power of the idea. Google have created a documentary exploring the journey that these creatives went on with some creatives from Google which was screened on Friday at the festival - something I'm really looking I'm watching once it becomes widely available. 

The afternoon sessions were all seminars looking at the way a brand has launched an online  and fully integrated product as nike did with their fuel band. This seminar also bought up some interesting ideas about brands using other credits as currency and as an incentive and as an engagement metric. 


Twitter was up next, creating stories within a conversations. Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo spoke about Twitter's medium which, he feels is emotion. He put forward that the best way to operate a successful campaign in a multi facetted world of opinions is to run a reactive campaign. His argument is that in a medium such as Twitter where news and events are no longer filtered by a single view point but are reported and shared directly that we must creative campaigns with multi perspectives.

Day Two

Mobile and Media day at Cannes. Attending: App Promo workshop, Starcom & TED, Mindshare, Facebook

Day two kicked off with my first workshop about marketing and promoting apps. A more hands on session where we were split up into groups to come up with a mini marketing strategy for a game based on Plant's vs. Zombies- They pitched that right! 

The workshop was lead by App Promo and they highlighted the importance in "getting the math right" before embarking on any marketing activity and also spoke about getting robust data in place to support an accurate CPA. This seems to be a common theme in Cannes this year- using strong data as a foundation for a motivating creative platform. 

Then it was onto a more Media focused day. We checked out Starcom & TED's presentation where we were reminded once again that creativity is inherent throughout all industries and that inspiration can come from anywhere and everywhere. Whether it’s from an Ethiopian folk singer, or a designer at MIT the more we take the trouble to look around us and engage with the wider world the more brilliant our ideas will be. - This idea has been a feature of Cannes and resonates with me because I think that this is right at the heart of the "Know More" culture we're cultivating at Rocket. 

More media insight came in the form of the presentation Mindshare gave us in conjunction with Fredrik Haren talking to us about Global brand. Fredrik was one of my favourite speakers of the conference so far and shared examples of brands beyond the digital arena who are now becoming global. He spoke not just abut brands who are moving away from nationalistic identity but also about having a Global mind-set to allow yourself to be creative on a Global scale. This tied in with what I saw yesterday at TBWA and Visa who encouraged us to search for global truths that are core to these brands to enable us to tell stories, which are just as palpable to an audience in South Korea as they are in France. I managed to grab a couple of copies of the beta version of his book on the subject so these will be on loan in the Rocket Library very soon.

On to the hot ticket – Facebook: Paul Adams, Global head of design at Facebook- his presentation was themed around the idea that as we are inherently social beings, that what we do becomes inherently social. He advocates, as one would expect, the importance of integrating social in all aspects of advertising. He also talked to us about how the incomprehensible amounts of data that we currently have at our disposal is being socially arrogated – by that I mean moving towards a model of consumption is based in large part on personalised experience and content that is recommended to you based on stated interests and friend suggestions.

I personally can see the value of this in some respects but I find that in some ways it could also limit my access to the new, something beyond my own experience. While its great that I could discover a new band because my friend is listening to them on spotify and I know we have similar tastes I wouldn’t want to experience that at the expense of experiencing something that I could stumble upon. The potential possibilities beyond the technology are still fascinating and its exciting to be part of that unfolding.

After our Facebook finale we headed to the OMG toast to Cannes. Nouvelle Vague was playing – my personal highlight was this guitarist who was sporting a fetching pair of tiger trousers and an impressive hairstyle!

It was then on to the Young Lions party. Apparently what happens in Cannes stays in Cannes I will tell you that we did see a Conga line and our party was a lot more rowdy than the grown up lions party which was going on further down the beach....

On the awards front it was a great night for OMG as a group - Grand Prix went to MGOMD UK for Google voice search, and in PHD UK McCain won a silver lion for best use of outdoor. - Big Congratulations to all. 

Day One

Attended: Adobe: Creativity vs. Data, Arianna Huffington and the Zeitgeist, Droga5, Visa & TBWA and a bit of K-POP to round off the day 

The days are very full here and its hard to find time to sit between seminars to write, so before my next seminar starts I'm going to try and sum up a few take out points from each of the sessions I attended yesterday- I Hope I do them justice! 

After a quick registration and a rummage through our goodie bags we all headed to the first session of the day. Adobe hosted a panel-based (Ann Lewnes, Jim Stengel, Jon Vein, Linus Karisson) seminar on data and creativity working together. One of the take out points for me on this was a reminder of the myriad of ways we can use media to manifest creative ideas and this is where data and creativity can complement each other. This session helped to maintain the (sometimes) Entente cordiale between creativity and data and re-enforced the importance of applying good judgement to data. Something that I’ll be applying the next time I’m running a routine task is to “look for anomalies in your data an investigate the abnormalities as that’s where the story lies”.

Still in the Debussy theatre and on to Arianna Huffington identifying three emerging trends- reminding us to “reconnect, recharge and resonate”. Part of her presentation focused on the trend of disconnecting from the world in order to recharge offline and then reconnect. Ironically, she then identified the selection of  apps available in the market to help us do just that and unveiled The Huffington Posts own addition to this sector- GPS for the soul.

Here’s Arianna in action

After a spot of recharging of my own in the Mobile Marketing tent I headed back for what was probably my most inspiring session of the day – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who last year put a challenge out to the world to re-design the toilet to help impoverished communities improve their access to basic sanitation. They presented their two best proposals – one, the Lego Toilet made loos out of biodegradable bricks- the speaker and designer Antonio Avila, spoke about being inspired to make the bricks look like Lego so that they can be easily assembled when he was playing with his nieces and made the point that when we look around us we are more likely to find inspiration from unlikely sauces. #knowmore!

Onto Visa and TBWA – A great example of a global campaign that also manages to be local and through some smart media planning also manages to appear reactionary and local – mirroring the two pillars of the brand. They shared new spots for the Go World campaign, which, with 38 days to go until London 2012, I’m sure will be a hit for them once again.  The spot I’ve link to was played in the break following Michael Phelps Gold Medal win – timely!

More creativity followed in the form of a master class by Droga5 Executive creative director Ted Royer who gave his 10 rules and advise for working in advertising and also ran a really interesting Q&A session afterwards (credit to him for running it all while still being candid in front of his client!) My favourite piece of work he shared with us pieces of work shared us was the creation of copywriter Graham Douglas who had the idea of enclosing a bone marrow test kit (which only needs a drop of blood) into a plaster (or band aid) pack. Such a simple idea which has done some real good in the world, which I guess is the aim!

I finished off the day with a foray into the frankly baffling and slightly troubling world of K-POP which also had a wider message about the growing and conquering Korean Market and the indomitable Korean spirit (Tu Hon!)

  

The Palais des Festivals was nearly over run with fans trying to see this girl group 2ne1

Something I may need a little bit of to get me through the Young Lions party tonight! 

Lions assemble

Cheesy I know, but it really does feel like yesterday since I got the email saying I'd been selected to come here to the Cannes Lions festival of creativity and  now I'm actually here looking at this poster:

Top 3 three things I already love about Cannes:
1. Spotting fellow festival goers (easily identifiable by their thick rimmed spectacles)
2. The biggest # I've ever seen (#Canneslions) - picture will follow.
3. Palm trees

3 things I wasn't expecting:
1. The sheer number of fellow festival goers in thick rimmed spectacles
2. Realising that there simply won't be enough hours in the day to do and see and drink everything that I want to!
3. Having to use Blogger when its auto translated into French :-( je suis une imbecile!

Have to be up early for registration. Will update tomorrow.

Keep it Cannes.

A Note On Locality

I thought it was really nice to see a bit of brand sensitivity and a great bit of localised planning from Adidas. The picture below shows an outdoor campaign that the sports giant have been running recently in preparation for the Olympics in East London. Promoting home-grown talent and encouraging the five London Olympic boroughs, I spotted this one in (Lewisham), some of which are not the most affluent in the city.  Seeing this 6 sheet at local bus stops in Lewisham is a really excellent use of localised outdoor planning which I think should be commended. Planning locally in this way can resonate as strongly with an audience as a large, iconic outdoor site. Its also a great boost for our athletes and I think is a good way to make the games seem relevant and inspiring to young people in that borough.

The creative is also effective. The Adidas branding remaining very subtle in deference to the athlete’s name- she isn’t even wearing clothes with prominent logos. The themes in this outdoor campaign also echoes the wider TV positioning with Wretch 32 asking for Demos from people, giving consumers to enter to join him on stage.

In a world of big brands and big brand campaigns I think it’s easy for this small amount of activity (and probably spend) to run unacknowledged especially with a brand such as Adidas, who tend to make their big splash with grand TV campaigns and large, impactful outdoor sites. However I was really impressed by the planning behind this and think it’s one of the nicest ways that brands have interacted with Team GB athletes. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do as the countdown to the games continues.

Here’s my other favourite Olympic campaign by P&G – I’m a sentimentalist so it’s no surprise that this ad evokes John Lewis levels of emotion (however my boyfriend keeps asking who’s sponsoring the Dad’s which is a fair point)

http://wklondon.com/news/view/procter-and-gamble-best-job

"Do you want to work in advertising because of Mad Men?"

The answer, quite simply is “yes, yes I do”. Not for the hard liquor and the fabulous frocks but for the way the industry reacts the television events that shows like Mad Men create. In honour of the new series airing now, on a network that carries commercials, Sky Atlantic’s special “double bill Season Premiere” a couple of weeks ago was accompanied by specially supplied retro commercials. Amazing to think that 50 years on Have a Break, Have a KitKat is still at the heart of it’s communication strategy.

A cynic might say, with an average audience of 72,000 (BARB) across the two launch episodes, that it’s a lot of effort to reach a fraction of the number people that a show like Corrie gets on a regular basis. It also raises questions as to why Sky, who’s revenue comes predominately from subscribers rather than advertising revenue, would go to lengths to source the ads. As a planner this is exactly the kind of creative thinking that makes a brand come to life, even the most iconic brands can’t help but benefit from the additional standout that a stunt like this affords. 

            

I’m not sure if this is the first time sky have adopted it but I also noticed that they are now putting the Man Men title screen before the Blackberry sponsorship bumpers.

I wondered if this might have something to do with the way that viewers are using sponsorship bumpers as navigation points when they fast-forward through the commercial breaks (why would anyone want to do such a thing?). Thinkbox have done some quite interesting work on Digital TV Recorder (DTR’s) users using on screen visuals as markers for when to restart watching and I thought that this might be an attempt at a new navigation point- a little nudge to get viewers to pause before the sponsorship bumper so that they watch all of it.  

Right, now I’m off for an Old Fashioned and a power lunch. 

Cannes, A Rocketeer’s Guide

On a wintery Tuesday afternoon my day was brightened when I saw an email from our Head of Planning at PHD who congratulated me on being selected as one of the agency’s four delegates chosen to attend the Young Lions festival at Cannes this year. I can’t deny that when I submitted my application to be chosen to attend that the thought of the South of France in June wasn’t a factor but, truthfully, attending The Cannes festival has definitely been on my advertising bucket list for a few years. Graduating from Manchester in the post credit crunch recruitment freeze of 2009, I worked for a TV production company looking at YouTube clips of the festival during my lunch break (I’m a big advertising geek!). Now, to be heading out to Cannes in a few months is a really exciting prospect and the thought of a week surrounded by sun, sea and the most exciting group of creative talent in the world is definitely something I’m very much looking forward to.

One of my objectives for going to Cannes is to represent my agency, Rocket. For those who haven’t really come across us yet, Rocket is a planning and communications agency comprising of a very creative group of planners, buyers, strategists and thinkers who are funny, clever, loud, eccentric, proud, and very passionate about the work they do. We are part of Omnicom media group and a sister agency of PHD.

Our agency position is to “Know More” and it is very much in the spirit of knowing more that I head towards glamorous Cannes. I started my career in planning as a grad who didn’t really know that much about media and its role in the communications mix. After 18 months and some very steep learning curves, I now know the crucial role that planning plays in a brand’s relationship with its consumers. 

What I’m keen to use Cannes for is to discover how we can develop this role and to pass on knowledge gained to help Rocket to apply this knowledge gained to further our clients businesses.

Stay tuned as I plan my way to Cannes and hopefully share some interesting insights and thoughts picked up along the way.

A x