There are worse places to be than the south of France. When this reaches you, Cannes will be over for another year, the winners will be named, and the metal handed out.
As I write Australia has already won a slew of medals – M&C Saatchi for Optus Clever Buoy, GPY&R Brisbane for its Schweppes campaign and Saatchi & Saatchi for Penny the Pirate in the Creative Effectiveness category are just some of those.
But while it is great to see good strong Aussie work being recognised, what Cannes also does is provide an opportunity to see what’s happening in far corners of the world, in Romania, Sweden, Turkey, those countries we don’t hear much from or pay enough attention to the rest of the year.
Something I tried to make time for this year was to go and look at the work. It’s impossible to see it all – there are thousands and thousands of entries, but the galleries of work showcase the best work in the world. It’s not to be missed.
Throughout the week, as the juries spoke about the winning campaigns and why they were chosen as the stand out entry, worthy of Bronze, Silver or even Gold lions, many singled out that they were looking for work that genuinely pushed boundaries, garnered an emotional response and had an impact on behaviour change.
The jury president for the PR Lions actually broke down into tears when she was talking about why it had awarded P&G’s #Likeagirl campaign the Grand Prix in the category. Now that is a strong emotional response. I can’t remember the last time there were tears in a press conference.
I have to admit that despite my better judgement, watching #Likeagirl brings me close to tears too, but I am a sucker for P&G’s campaigns. I’m cynical, that’s not a secret, but P&G’s ads very nearly bring me to tears every time.
I remember covering the 2012 London Olympics heavily when I was working in London, and I had a lot of contact with the P&G marketing team that was developing its Olympic activity Thank You Mum and again, despite my better judgement, when I saw the ads for the first time at the ‘big reveal’ I was in tears.
What phenomenal power that is for a creative idea.
That is exactly the type of work that should be winning Cannes Lions. And it’s exactly the type of work that brands and agencies should be striving to make – awards or no awards. It doesn’t have to be tears, obviously, but an emotional response is critical if work is going to both deliver for the business objectives it was made for – and go on to win awards.
Everyone comes away from Cannes exhausted, shattered, jetlagged and probably hungover – but after those short-term feelings subside, what remains should be a feeling of great inspiration from the work on show in Cannes, but also from the atmosphere of creativity to go into the next 12 months delivering stronger, and more effective work than ever. We’ve got more from Cannes in our Special Report in the next issue.
Stay tuned.