Monday Sep 23, 2024
Monday Sep 23, 2024
Monday, 23 June 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The ACT (Advertising Community Together) Responsible exhibition is here at the Cannes Lions again showcasing the very best of global responsible creative campaigns such as, the ‘Great Ads for Good Causes’. Since the first ACT exhibition in 2002 at Cannes, the association has been committed to demonstrating how creativity can help resolve major issues in the world. It continuously reminds us of the role our industry plays in supporting social and environmental issues.
With keywords such as ’Alert, Inform, Raise Awareness and Commit’, the exhibition involves 91 agencies from 34 countries showcasing new, innovative and responsible work carried out throughout the year for NGO’s, associations and corporations. As part of the Cannes Tribute 2014, people were able to vote online for their favourite campaigns. 
The Beatles or Bieber?
Day six had a lot of Leo Burnett seminars and forums. All geared up for the day we started at 9:30 am this morning with a forum by Universal Music Group called ‘Would Today’s Cola Fan Engage More with the Stones or the Beatles… Or Bieber?’ The forum was held by Olivier Robert- Murphy, Chief of Possibilities, Global Head of New Business, Universal Music Group and Pascal Bourguet, Vice President, Consumer PC and Tablets Business Printing & Personal Systems – Europe, Middle-East & Africa, Hewlett-Packard Company.
The duo gave us insight on music partnerships through the relationship between product consumers and music fans. Interestingly we are in a world where 97% of marketers think music can strengthen their brands. Music is a rather big part of my life so I found the forum highly interesting. In the presentation they discussed what brands and agencies bring to the music fan conversation and looked at what you have to give to consumers to turn them into fans.
Fostering creativity
Later in the afternoon we attended a workshop by Sommer + Sommer called Classroom Thinktank- How to Foster Creativity in 21st century education led by Leonard Sommer. It is believed that our current education system is ill-prepared to educate the next generation of creative leaders. German creative agency Sommer + Sommer and the Berlin School of Creative Leadership asked more than 100 creative professionals and futurists in 35 countries to inspire an innovative framework for 21st century schooling.
By participating in this workshop we also contributed to their global initiative. We were told to share our own creative methods and principles and to help complete the research project. The results of the project and the workshop will be shared with education experts and published in a book called ‘Classroom Thinktank’. I’m really looking forward to seeing how our ideas as well as the complete project will affect and improve education systems around the world.
China’s rise
We also had a seminar by the Publicis Groupe on ‘The Real Awakening of China: Consumption Economy & Digital Revolution’. Maurice Lévy Chairman, CEO of the Publicis Groupe invited Seng Yee Lau, President of Online Media Group, Senior Executive Vice President of Tencent Holdings to an engaging seminar.
Tencent is the world’s fourth largest internet company which has succeeded in bringing together China’s largest online community while meeting the various needs of tomorrow’s internet users. China’s rise to become the world’s largest economy is now no longer a question of “if”, but one of “when?”
With more smartphone and internet users than any other country in the world and a booming digital eco-system, China is leading a digital revolution. In 2009, it is believed that the people in China collectively spent over one billion hours online each day, more than double the time spent online in the United States. By 2015 which is pretty soon, this number is expected to grow to over two billion hours.
As the world’s second largest consumption-driven economy China provided an ideal case study opportunity for us. We looked at how to size and scale the impact of digital behaviours on an entire population, this was an enormous task which was also a little overwhelming. It was also interesting to see how the digital advances in China through apps like Tencent’s WeChat (over 355 million MAU) have disrupted traditional services. The seminar also looked at the next generation of digital consumers and the future of digital partnerships in China.
McDonald’s wonders
Later on in the evening we attended an intriguing seminar titled ‘McDonald’s Wonders: What Really is the Antidote to Client Promiscuity’. Matt Biespiel, Senior. Director, Global Brand Development of McDonald’s, Mark Tutssel Global Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett’, Kate Stephensen, President, Global Account Management of OMD, Juan Carlos Ortiz President Latin America of DDB and Rob Schwartz Global Creative President of TBWA led the seminar. Talk about a group of power houses on stage.
As we know especially in our industry, clients are always looking for creative ideas that will connect with people in innovative ways. Again as we know much to our dismay they are also increasingly looking at achieving this with even lower costs. The seminar discussed how many clients are growing more and more ‘promiscuous’ by frequently changing agencies in hope of finding a ‘better suited partner’. We know that we are continuously competing against each other with numerous pitches to sustain and win more and more new clients.
As part of the audience we learnt how McDonald’s agency partners have kept their romance alive for more than four decades through creativity and learnt how to build a lasting relationship with clients. It proves to us why our relationships with clients are so important to us. This seminar gave us some insightful tips on how to ensure we develop an unbreakable bond with our clients, making promiscuity between our clients and us, close to impossible.
Music partnerships
As part of music day at Cannes, Leo Burnett hosted a forum titled ‘Leo Burnett Presents Wildfire: Is Your Brand Part of Music Culture of Just Borrowing Interest’? The forum was held by Brad Rains from Atlantic Records, Rafael McDonnell from CAA, Chris Clark and Vincent Geraghty from Leo Burnett and singer, songwriter Ne-Yo.
The forum explored the balance between creating success for a brand and success for an artiste. It is clear after today that music partnerships are becoming an increasingly integral part of product promotion. The question that we ask is that after hip hop, indie rock and EDM, are you brave enough to embrace the next musical movement before its mainstream?
Music has been evolving through the years. A sync license, tour sponsorship or on-camera commercial appearance can often generate good business for the advertiser and the artiste. However is it short-sighted to end a relationship between brand and artiste there? It truly was a riveting debate with some of the top minds in the music and brand world sharing their thoughts.
Winning brands
One thing I have definitely learnt is that it’s clear that brands are winning through ambition and innovation, thinking bigger and different. Although winning brands have not always been the biggest brands in the running, they have been smarter and faster than their competition. Winning brands are making more dramatic differences, and embracing all the best new ideas in business to create value for all their stakeholders. We need to join them in winning by literally “changing the game” and redefining our industry and the markets we work in.
Last year the Cannes Lions team introduced the online viewing of one seminar a day for the public, each seminar was decided on following an online vote and the most popular seminar each day was screened.
Today (Saturday 21 June) you can watch ‘Contagious: Teaching New Technology Old Tricks’ at 2.30 pm local time. After all the events of the day, it definitely felt like a ‘TGIF’ moment. The team and I went to chill and party the night away. We started our night at the Google Sunset Social and were served delicious cocktails as we listened to summer tunes while the sun set.
It was quite a romantic setting and an incredible night followed as we got to meet up with the friends we made during the week as well as some new ones. Sadly tomorrow is the last day of the 61st Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and we will send you our very last update on Tuesday.
