Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Almir Okanović, Chief Creative Director BBDO Zagreb
Cannes Lions is huge. Not only in the number of participants and entries, but also in the way it thinks. From the very first day of the festival in Cannes it’s all crystal clear: this festival wants to encompass, motivate and attract everyone in the world dealing with marketing, promotion, media and show business, and, after they come, it wants to persuade them to stay, preferably all eight days of the festival. Luka Duboković and I shed crocodile tears because our package included only four days, but still, as more or less grown men, we gathered ourselves together and decided to use them as best we could. It was impossible to go to all the lectures and all the events, which start from early in the morning, but we attended what we felt was important and interesting.
One of the most entertaining meetings was organized by the small Swedish agency SNASK. Two ‘picturesque’ boys, accompanied by a Swedish rock band, made a hilarious presentation of themselves, their agency, and along the way also promoted the band that provided their background music during the presentation. In their presentation of their projects, in which they showed us their mastery of stop motion animation, and their disdain for Photoshop and CGI effects, these guys sent the message that in this business, the rule “no fun, no result” is still very true.
A little later came a more serious, but still interesting lecture by an advertising duo from London (Taylor & Herring) who demonstrated how important a publicity stunt can be. They took the example of the race for the Republican presidential nomination in the United States, showing that ‘injecting’ hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaigns of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz brought no advantage in the showdown with Donald Trump. Although Trump nominally invested only 10 million dollars in his campaign, his public ‘performances’ and controversial statements gave him free airtime (free earned media) to the value of $ 2 billion, which is 5 times more than the other three managed to win all together. At the same time, Taylor and Herring showed us how publicity stunts are performed by the best: Uber, Airbnb, Red Bull and Porn Hub. Finally, they optimistically told us what we must do as creatives to cope with the increasing adblocking: entertain or die.
Breaking records in pharmaceutical advertising
After lunch at a nearby restaurant, we decided to go to the lecture of Guinness World Records. Unlike the previous two, this one had a disappointing start. A chewed up and forced format in which the moderator asks his interlocutor rather stupid and obviously pre-arranged questions. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. The presentation was saved by staging a real official attempt to break a Guinness World Record, in a daily activity we are all so very familiar with: rotating in place while you sit on a unicycle. The young German who, lo and behold, holds the previous record, managed to break his old record before the official committee and in front of us viewers, and set a new one.
Otherwise, this is the fourth consecutive year that Cannes has had an almost separate festival within itself: Cannes Health. Not only does it have three separate categories in which Lions are awarded, but the festival is held in a separate building. All this shows how strong the pharmaceutical industry is, but also its increasing aggressiveness in its marketing activities. In any case, for creatives and agencies, that’s good news. This year’s entries are really good and are definitely a hint of some new winds a-blowing, in the world at least, if not in our region.
The work that impressed everyone was the “Manboobs”, campaign for the early prevention of breast cancer, from the Argentinean agency David. In order to clearly show how to properly perform self-examination, the video spot used male breasts instead of female breasts – which social networks censor. There is also a notable boom in the Indian creative industry, so the Agency of the Year Award in the Health category deservedly went to Medulla Communications from Mumbai.
Copperfield leads us to the imagination, Uber brings us back to reality
At the end of the first day in Cannes, a little bit of magic. In his performance, the famous magician from the ’90s, David Copperfield, reminded us of the biggest tricks in his career, and right before the end of his appearance he performed a little trick, going into the audience. Coincidentally, David came only a few steps away from Luka and me, and I of course immediately grabbed my cell phone. But just as I did David cut me down with his eyes, and ordered: don’t shoot!!
I ignored him at first, but then I noticed that the guy doesn’t have a single wrinkle, not a single gray hair, and I realized that he wasn’t an illusionist, but a wizard! Because whatever trick he’s doing he couldn’t appear so youthful with six decades under his belt. That must’ve been some serious magic. Terrified, I turned off my cell phone.
On the way back to the hotel, the Uber driver told us that this year’s Cannes Festival is the largest, the most massive in its history. Luka and I looked at each other, knowing how far away we are from our Croatian reality. The Uber driver casually added that the local taxi drivers hate them, and physically assault them on a daily basis, trying to preserve their monopoly. Luka and I looked at each other again; suddenly, Croatia didn’t seem so distant.