By: Jana Savić Rastovac, Creative Director, McCann Beograd
Photo: Panel Chief Creatives on the Beach; moderator: Ruth Mortimer, Econsultancy, Participants: Catalin Dobre, McCann Worldgroup Romania, Anthony Reeves, Amazon and Eva Santo Bouzas, Proximity Worldwide
They say that Cannes is quitter this year.
It’s as if the whole industry is carefully listening for changes.
One theme of the second day of the festival was however heard quite clearly, in several festival program segments.
One of the segments was the panel Chief Creatives on the Beach, a series of open panels with leading creative directors of global agencies and major brands.
What is the future of creativity? Technology or human beings?
You can breathe easy, it’s all just people.
It’s always about people. About our innate ability to find new solutions and answers to problems. People create ideas. Technology is there as a tool to bring the potential of an idea to its maximum.
But it seems that these days creativity is not in fashion, humor isn’t in fashion, emotion isn’t in fashion.
Sales results is what’s in fashion, and programmatic, and speed, and precision!
Still, sales isn’t everything, there’s also something in building relationships. The value of an idea is not just in sales, because we are witnessing another trend – that loyalty is also not in fashion. That is why brands have to invest in building relationships, which is a very demanding process. We build relationships through meaningful connections, through values, and brand philosophy.
Stories should be left to people. Technology should be given the task of understanding what a target group wants – what are its patterns of behavior. Data can’t think instead of us. Data are information, not a solution. Technology is predictable, people aren’t.
Three messages for all of us from the second day of the festival were:
- Stay curious about the world around you.
- Leave the ideas to people, and execution to technology.
- Focus on consumers and understanding their needs, not on competition. That’s the only way to be innovative, not repetitive.
