De Clerck Admonishes Advertisers to 'Listen, Listen, Listen'

One of the most interesting people I met at Cannes last week was Hervé De Clerck, who runs Ad Forum and Act Responsible.

In this video he talks about how Ad Forum operates, and in great length about Act Responsible -- its humble roots out of the ashes of 9/11, and how it's pushing to do two interesting things:

o Encourage the advertising industry to contribute its talent to social and environmental causes

o Promote the work of those that do

"Every year we gather the work for social and environmental issues ... and every year, we put on an exhibition," he said. The exhibition was held with support from DraftFCB, on a sunny terrace alongside the Palais, where you could grab a coffee, check out the beach and stroll at leisure through a wide-open gallery of interactive and print-based cause work from around the world.

"People can come in and see the advertising industry gets involved [...] not only sells soap and beer and cars," De Clerck stated, which was especially compelling. Here's someone who understands advertising isn't just about punting Coca-Cola; it also teaches you what your society values, and how best to function in it.

That's a massive responsibility, and one that merits some consideration when you think about how you're framing a message for an audience of individuals, whose purchases and acts ultimately affect all of us.

De Clerck also talked about his personal designation as "Dream Leader." Asked what he'd say if he could make one statement that would move the industry in any direction he pleased, his response was simple enough but moving -- especially given how long he's been in the industry:

"Get close to the consumer. Listen to people, listen to people, listen to people."

This is no jaded ECD. This is somebody who sees our industry in the same way as groundfloor creatives, fresh out of school, still hoping to change man's legacy.

Cannes Lions: Real Winnars in Film, Interactive and Titanium; Perspective on Our Horizons

Saturday night: the show to end all shows, the one people actually queue in line for. (Though markedly less so than in previous years, as tweeted by Influencia.) And while recession-spawned conservatism was accounted for, the jury hailed from all corners of the globe and generated cheers -- like rock stars.

Saw some awesome work over the next two hours, but it remains a shock who ultimately won what.

There was a lot of talk about how Cannes Lions '09 differed from previous years. I'd say there was a greater focus on how efforts addressed users directly, although creativity remains a big part of that. And given who won the Grands Prix for Titanium and Integrated, it may be the first year agencies must take into account that the user has become a legitimate advertiser himself.

This is no death-of-the-agency foretelling; it's simply a call to listen more closely and respond more intuitively to the crowd. We have spent so many years trying to contrive artificial emotional connections between products and people; it is only natural that, now that they're able, consumers demand to know why those connections should exist in the first place.

What does your company stand for? Does it listen and respond to me? Crucially, is it as willing to incorporate me into its message as I am to incorporate it into my life?

Grand Prix recipients, and a wee bit o' work, listed below.

For FILM: "Carousel" for Philips Cinema 21:9 by Tribal DDB Amsterdam.




This ad depicted a frozen heist-gone-wrong where you intuited the story as the camera panned. Online, you could hone in on parts of the film to see behind-the-scenes material, and manipulate the soundtrack.

Users could also change formats to 21:9 to witness the merits of the film quality: the caked makeup on the clowns, wrinkles on the cops, and that incredible moment where the guy flies through the glass, and you can see, through the shards, the different textures of his antagonist's face.

For TITANIUM/INTEGRATED: The Obama/Biden presidential campaign, which made sound use of all media and is perhaps best-known for turning its voting public into fanatic advertisers and evangelists.

That Obama's effort won both Titanium and Integrated Grands Prix was a shocker, but you could certainly see evidence of its influence in other ads throughout the week. One reporter told me that over 50 campaigns across all shortlists incorporated Obama in some way; "The Great Schlep," a Droga5 effort to get more geriatric Jewish Floridans to vote for Obama, won a Gold for Direct, for example.

And this piece, by Charles Stone III of the infamous Budweiser "Wassup" campaign from 2000, received separate recognition at the beginning of the awards ceremony on Saturday. (It won no awards because it didn't meet formal criteria.)



'Til next year.

Cannes Lions: More Ambient Guilt Lubrication.

Hey, Cannes Lions delegates! Have a big heaping slice of buzzkill, brought to you by Weisser Ring!

I get that these are all for a good cause. Given the appropriate context, these particular pieces are damn stirring. But given that this image ornaments the exterior of the Palais and these ads plaster the interior, you gotta wonder: which sadistic member of the ad festival planning committee picked out this year's damaged kids décor?

Cannes Lions: Soaking in Saint Antoine with Shannon

The other night I had dinner with Shannon Stephaniuk of Glossy Inc. Because she's an old-school Ad Fest attendee, she brought me up the narrow, picturesque Rue Saint Antoine -- one of the staples of Old Town Cannes, where few fresh ad folk venture.

Ended up having dinner on the terrasse at Le Chaperon Rouge, where foie gras comes cooked and snails are extra-salty. We also experienced more than our fair share of pupil-dilating Priceless! moments, two of which I managed to record.

(Granted, they both happen to be street-guys-for-profit moments, but that's life in the jungle for you.)

Brazilian acrobatics:



Gypsy-crooned La Vie en Rose. Also, Shannon seizes this opportunity to dispel a suspicion that the Perlorian Brothers' Michael Gelfand has been floating:



"Angela, we're fuckin' lucky!" Shannon says, leaning back as far as her stool will permit her. "It's beautiful and we're having wine at dusk in Cannes."

Because I can't think of anything more profound than that, and possibly also because I belong behind a monitor and not engaging with the public, I go, "....Yup."

Cannes Lions: Real Winnars in Cyber, Design and Press

Last night was the Cannes Lions awards event for Design, Press and Cyber efforts. As always, for the full list of winners, go hithery-dithery. But here are the Grand Prix winners for each category:

For DESIGN: "Paper Battlefield" for Nike Hong Kong by McCann Worldgroup/Causeway Bay.

For PRESS: "We Are Animals," that creepy bejeaned-human-meets-carnal-instinct campaign by FRED & FARID/Paris for Wrangler.

For CYBER: "Best Job in the World" -- which is seriously cleaning up this year -- by Cumminsnitro/Brisbane for Tourism Queensland.

"Eco:Drive" by AKQA/London for Fiat also scored a Cyber Grand Prix, as did "Why So Serious?" for Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight. The latter campaign is a typical piece of elaborate genius by the folks at 42 Entertainment/Pasadena, whose every project is not so much advertising as it is grand oeuvre.

This isn't hapless gushing; see what the agency did for Nine Inch Nails and Halo 2. It tanks a coupla hours digging through all this material, but you'll be glad you did. 42 will inspire you in ways you didn't know you could be.

But the real story of the week is Cumminsnitro, the "little agency that could" operating out of Brisbane. "Best Job in the World" also won Grands Prix for Direct and PR.

The notion of turning one lucky winner into the king of a chain of islands was a simple idea that stems from the fantastic and also contributes to an eco-friendly cause.

What sensitive outcast kid hasn't fantasized about being pulled out of school by two black-suited mystery men that reveal he's royalty? Better still, this wasn't just a decadent tiara giveaway; "Best Job" ties a lofty title, Caretaker of the Barrier Reefs, to lofty responsibility. Little wonder the effort sparked a global feel-good current whose impact was infinitely bigger than its seeds.

Cannes Lions: Going Gold for Georgia

At 72 Croisette (the so-called Gutter Bar) last night, Shannon Stephaniuk introduced me to the members of Ogilvy Stockholm, which won a Gold Lion for its work for UNA Sweden.

Their objective was to raise funds to support the war victims of Georgia (the country, not the state); and to do this, they spoke with the locals and gathered small, specific and personal items that belonged to people affected by the war.

See Shoes, Sweater and Sheet; I found the sight of those scorched, warped items physically painful, and the stories still more moving.

It's my strong feeling that the work deserved a Grand Prix, but apparently you can't win one if the effort is nonprofit. Weird logics. In any case, I hung out awhile and talked to the guys about the work, what they did and how it made them feel in general.

Video interviews below. Given that it's the Gutter Bar at 2:00 AM and not, say, an Embassy lobby, try to bear with the background noise. Better yet, imagine you're there, stumbling around with your third vodka tonic, playing guess-the-accent with your group of chums-for-the-week.

Art Director Attila Kiraly:



Copywriters Björn Persson And Mikael Ström:



(FYI: Videos may be down for the first hour due to scheduled Vimeo maintenance.)

Cannes Lions: Real Winnars in Radio, Media and Outdoor

Last night was the ceremony for Radio, Media and Outdoor -- not very exciting stuff, but you get a chance to review highly localized work you wouldn't otherwise be exposed to. Always good to remember what ad life is like outside internets.

Here are the Grand Prix winners for each category. Hopefully by now I don't need to tell you where to go to see the full list of oversized bookend recipients.

For RADIO: Net#Work BBDO/Johannesburg wins Grands Prix for "Dancer," "Dog" and "Ferret" -- three radio pieces for Virgin Atlantic Airlines, South Africa. Wanna hear? Listeny-listen.

For MEDIA: JWT Japan/Tokyo scores for "Kit Kat Mail 2009" on behalf of Nestle's Kit-Kat.

For OUTDOOR: TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris Johannesburg wins Grands Prix for "Fight the Regime," "Cheaper than Money," "Trillion Dollar Billboard," "Z$250,000,000" and "Wallpaper" -- on behalf of The Zimbabwean. The campaign's objective was, in great part, to demonstrate the ridiculous rate of inflation affecting Zimbabwean currency as a result of the current regime.

We covered one execution in which trillions of Zimbabwe dollars were used to wallpaper a billboard. Trillion dollar bills were also used as flyers. See the rest of the work; if you're curious about the roots of Z's current political situation, read some colourful background.

Cannes Lions: Talkin' the Twitter Biz-nass

Biz Stone's Twitter talk this afternoon was met with a full auditorium, people clamoring for places to park cameras and laptops so they could livetweet questions in real time.

Kind of a neat format. Stone addressed questions as they appeared under hashtag #hkcannes, the results of which were projected onto a screen. Two problems with this method:

1) Wifi outside the press room isn't accessible for free, meaning those that livetweeted from inside the room were either paying for use or mobiling it up. Questions were never taken directly from audience members, raising their hands, for example.

2) Questions were still for the most part selected by a Hill & Knowlton rep. I'm pretty sure the Oracle of Delphi had a less formidable filtering system.

Stone talked a bit about Twitter's birth, which I'm sure will become the stuff of online legend, so I don't really need to go into it. (Hey look, here it is.) One point of interest: his partner, Jack Dorsey, conceived the idea out of a fascination with AIM status updates.

Then he told a bunch of heartrending stories about how the real-time updating system got journos out of jail in foreign countries, kept people abreast of earthquakes and wildfire locations, gave hipsters a way to convey to each other which SXSW sessions suck, etc.

The hivemind behaviour born out of these instances of Twitter adoption yields zen inspiration to Stone: he likens it to watching birds fly in formation, using instincts to drive activity that seems perfectly coordinated.

Talk was also peppered with proverbs, which appeared above us like pop philosophy at a new age seminar. My favourite is "creativity is a renewable resource" -- something that came to Stone when he was asked, once, to come up with a five-word speech.






Here are a couple of videos of the QA portion, focusing on how Twitter expects to demonstrate its long-term viability by developing a business model.

On that little "definitions" section in right-hand Twitter nav:



On monetizing Twitter:



Nothing you probably haven't already heard. Obviously there's a way to shoehorn sponsorship or premium service opportunities into a site where product/movie reviews and brand opinions are solicited and freely given as generously as on Twitter. For a meatier description on how Twitter can add an e-commerce angle to its value prop, however, check out what one of its investors recently had to say.

Cannes Lions: Ronald McDonald Cameo Ignites Deep-Seated Clown Rage

Clowns give me mixed feelings. Having watched Killer Klowns from Outer Space at too young an age, they terrify me. And having seen a clown dejectedly make unwanted balloon animals at a party where all the kids were too old, they also make me inexpressibly sad.

Anyway, Ronald McDonald was outside the Palais today, wearing jetpacks of all things. He was doing this big dog and pony show for whoever reared a camera in his direction. Seeing him made me frightened, and when I'm scared I get mad, hence the venomous video.

Afterward I tried taking incriminating potshots of him leaping around and being generally objectionable. But then he looked at me -- right at me -- and gave me that Sad Clown Look. And my heart exploded into tiny little glass pieces. Every time I look at the picture below, I want to cry.



Clowns: gift-wrapped radiators of fear and melancholy. This is something a Happy Meal can't fix.

Cannes Lions: A Handful of Real Winnars in PR, Promotion and Direct.

This year was the first year Cannes recognized PR's role in getting a brand message across, so PR people just about creamed themselves getting here. Even Hill & Knowlton couldn't help but say something smug about it before passing the mic to Biz Stone this afternoon.

Yeah, you guys are in the door, woo woo.

We're not gonna sit out and type the full list of trophy bait; that's what the Cannes Lions awards subsite is for. But here are the Grand Prix winners in all three categories, and a few nice PR Lion winners, too.

For PROMO: "Yubari" for Yubari Resort (Japan), by Beacon Communications/Tokyo.

I didn't really understand the beauty of this campaign until it was explained to me in full. Apparently Yubari used to be a miner town, and when the mines closed and all the miners left, the city was hurting for cash.

Beacon was enlisted to address the problem. In its research of Yubari it discovered something compelling: that its inhabitants do not divorce. Ever. For whatever reason, probably having to do with that it was damn-near deserted, marriages there maintain a 100% success rate.

Silver bullet in tow, Beacon immediately positioned Yubari as the place to insure your happily ever after. The campaign was ridiculously successful in the first year, with newlyweds angling from far and wide to visit. And that's how a small minor town became Japan's City of Love.

For DIRECT and PR: "Best Job in the World" for Tourism Queensland (Australia), by Cumminsnitro. Well-deserved -- this was truly ambitious work from an agency that was hardly on the radar before this year.

So there you have it. Now see below for some nice PR Lion notables.

"Love Distance" for Sagami Rubber by GT/Tokyo got a PR Lion:




As did "One Thousand Casmurros" by Livead/Sao Paulo for TV Globo because it was just beautifully conceptualized and executed:



And the "World's First Ephemeral Museum" by Leo Burnett Lisboa/Arc Worldwide for Diageo Portugal: