Nobby’s Cannes Diary – part one

David ‘Nobby’ Nobay, creative chairman of Droga5, Sydney, isrepresenting Australia on the Direct jury.He’s just finished day one of judging and writes exclusively forCampaign Brief, the only Australian trade press in Cannes this year.Other Aussie and Kiwi jurors will be contributing exclusively to the CBBlog over the next 10 days, so make sure you check in daily, hourly,every minute…

Sporadic internet access, lashing rain, dodgy shower, the worse floods in 200 years and narky waiters (nothing new there).

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not deluded enough to think that anyone leftbehind in Oz gives a toss about my woes since landing in Nice. But hey,couldn’t resist. Spare a thought for my old mate Lachie McPherson (Mojo Auckland) who’sjudging Cyber. He went for a number two while waiting for an entry toload, and returned from his bowel adventures to discover said entrystill loading. Makes watching paint dry a bit special. Pray yourentry’s not too flash, as they say in R2D2 land.

As for direct judging, it’s day two and proof there’s something in allthat brand karma religious stuff. I’ve clearly knocked out some dodgyads, and am now more than paying for it with sadistically long judgingslogs involving sexy categories like “non-dimensional business tobusiness mail”.

Early reactions: India’s a big land. Billions of them. That means,where we’d boast “hundreds got behind our idea” in Mumbai case studies,you hear of “hundreds of thousands turned up to support our pro-bonostunt and the world listened”. Big crowds, long case studies, but notnecessarily big ideas. That said, amongst the thousands of entries, some cool work from India too, so early days.

Another random observation; a lot of blood.Only a few years after TBWA\Whybin, Auckland’s “bonded by blood” Grand Prix for adidas,several entries have obviously opted for recycling body liquids andpushed integrated campaigns that centre around gallons of donated port.

And branded-cushions. All manner of cushions. Some in funny shapes,Some not. But enough to settle the homeless for years of care-freeslumber. And lots of boring conversations about response rates. If anideas shit, surely an extra 2% response isn’t going to get it over theline? Well, you’d think…

Right, that’s it for me. I’m off to order a $150 burger from roomservice before a crack of thunder heralds the next fall of internet atthe Carlton.

Nobbyx

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