Valerie Cheng at the Cannes Seminars

Valerie Cheng, chief creative officer at JWT Singapore, offers her take on the Cannes Seminars running throughout the week, exclusive to CB.

It’s true that most people will find conferences a waste of money and time. Largely because, it’s not easy to deliver a perfect presentation from beginning to the end. You have to be an incredible presenter and you have to have substance in your slides, which is near impossible, even for some Presidents.

But if you attend conferences with an open mind, you can be surprised by the little nuggets hidden within each presentation.

Like today’s ‘1+1=3: A Formula for Creative’ conference by Kentaro Kimura, Co-CEO/ECD of Hakuhodo Kettle. He shared his agency’s philosophy called ‘Creative Alchemy’ which is essentially 5 ways to create innovative campaigns.  They are not foreign to any advertising individuals though it does serve as a reminder for all of us.

But the key take out for me during his session is his emphasis on Conscious vs Unconscious, Think vs Feel. It is easy to find a logical solution to a problem but what makes a great idea more amazing, is if it moves hearts not just minds. And to do that, we have to look outside the obvious and experiment with the unknown. This is probably why we are consistently amused by the work produced by the Japanese. We almost always expect something mind-blowing from them. It can be technologically driven or just a very unexpected way of approaching the problem.

If I had anything negative to say about his presentation, it has to be the number of Hakuhodo’s work he tried to force-fit into his slides. But here’s one by Wieden + Kennedy which Kentaro shared as his favourite. It’s an example of the kind of work that Creative Alchemy would produce by thinking – What If. 

Enjoy. VIEW THE VIDEO