Simon + Giles in Cannes: Thank you Creativity, for making us look like total douchebags

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BLOG 1 (1).jpgSimon Hayes (left) and Giles Clayton (right), a young creative team from J. Walter Thompson Sydney, have competed in the Print category of the Cannes Young Lions competition. The pair write exclusively for CB.

Thank you creativity… For making us look like total douchebags.

No, but seriously, thank you to News Corp and everyone at Young Lions who’ve got us out here to compete in the print competition. It’s already been a blast.

Two days ago we arrived in Cannes, picked up our matching totes and t-shirts and set about blending in with every other advertising upstart who’ve swindled their way to the South of France.

Our first impression of Cannes is it’s kind of like Schoolies for rich people. Garish fashions, heaving overpriced bars and insecure blokes doing laps in rented Ferrari’s instead of their cousin’s supercharged Nissan Skyline.

There’s also the matching shirts, this year branding the theme: ‘Thank you creativity’

But what does that mean? Good question. We’re still not sure either, but it has given us a tonne of LOLs flicking through the lions guide. Each juror was asked to finish the sentence ‘Thank you creativity for…’ And there’s some absolute corkers in there. Here are a few of our faves:

Thank you creativity for…

“Helping us to imagine the unimaginable, show the unshowable, explain the unexplainable and move the unmoveable.”

“Blurring the line between imagination and reality, so everything can become real.”

“Being the air water and soil needed for imagination to flourish.”

“Being the pulsating heart of our industries collective contribution to the betterment of our communities and our planet.”

There’s more… there’s lots lots more.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get around to reading every inspirational quote as we were thrust into competition, had 24 hours to complete our brief and came back the next day for the winners ceremony. The first judge approached the stage, had a little chat about the work and then announced:

“The Bronze winner is… Aust… Aust… (clears throat) Austria!”

Safe to say we were pretty shattered at that point and didn’t have any luck with Silver or Gold either. With all that stuttering though you’d have to say we came fourth.