Nigel Dawson’s Cannes Diary: Day One

Nigel Dawson, ECD at Grey Melbourne is Australia’s representative on the Cannes Lions Press jury. Dawson, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is of course reporting exclusively for CB.

Well, it’s not reality, is it.

The ascent into an unreal world started with the drive from Nice airport in a purring E Class with a purring Helmut at the wheel. The yachts at anchor in front of the hotel definitely are not real – floating penthouses the size of A 380s. The very fixed grins on the faces of expensive looking people you pass in the lobby are a bit dubious. And the bodies on the beach certainly aren’t real; if it gets any hotter, bits will melt.

Our already tenuous grip on reality got stretched further at 8.15 this morning when we embarked on the business at hand. I mean, how real is it to work through page after page after page of ads for cars with headlights that see round corners, or for milk from honest cows. One has to pause to try and put each one into the context of something stumbled across in a mag in a Doctor’s waiting room and then see how it touches you. All in five seconds or less. Because there’s another 6054 waiting.

And it’s unusual to say the least to be surrounded by 17 of advertising’s finest, from Javier of Costa Rica to Konal of the UAR, all resolutely doing the same thing. God, the amount of work put into some of these pieces is literally unbelievable – unbelievable because it cannot conceal the lack of a rip-snorting idea that Mr President has told us to look for.

It’s very sobering to reflect how work that no doubt the creators thought was outstanding becomes merely pedestrian when put alongside its similarly conceived brethren.

Thus we work in silence, savouring the moment when something great breaches in the sea of good.

Then at 5.00 the teachers said we could all go out to play and finally touch base with the real world and have a beer. And it’s $18.

Unreal.