Paul Yole’s Thursday Cannes Review: Selling stuff

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Paul Yole Cannes 2017.jpgPaul Yole has written for Campaign Brief at the last eleven Cannes Lions. This year he is looking out  for what’s new and what’s recurring.

The World Advertising Research Council, or WARC as it is known to most, hosted four sessions across the day and it provided some of the best insights of the week.

WARC is an online service offering advertising best practice, evidence and insights from the world’s leading brands. It’s absolute gold mine of information, best practice, research and case studies.

If your agency doesn’t subscribe, it most certainly should.

In a session entitled, “Is the creative industry losing its ability to sell stuff?” we heard Malcolm Poynton (Cheil), David Kolbutz (Droga5), Paul Bainsfair (IPA) and Nigel Hollis (Kantar Millward Brown) about how the trend to pursue brand purpose can sometimes lead to the work losing its focus.

Here’s a sobering thought. Last year, 15 campaigns achieved the holy grail of a Gold Lion and a Gold Effie, but only 6 of them were for commercial clients trying to sell stuff.

Indeed, most of the effectiveness winners these days seem to be for short term campaigns, which is a worrying sign.

Nigel Hollis reminded us of a highly relevant quote from Jim Stengel’s book Grow that suggests. “Great brands are built on improving the lives of the people they serve.”

The key of course is to understand how your brand can improve lives of the people they serve in a way that is relevant to your brand.

Otherwise you end up with a disaster of a campaign like Pepsi did.

While there is strong evidence that people will pay more for brands that have a clear purpose, this has possibly led to too much work looking too similar.

David Kolbutz was pretty vocal on this point. He believes juries are awarding gold to these types of campaigns and he suggests if you want to see the really interesting and fresh stuff, look at the Bronze winners.

He showed an example of two ads for the female deodorant Secret. Have a look at this one and you’ll see one addresses a more important social issue, but is this one actually a better ad?

Paul Bainsfair pointed out that the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty has not only endured and been a great commercial success, there is as yet little evidence to show it has made much headway against it social goals.

Ariel’s Share the Load, on the other hand, not only sold product but also persuaded over two million Indian men to sign up.

Nobody is saying that brands should not show a clear social purpose, but they need to ensure the work remains authentic and relevant.

As Kendall Jenner would no doubt tell you.