Worthington’s Cannes Diary – part one

Nick Worthington, executive creative director of Colenso BBDO, Auckland, is representing New Zealand on the Titanium & Integrated jury and writesexclusively for Campaign Brief, the only Australian trade press inCannes this year.

There’s nothing that quite compares with watching 160 titanium and integrated campaigns back to back, each video is at least 3 minutes long, some more like 5.

Everybody at this level gets it in so far as the key ingredients to what makes a campaign. What’s missing in 90% of the entries is a new idea and brilliant craft.

So out of that first 160 ( there are lots more to come) I think I’veseen one I wish I’d done and three which are definitely shortlistmaterial. But that’s just me, it’ll be interesting to see what theother judges think come Thursday when we go back and look and what’smade it through.

We can pull stuff back if great work gets lost and I’m told a passionate speech can make all the difference, that said, I have seen someone stand up for a piece of work and watch it go from a Bronze to nothing.  

So it’s never a sure thing. On another note NZ and Aus seem to be having a brilliant Cannes so far. It was great to see jay and Andy picking up a grand prix for Leo’s and Toby and the DDB guys seem to be on roll, Clems Melbourne look pretty good too and it was nice to sneak a Gold, Silver and a couple of Bronzes last night for Colenso.

If you’ve never been to Cannes before there really is nothing else like It. There are so many people and so much work it’s pretty awesome and Terry and the guys who run this show are fucking amazing. It’s epic and run with military precision.

Enough ramblings, it’s 6 am here, I haven’t had enough sleep and judging starts again in a couple of hours. More tomorrow.

Nick w

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