Dylan Harrison’s Cannes Diary – Day Two from the Cannes Promo and Activation jury room
Dylan Harrison, executive creative director of DDB Sydney, is representing Australia on the Promo & Activation jury. Harrison has just finished day two of judging and writes exclusively for Campaign Brief. Other Aussie and Kiwi jurors will be contributing exclusively to the CB Blog over the next 10 days, so make sure you check in daily, hourly, every minute…
Day two and the choice of hotel is really making a difference. Don’t get me wrong, with entries at a record high, the wonderful people organising Cannes are doing their level best to accommodate all of the jurors from around the world. I’m just saying the promo and actiation jury aren’t in the iconic Carlton Hotel. Nor are we in the Martinez opposite the gutter bar. No, we’re in the eclectically designed hotel round the corner. My room looks like it’s been decorated by a walrus regurgitating a truckload of skittles. On acid.
One thing it does have going for it however, is the single best Jacuzzi vista in all of Cannes.
Perhaps it’s by design as it’s in keeping with the spirit of the judging. Each of the different floors is inspired by a different continent. I’m on the Americas floor. As we continue to see work inspired by many wondrous themes and I suspect the hotel is preparing us mentally for it each day.
Work with real world experiential seems to be faring well, especially when the activity is enhanced by digital media, not the other way round.
It’s astounding to see the amount of treasure hunts out there, where do people find the time? What’s apparent with the rise in mobility is the ability and the willingness from audiences to be connected twenty-four seven. Especially in Asia, where it appears multi-platform integrated narratives are de rigour, the deeper the rabbit hole the better.
Reality shows, celebrities turning up in surprising real world roles, ambitious ambient builds involving projections and pedal powered projects… these are all clichés to be pinned on the dartboards of creative departments for the near future at least.
What needs to be rethought is how we approach ‘results’ in campaign videos. I witnessed one today from a country with 4 million people, where the idea reached 3.5 million by TV and 2.5 million by print in the same day. By their count, the same idea reached 6 million people within a country of 4 million. Hopefully they had some extra biscuits in the cupboard as there were a lot of visitors that day.
And what’s with giving away free money? Surely as brand stewards we can drive deeper engagement with our audience than the shallow transactional nature of flashing a shiny gold coin?
Having said that, some really inspiring ideas are starting to bubble through. Any work that motivates their audience with experiences money cant buy, that are important, relevant to them and rare, rises to the top. I’m really enjoying observing how despite the diverse channel permutations, it still comes down to understanding what makes people tick.
And speaking of diversity, maybe this hotel, with its geographically themed floors isn’t so bad after all… with Micah, Jay, Ant and my old boss Jeremy Craigen arriving today for judging, as we shared a round on the Carlton terrace I realised being one street back from all the mayhem may not be such a bad thing after all.
5 Comments
Looks like they haven’t changed the sheets since the porn festival.
‘Free Money’ is ubiquitous in sales promotion because it works, and it often works measurably better than exciting, engaging, money-can’t-buy type creative ideas.
Dispiriting but true.
The really great ideas are the ones that worked within the confines of the category ie: tedious stuff like having to sell an idea to the trade to get floor display (and those c*nts just want to see dollar signs) etc.
Loving the cross-shoulder, vertical man bag Dylan. Very continental.
Your white pants are also very European.
Those sheets were white when I stayed there.