Cam Hoelter’s Cannes Diary: Day Two and Three

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Cameron-Cannes.jpgCameron Hoelter, creative director at DDB Sydney is Australia’s representative on the Cannes Lions Press jury. Hoelter, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is of course reporting exclusively for CB.

After an unexpected half day on day two, day three got a lot more serious.

Today was about the shortlist. Marcello even seemed more serious. Which was slightly disconcerting. Him being a giant and everything.

Before we got under way he stated what he thought the criteria should be for the shortlist.

1. Must be relevant

2. Must have an insight.

3. No jokes, unless they’re relevant.

4. Must work in print. (May have lost something in the translation on this one.)

It was nice to see a greater concentration of good work. And get a better feel for the over all standard. For me there are half a dozen standout campaigns that won’t be in dispute. The real debates will come from everything else.

So the morning was spent judging the shortlist and the afternoon going through the shortlist debating the merits of the borderline work.

There were more ‘Penguin book’ campaigns this year and ‘really strong flashlight’ ideas seem inexhaustible. But ‘Hot Wheels’ ads seem to have had their day.

The final duty of the day was to select a campaign that didn’t make it through to shortlist that you thought deserved a Lion. You could choose any campaign – apart from something from your own office. Not surprisingly conversations during the coffee break seemed to have a little more intensity.

At about 8.30pm we had a final shortlist that was about 8% of all entries. Some of it I’d rate as lucky but the majority of it worthy.

But that was really the lesson for me today, watching twenty odd people from different cultures all around the world, support some things and question others – you realise there’re so many perspectives on the work at Cannes, that if you get something through, it’s probably pretty special.