Cannes Lions turns world-leading advertising practitioners into stock photography models in new ‘Pumped’ campaign via McCann London

| | 5 Comments

CL14ad_Amir_Kassaei.jpgThe Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has launched its 2014 campaign to promote the Festival, which will run from 15 to 21 June. The organisers have teamed up with McCann London and commissioned award-winning photographer, Max Oppenheim, to perfect the art of the classic stock shot.

 

The press campaign will run in national newspapers and trade magazines around the world from now until June. It features a collection of world-renowned creative professionals portrayed as super-positive, fist-pumping, stock photography models.

The campaign highlights the fact that attending the world’s leading festival of creativity and being surrounded by the greatest creative work and people on the planet is a hugely valuable experience. It inspires delegates to return to work with renewed enthusiasm, like a reset button of the creative mojo of even the most senior/jaded industry figures.

CL14ad_Royer_Anderson_Sim.jpgEach execution features a stock image-style watermark with the legend: ‘You’ll come back as pumped as a stock photo model.’ Along with relevant search terms like ‘Success’ ‘Winning’ ‘Inspired’ ‘Energised’ ‘Cannes’ ‘Festival’ ‘Pumped’.

 

Says Senta Slingerland, director of brand strategy at Cannes Lions: “Our campaign celebrates the one thing that everyone who goes to Cannes experiences: the feeling of falling in love again with what you do for a living.”

 

The five executions were shot in generic office spaces in New York and London with models dressed in bland office attire befitting the stock image style.

 

Says Oppenheim: “It was a challenge to find just the right visual CL14ad_Palmer_Gottlieb.jpglanguage to pull off this series. I was very careful to select neutral locations, styling and wardrobe to capture the generic world of stock. And it helped massively that all the ‘models’ understood how great the idea was and threw themselves into their performances. They were pumped.”

 

The campaign features Benjamin Palmer, chairman of The Barbarian Group, New York; Chloe Gottlieb, ECD of R/GA, New York; Amir Kassaei, global chief creative officer of DDB Worldwide; Ted Royer, chief creative officer of Droga5, New York; Angel Anderson, VP/experience director of CP+P in LA; Sean Sim, ECD of Ogilvy China; Cindy Gallop, founder & CEO of If We Ran The World and Make Love Not Porn; James Hilton, co-founder and CCO of AKQA; and Laura CL14ad_Hilton_Gregory.jpgGregory, CEO and founder of Great Guns.

 

Says Mike Oughton, creative director at McCann London: ‘This campaign will strike a chord with everyone in the world who has ever typed the word ‘success’ into a stock image library search bar.’

Agency: McCann London

Campaign: Pumped

Client: Cannes Lions

Photographer: Max Oppenheim

Chief Creative Officers: Rob Doubal & Lolly Thomson

Creative Director: Mike Oughton

Copywriter: Mike Oughton

Art Director: Simon Hepton

Digital Team: Thomas Ilum & Carl Rapp

Typographer: Gary Todd

Producer: Anna Henderson