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Tag: Cannes Lion

  • Sanjeev Kotnala shared the star creatives at Cannes Lions that that made his day

    At least 8 reasons to celebrate Cannes

     

    By Sanjeev Kotnala

     

    The 2018 Cannes Advertising festival, reporting lesser number of entries and higher networking attendance is over. The powerful statements made by the speakers and the knowledge shared over drinks is slowly start losing its impact.

    The social media post of short-term legal immigrants to Nice are becoming sporadic and slowly getting buried in the digital history.  However, the award celebrations will continue for some time, and then the year 2019 will be around the corner.

    Post the festive revenue season, and the creative teams will start focussing on keeping up with the  fast approaching cut-offs for 2019 awards.  Unlike the Maharashtra plastic ban on ‘Single Use Plastic’, the jury and award organisers will fail to catch and penalise the award special  ‘single use creative’.

    CLIENT BAILOUT.

    Saatchi won awards inspite of the parent holding company’s ban on entering awards. ‘Client is paying the bill’ made it possible. It reflects a client’s confidence, desire, agency relationship and hypocrisy in approach. Moreover, there is nothing more to discuss on the subject.

    However, it gives an idea to the creative teams who feel deprived of awards recognition due to organisational or leadership misguided point-of-views and egos.

    INTROSPECTION IS ALWAYS A GOOD THING TO DO.

    Here are few creative expressions and solutions from Cannes that you must watch. Quite a few of them must already be discussed, dissected and coloured with multiple points of view. Give them another see, just because they are part of this column.

    You will agree, most of them are simple and straight in your face. Most professionals in the field will feel embarrassed for not being the first to exploit them for the brand. Many will say their constraints, and mainly the clients never bought such ideas. Maybe they were laughed at when they first presented such ideas. So that was the end of it.

    If that is true, then they must introspect. Such ideas take strong relationship, mutual professional admiration, ownership, understanding of a client’s pain points, self-confidence, an internal infrastructure that encourages such thinking and perseverance of a different level.

    LET’S CELEBRATE THE IDEA.

    These EIGHT works speak and represents the agency ownership and understanding of the situation. It shows their belief in living in a beta version and believing that perfection is work-in-progress.

    I feel collective pride in it and think of the possibilities that exist with such work.

    So without naming anyone, I share the top ones that made my day. Here to celebrating ideas in some kind of order of preference and impact on me.

     

    IT’S ALL ABOUT THE TIDE AD.
    Wow, fantastic, brilliant, sustainable and so very simple.

     

     

    GOOGLE MY LINE.

    Give it to the brand for taking their business seriously and not remain confined to the digital constraints but exploiting the very constraint to deliver a solution.

     

     

    BLINK TO SPEAK.

    It is, one of the outstanding global solutions from India.  It’s definitely a solution that makes every one of us proud.

     

     

     

    TRASH ISLAND.

    WOW, it is not only the idea but the execution and amplification that makes it a star.

     

     

     

    PALAU PLEDGE.

    How a small country with a tiny population integrated their solution with tourists that outshout them in numbers.

     

     

    TAG WORDS.

    A campaign, which makes it possible for the brand to show what it can otherwise never be able to do. Look out for how they took the idea to its logical end and did a 360-degree campaign.

     

     

     

    THE ARCHES.

    They remind of Martin Lindstrom talk and need to be confident and to be able to SMASH the BRAND. It is simply interesting and hugely powerful. It can be implemented globally without worrying about possible socio-cultural differences.

     

     

     

    CORRUPTION DETECTOR.

    Now this is a bit of technology and idea, and everything else put into it. I can bet, it is needed, however, we will never see this in India before the 2019 election.

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    PARTING SHOT.

    After ages saw a brand0building print ad ‘811 Kodak Bank’. It has a decently long copy by today’s standards. However, it is well-crafted around the core proposition. The art director has done justice to the concept and lines. No doubt it lured the reader to read it.

    It is not a large picture from TVC with the brand logo. For a change, the celebrity choice does justice to the campaign idea. It is good to see client not objecting to reduction in size of the celebrity picture in the print ad. In the 811 TVC, the star is upfront and is the spokesperson for the brand. In outdoor, the brand presents multiple faces across socio-economic strata to amplify the  #IndiaInvited concept.

     

     

    Ramki of Cartwheel, the agency for the brand, tells me 811 derived its name from the date Modi announced demonitisation – 8 Nov. “An event that galvanised Kotak into taking leadership in the digital banking space. 811 was India’s first downloadable account, enabled by Pan+Aadhaar verification. The process itself eliminates any chance of judgement. It inspired us to take the high ground of a brand that believes in equal opportunity and inclusiveness. The fact that today’s world appears to be getting more divisive, polarised and insular only made the message more relevant. Ranveer helps to amplify this message with his mass popularity. He is an outlier to the mainstream in many ways, and the message seems credible coming from him.’  I agree with him.

     

     

     

  • With global judging standards set to be replicated at the Kyoorius Awards, a look at what it took to decide on this year's most coveted awards

    What makes the Pencil so Pure?

     

    By Shephali Bhatt

     

    If ‘popular’ is the operative word for a Cannes Lion, ‘pure’ would perhaps be the most apt for a D&AD pencil. Among the most revered awards in advertising, the London-based show has a rigorous judging process that sets it apart. The winning categories are In Book (entries that find a place in the D&AD Annual, and an equivalent of Bronze), Nomination (Silver), Yellow Pencil (Gold) and finally Black Pencil (an equivalent of the coveted Grand Prix.)

     

    The judging for D&AD 2014 was held at Kensington Olympia in London over a period of one week starting 24 March. With the award entries spread out in the Olympia’s grand hall, it certainly makes a case for the most beautiful judging room, rivalling even the Palais at Cannes with its views of the Mediterranean.

     

    Unlike other shows where agencies enter a lot of work across categories to raise the odds of winning, here they only send what they think is exceptional. Part of it can be attributed to the high participation fees, says Sue Daun, executive creative director at Interbrand London and one of the jury members in the Branding category this year. But more importantly, it’s because everyone views the work basis its excellence.

     

    What’s encouraging is how the jurors don’t run a good piece of work down just because it wasn’t entered correctly. If they feel it’s deserving of some recognition, they go to the extent of asking if it’s also been submitted to the right category and if not, they ask if it can be. “There’s no agenda except to bring out the best work,” says Tista Sen, JWT India’s NCD and a D&AD 2014 jury member for Outdoor. Nobody tries to find which agency has created a particular piece or make an agenda of running down advertising from rival shops or networks. That whatever wins will be a reflection of the judges’ calibre is what drives them. “We should be able to defend the work we vote for,” is the mindset the judges have here which is unheard of at many other shows around the world which operate on a ‘more the merrier’ philosophy when it comes to trophies.

     

    At the same time, the criteria for choosing the best work are extremely stringent. So, phrases like ‘I like it’ or ‘I just don’t like it’ don’t cut ice with ‘Craft for Advertising’ jury foreman Louise Sloper who is also the head of design at BETC London. You will have to be able to answer ‘what bits did you like in particular’. The judges are tough but evidently fair. So John Mescall, Mc-Cann Melbourne’s ECD (Yes, of the Dumb Ways To Die fame) can solemnly ask to “kill the sound” of an entry for trailbytimeline.org.nz because the jury needs to experience what it is like to visit the actual website which doesn’t have a supporting voice-over.

     

    Alcohol brands are in for a hard time with the jury across categories since most innovations are suspected to have been “done before.” So is the case with any PSAs that come their way. Rob Reilly, jury foreman of Integrated and Earned Media and the global creative chairman of McCann Worldgroup, opines it’s easy to create a great idea for an NGO and convince them to buy it. It’s a challenge to do that for great brands and he for one has more respect for the latter while judging.

     

    Some judges did complain of too many entries trying too hard and becoming complicated in the process. The judges unanimously believe that to make something simple is a lot harder. What dominates the entire judging process is an aura of positivism where judges are immersed in bringing out the best work ahead and everyone is allowed to have their say, senior or rookie (which many complain is absent from other award shows). If implemented well, some of these ideas can raise the standards of the gong fests back home. Something that we are in dire need of.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

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