Jack Blog
June 22nd, 2012 By Jack Morton
The big message I got from sessions attended today at the Cannes festival of creativity is probably the most important one all week.
It’s change.
Change is the message I’ll take home to my job and my colleagues at Jack when (sadly) I leave bright and early tomorrow, missing the Titanium awards as I jet back across the Atlantic (in coach, I assure you).
Here’s what I heard today:
#1: “Make the work better.”
Mutually epic industry legends Dan Wieden and Sir John Hegarty shared the stage to exchange compliments and pay homage to one another’s work. Clearly, having an admired competitor helps to inspire greatness. Plus, it’s fun when one is American and one is British (providing fodder for friendly ribbing and a different way of seeing the world). Hegarty’s parting message to the audience was to call for a fundamental change: “make the f***ing work better.”
#2: Change the world
Jose Miguel Sokoloff, President of Lowe and Partners’ Global Creative Council, led a terrific master class built around the inspiring work his team has done to further the demobilization of FARC guerillas in Colombia, including the award-winning Operation Christmas. His parting message to the young creatives in attendance: get up every day excited about how you can use your talents to change the world for the better. This echoed a session in which Unilever’s global CMO and senior North American marketer led a session about its Crafting Brands for Life (#CB4L) strategy that ended with the unveiling of a new charitable initiative, Waterworks. Both will bring about positive change.
#3: Project:Re-brief
A terrific end of the day treat: seeing the film Project:Re-brief, sponsored by Google, directed by Doug Pray of Art & Copy fame. In a really brilliant way, the film asks the question, what would happen if we took four classic ads of the 1960s and ’70s and re-made them with today’s technology? The solutions are brilliant, and it was a real treat to hear the comments from the four creatives who made the original ads and who attended the screening. My new hero: Paula Green, who came up with the Avis “We try harder” strategy in the 1960s.
#4: We’re excited by the Future Lions
Some of the most exciting work I saw at Cannes: the five student winners of the Future Lions awards. Like my colleague Leesa, I loved Penguin Soundtracks, as well as the brilliant Post from Japan. In introducing the 5 winners, AKQA CCO Rei Inamoto gave the brief from which the students worked: “Advertise a product from a brand of your choice in a way that wouldn’t have been possible 5 years ago.” Fast Company’s Co Create editor Teressa Iezzi told the students: “You have a responsibility to change things”; I think they already are.
