By Saloni Dutta
(With inputs from Simran Sabherwal, Anuradha Varanasi and Ravi Bansal)
It’s that time of the year again, the ‘awards’ season when adlanders flock to the French Riviera, working their grey cells in a bid to outdo one another in the ‘Game of Thrones’ of the global advertising fraternity, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, 2015. Their goal: to match wits with peers in the creative world and win the coveted metals.
What’s special about the festival this year is the launch of the Glass Lion, or Lion for Change. With a focus on gender, the new award will celebrate work that “breaks through unconscious gender bias” and “shatters stereotypical portrayals of men and women” as the festival moves to match pace with the overall direction in which the business of communication is moving across the world.
It’s not just about women, but issues about gender in any colour or shape: Tista Sen
Meanwhile, going back to the coveted metals we just mentioned, India had registered one of its best performances so far at the festival in 2013, with a total metal tally of 33, but registered only an average performance in 2014 by winning 27 metals comprising only five Gold Lions. So what will set winners apart at Cannes Lions 2015? What are some aspects that will help jurors to quickly decide whether an entry is of gold standard or not? Also, how can Indian agencies convey the nuances of ad campaigns based on Indian themes better to an international jury?
The festival believes that creativity is the driving force for business, for change and for good. That’s why there are campaigners for creative bravery that changes the course of communications. Overall, people feel that a lot of sameness has crept into the way campaigns are being developed and executed. And hence, for many, Cannes is the place to get bedazzled and refresh their creative systems by looking at works based on ideas that weren’t thought of before. “The best way to contribute to the world - and win accolades at Cannes - is to do transformative culturally-relevant work for your own market. The more local the brand solution, the richer it becomes for the world of advertising and marketing communication, because to truly influence nations, you’ve got to respond to a real problem in a real way – and deliver it with originality and executional brilliance. That’s also how you blind the jury!” feels Josy Paul, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, BBDO India.
There is a concern that Indian entries are not packaged well and fail to convey the cultural and emotional context to the jury. “It is sad that your video entry has become more important than the idea of the entry. Many times, some really phenomenal ideas get left behind because they were not packaged well enough. And I think the only way out of this is to package ourselves and simply try to see it through the eyes of somebody from France or Brazil and what would be surprising and meaningful for him. That bit needs time, effort, energy and money and Indian agencies need to do that,” says Abhijit Avasthi, who is part of the Film jury this year.
The judges looks for ideas that can give them that immediate ‘Wow’ and justify that ‘Wow’ after a discussion amongst the jury members. “There is nothing like going through some 5,000 odd pieces of work and getting extremely frustrated looking at bad work, and then finally finding some 100 pieces of great work. That’s the thrill of doing any jury duty: to unearth and to find those nuggets. Though the process of finding them is frustrating, you will always wait for light at the end of the tunnel,” declares KV Sridhar, Chief Creative Officer, SapientNitro India. And almost all the time, the ideas that win big are new and fresh, which have never been done before, like ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ the all-time most awarded campaign in the history of the Cannes Lions with five Grand Prix, 18 Gold Lions, three Silver Lions and two Bronze Lions to its credit. Stressing on the newness of the work, Sajan Raj Kurup, Founder & Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia Group says, “It is a pi versus pi at the end of the day and there are reference points that people have... so we should be a little careful of how we mark it, as Cannes will always pick up something fresh and interesting.”
However, Parixit Bhattacharya, Chief Creative Officer, TBWA\India feels that winning at Cannes is not enough. “The question is what kind of work do we want to win on? The output of our industry for the most part is a result of marketers and agencies finding comfort in conventions. Most of the work feels like it was created to keep someone’s boss happy. If you look at the big winners at Cannes, it is about big brands backing provocative ideas in the hope of a big result, the key ingredient being bravery. We as an industry need to work on that muscle. So, if we get the first thing right, that is, a provocative idea on a big brand, executed impeccably on a huge scale, we would not only win more but those wins would be more meaningful. Here’s wishing all our agencies a great show at Cannes this year,” he adds.
With barely a week to go for the festival, the Indian contingent is riding on high expectations. Over the years, several lessons have been learnt from wins and losses and overall participation at the festival. Whether these learnings convert to metals is something to wait and watch out for...
CANNES LIONS SAYS BRING YOUR WORST EMPLOYEES TO THE FESTIVAL INSTEAD OF FIRING THEM BECAUSE IT’S ‘CHEAPER THAN SEVERANCE’
Confused about what to do with your worst-performing employees? Reward them with a trip to the Cannes Lions festival. That’s the tongue-in-cheek message of the festival’s official ad campaign. Don’t think of it as a reward. Think of it as an investment in creativity. After all, as the tagline points out, sending underperforming staff to Cannes as delegates is ‘cheaper than severance’. Photographer Dan Burn-Forti shot both the print ads and the online videos, created by McCann London.
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