Five highlights from Cannes Lions 2011
Regional success was just one of the highlights of Cannes Lions 2011. The Drum rounds-up the best of the festival.
But it was impossible not to be reminded of home when Scottish client Irn-Bru, Glasgow animation studio Axis and Manchester agencies PHD North and The Chase picked up prestigious Gold awards at the Cannes Lions ceremonies last week.
Although it was satisfying to see homegrown agencies triumph among international rivals, there was so much more to the Cannes Lions 58th International Festival of Creativity than the elaborate pageantry of the nightly awards ceremonies. There were 57 daytime seminars including talks from a cast that included Arianna Huffington, will.i.am and Malcolm Gladwell.
The awards bashes, held in the vast theatre of the Palais des Festival, have been described as the advertising industry's Oscars. But the festival as a whole is more like a glitzy Glastonbury: so much to see, so little time. So here are five highlights from this year's Cannes Lions...
Record producer Pharrell Williams claims the internet has changed the music business for the better (at least for the punters)
As befitting a man who loves Star Trek, Pharrell Williams is a little savvier about the internet than your average popstar. But it was still refreshing to hear someone on the inside of the music business speak up for the way the web has changed the music industry in a positive way. The NERD star and producer said: "The record industry was a monopoly. If you wanted to see an act 30 years ago you could only catch them on American Bandstand or Soul Train. Or you had to buy a ticket to their show or buy their record. Once cable came about that should have been an omen to everyone. The internet has taken the power away from the monopoly and put it in the hands of the audience. If you're not good, if you're not Adele, you're not Top 40 now."
Dr Edward de Bono debunks a few big egos
The Cannes festival brings together some of the brighest creatives in the business from all over the world and then reminds them how clever they are each night by bestowing a whole heap of awards on them. Thank God then for Dr Edward de Bono, who stopped everyone from feeling a little too smug about themselves with a sober but thought-provoking lecture. "What is the biggest challenge facing humanity?" he asked the Cannes crowd. "Global warming? No, it's poor thinking.... It is remarkable how little progress we have made in thinking in the last 2,400 years. Virtually nothing." Ouch.
Piers Morgan gets his own back on Larry King - and predicts the death of newspapers
It took no more than five minutes of being on stage for Piers Morgan to take aim at Larry King, the man he succeeded as the chief talkshow host at CNN: "Larry King said watching me do his show was like watching his mother-in-law drive his favourite Bentley off a cliff. Well he should know, having had eight mothers-in-law." Behind the cheap shots though, the former Daily Mirror editor had a lot to say about the future of newspapers and television. Perhaps most interesting was his claim that it would be "no more than 20 years" until newspapers are extinct.
Robert Redford tells fimmakers to give 3D a rest
The Hollywood legend is not a man who looks particularly at ease when discussing 'brands'. The Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star admitted, almost a little sheepishly, that his trip to Cannes was thanks to Yahoo, which has agreed to sponsor his Sundance Film Festival. Despite embracing one of the world's foremost web brands for sponsorship, his willingness to play along with new technology is not unequivical. At a festival where media firms queued up to show off their extravagant 3D technology, Redford was cautious about its value to filmmakers: “A lot of people are trying to grab it without analysing whether it is good for their movie. You have to find out if it fits.”
Google admits it wants to read your mind
There was a touch of Big Brother about Google chief Eric Schmidt's seminar. Asked about where search engines were heading, the tech giant's honcho said: "The ideal would be us knowing what you want before you search for it." The thing is, if you believe Schmidt, that ideal is within Google's grasp. Perhaps just as interesting was Schmidt's insistence that Google is not motivated by competitors. In fact, he was surprisingly courteous about Apple: "When I first started in tech consumers hadn't woken up to tech. But thanks to people like Steve Jobs, who made that connection, that has happened now. This is a consumer-led revolution." No, the big challenge for Google, Schmidt said, was what happens within its own walls: "The problems for a large company like Google are always internal. It's not our competitors, as people think. So one of the challenges would be someone at Google coming up with some technology and us not being quick enough to implement it." Surprising candour from a company considered at the top of its game.
And a couple of lowlights....
A young man from a prominent New York agency locking himself and several colleagues out of the PR awards after misplacing their tickets. No amount of charm would get him past the efficient French bouncers. If you're still wondering Alex, you didn't win. Sorry.
And how could we forget the Grey Group's "Famousily [sic] effective" aeroplane stunt. Quite.