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Cannes Lions Data

Combining the art, the copy and the code – Google's Lars Bastholm on Cannes' Creative Data Lions

By Lars Bastholm, chief creative officer

June 17, 2015 | 5 min read

There are very few awards so influential they clearly signpost seismic shifts in the industry. The prestigious Cannes Lions can claim that right and the news that there will be a Creative Data Lions this year means the industry now recognises that the convergence of creativity and data can produce amazing, thrilling and effective work.

The judges for the Creative Data Lions have the most exciting job at the festival. They will see campaigns created at the cutting edge of technology. They will glimpse the huge potential unlocked by the marriage of data and creativity and possibly have their minds blown. But first they will have to figure out the criteria for their decisions. What are they judging?

Marketers and agencies can harvest data by the truckload. Every day billions of people around the globe are living out their lives online creating millions of consumer signals.

But it’s how the data is interpreted and used to engage with the target audience in an informed, impactful way at just the right moment that drives success. There are thousands of other messages and activities clamouring for consumer attention. Using data in smart ways to be relevant to your audience in the moments that matter is key.

Kudos should not necessarily go to the campaign that used the biggest amount of data points but the project that created a compelling story from skillful use of data-derived insights.

For instance, the much-lauded British Airways out-of-home #lookup campaign, a former Cannes Lion winner, used only a few data sources, including the flight number and plan of BA planes, to deliver that sense of wonder and delight consumers love to experience.

The judges should also consider who has managed to gather relevant data in a smart, non-intrusive way from consumers to invent a magical experience.

A great example of a data collection strategy integrated into the very fibre of a campaign is the Stockholm AIDS Prevention Program project, another Cannes Lions winner.

Thousands of condoms were handed out to young people each with a unique number. Once people found a partner, they could use their phone to record data from their sexual activity. Fascinating data was then available for everyone to explore, including who lasted the longest or made the most noise between different types of people. The campaign engaged a young audience & increased condom usage in Stockholm.

Data does not constrain creativity – it is liberating in that it can help inspire so many kinds of experience for an audience across a myriad channels and devices. One final example that illustrates the imaginative use of data is GSK’s Lucozade Sport Conditions Zone designed to tie in with last year’s World Cup.

GSK wanted to own the conversation around rehydration and performance. The brand’s sport scientists and its agencies created a five-a-side facility that simulated the temperatures and humidity football players would experience in Brazil.

Amateur players had the chance to play in the zone and pre and post-match data was recorded via wearables so they could benchmark themselves against world class players. An online hub also featured a conditions simulator where visitors could input variables like humidity and learn how the effect on players.

All these examples are inventive and intriguing. Many of them include a real time element in their concepts (the flight overhead, uploading the condom’s personal story, testing out variable playing conditions) and we know a real time connection provides a deeper, richer experience for the consumer.

What creative team would not want their work to generate an instant and gratifying emotional response, touch their audience or change their behaviour in a positive way? Data allows for more creative flexibility. It can power communications that are tailored to the audience, the place, the instant, the context. It makes these goals realisable.

Data can provide a framework to help creatives tell their best stories and have them reach a receptive audience.

Just as every musician wants to make music that is heard and every artist pictures that are seen, so every creative want to make work that captures attention and drives a response. The marriage of data and creativity provides the best chance to make something that is lasting, relevant and touches the audience personally.

I wish the entrants in the first Creative Data awards the very best and can't wait to see this year’s boldest blends of art and technology.

Lars Bastholm is chief creative officer at Google's The Zoo

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