Brian Morrissey, Adweek digital editor

Thursday, June 19, 2008 - Cannes is not just one big party. It's also a place to test out the kind of made-up buzzwords that make the ad world so awesome. Here are a few of the current candidates:
  1. Digitology: This was the name given to a workshop put on by British shop Profero. I didn’t make it to find out what exactly digitology is, but one attendee told me it was “painfully basic.”
  2. Creativology: Microsoft has a significant presence in Cannes, promoting on the front of the Palais the notion that it’s “pioneering creativology.” It’s apparently the marrying of creativity and technology. One Microsoft exec, after several glasses of rose, admitted to me last night he though it was “complete bullshit.”
  3. Utilitainment: AKQA’s mobile chief Dan Rosen tossed out this term during a session on mobile marketing. It seems like a variance on brand utility. The example he gave was a cool effort AKQA has done for NikeID. It lets users customize sneakers using colors determined via a picture taken with a cell camera.
  Which word is most painfully awesome? Vote after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Published on June 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Laura Desmond, Media Lions juror

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - I knew it wasn't going to be a day at the beach, but nothing can really prepare you for the work ahead of you as a member of the Media Lions jury. We spent the last five days wading through over 2,000 submissions. The first three days we split into teams to review individual categories which formed the basis of our shortlist. On day four, we reviewed and confirmed the shortlist, and finally, on day five we were able to select our bronze, silver, gold and Grand Prix. Every day, we would read the submissions, look at the boards, watch the video, debate the merits (the last day quite passionately) of the case, and finally cast our vote. While my brain is slightly numb yet wildly overstimulated, I do want to share one bit of advice with you Media Lion hopefuls out there: Deliver. Simple. Brilliance.
  You’ve only got 60 seconds to capture my and my fellow jury members’ imagination, so you better distill your thinking down to its essence and tell your story well. Just do the math and you know it is true: 2,000 cases, 25 jury members and five days. I’m a speed reader, and let me tell you, it was a struggle. We are locked in a room all day for five days looking at case after case; if you don’t stand out quickly and make yourself heard, you will not be standing on the stage come Gala Awards night.

Click to read more ...

Published on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Colleen DeCourcy, Cyber jury president

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 - The festival is just starting to move into fever-pitch mode. The Cyber jury has completed its shortlist, and the Gutter Bar is spilling out into the street for the first time during Lions '08. Proclamations are being made everywhere about what this year will hold.
  Spent a lot of Monday listening to people’s opinions about what is going on with “agencies and digital.” Honestly, no one thinks “we’ve arrived,” but everyone wants to know what the problem is. I’m tired of talking. I have a few thoughts, and I’ll put them here.
  How do we push advertising across the digital divide?
  1. Start with how people use technology instead of all this navel gazing about how advertising uses technology.
  2. Next, don’t get confused by what technology can do that doesn’t apply to advertising.
  3. Focus! And prepare your agencies to run two tracks of output: the campaign track and the brand/product extension track. When you have a healthy internal culture that could make Lowe’s Stella Artois work and Nike+, then you’re got your spectrum covered for now.
  4. Rebirth your PR function to support customer service and social-media activities in partnership with your clients and their brands.

Click to read more ...

Published on June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

BLOGGING THE 2008 CANNES AD FESTIVAL

LeFreaque is Adweek's offical blog for the 2008 International Advertising Festival in Cannes. Read daily entries from jury members and delegates as the show goes on—reports on the judging, the parties, and everything in between. Also, check out the blog entries from last year’s festival here:

Scott Goodson, StrawberryFrog
Jonathan Harries, DraftFCB
Heather Higgins, DraftFCB
Kamau High, Adweek
Eric Hirshberg, Deutsch
Nick Law, R/GA
Bob Moore, Publicis
Brian Morrissey, Adweek
Scott Neslund, MindShare
Josh Rabinowitz, Grey
John Staffen, Arnold
Julian Watt, Net#work BBDO

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on June 4, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

BLOGGING THE 2007 CANNES AD FESTIVAL

Click to read the 2007 blog reports:

Scott Goodson, StrawberryFrog
Jonathan Harries, DraftFCB
Heather Higgins, DraftFCB
Kamau High, Adweek
Eric Hirshberg, Deutsch
Nick Law, R/GA
Bob Moore, Publicis
Brian Morrissey, Adweek
Scott Neslund, MindShare
Josh Rabinowitz, Grey
John Staffen, Arnold
Julian Watt, Net#work BBDO

Published on June 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

GUEST BLOGGER: Eric Hirshberg

• Eric Hirshberg is president and chief creative officer of Deutsch/LA.

Sunday, June 24, 2007
  Hey wait, there are ADS here!
  It’s funny, I was here for a couple of days before I looked at a single piece of advertising. First there were all of the speeches I wanted to see. Then there were all of the people you bump into at the speeches. Then there are all of the journalists you need to talk to. Then the “Ad Agencies Gone Wild” effect. I’ve seen and had a drink with just about every person in advertising to whom I’ve ever said, “We should have a drink some time.” There’s tremendous value in this. For recruiting. For bonding. For hearing new ideas and perspectives. And, let's be honest, just for having some fun.
  That said, the real value of being here didn’t come into focus until I started walking through the endless pavilions and seeing all of the work on display. ...

Click to read more ...

Published on June 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

GUEST BLOGGER: Josh Rabinowitz

• Josh Rabinowitz is svp and director of music at Grey.

Sunday, June 24, 2007
  Cannes Lions post-day disorder: Body and brain are depleted of all organic and antioxidant bits of anything health oriented—can’t wait to get home and normalize.
  What little bit of acumen I have left is now completely obsessed with finding a great and unusual idea.
  Let the games begin. Safe travels.   

Click to read more ...

Published on June 24, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

GUEST BLOGGER: Nick Law

• Nick Law is chief creative officer North America at R/GA and a Cyber Lions juror.

Saturday, June 23, 2007
  It’s almost over. All my socks are stiff, and my shirts smell of the Gutter Bar. 
  What’s the Gutter Bar you ask? 
  Imagine a small bar that spills its thousands of beer-addled patrons onto the street like a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Imagine those patrons are all from the most grotesquely superficial industry in the world and are (it shames me to say) predominately male. Ingeniously, the proprietor has installed behind the bar an electromagnetic device that pulls in and holds all superficial males within a five-mile radius until 6 a.m.
  A week that started with me as a Cyber judge wading through a multitude of meaningless membrane-thin Web sites, countless barely contagious viral videos and a billions of banners that each took five minutes to load, ends tonight at the Film and Titanium award ceremony with R/GA on the Titanium shortlist. 
  In between I saw good and bad work from all continents and categories, met advertising legends whose names I can now drop liberally, and drank like an unhinged 20-year-old in a whorehouse.
  If we win anything tonight, I’ll celebrate by going to Switzerland to have all my organs replaced.

Click to read more ...

Published on June 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

GUEST BLOGGER: Jonathan Harries

• Jonathan Harries is worldwide chief creative officer of DraftFCB and a Titanium and Integrated Lions juror.

Saturday, June 23, 2007
  I met someone from the French media today who told me that Cannes was an “absolute disaster for France.” It’s true, France did not receive a lot of medals—and yet there is brilliant work that comes out of this country. Last night I met a creative director who’d won a Grand Prix in the Dubai Lynx awards who was totally flabbergasted that his work wasn’t even shortlisted here. I hope not too many people go home devastated and confused. While wonderful work usually comes to the surface, it doesn’t always. Very often the way an entry is put together will determine if it even gets considered. My suggestion for next year is to really spend a lot of time working on the entry itself. Make it simple, clear and to the point. Always remember, Cannes is a seductive mistress, but on Monday you have go home to your family. That, I’m afraid is the reality.   

Click to read more ...

Published on June 23, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

GUEST BLOGGER: Heather Higgins

• Heather Higgins is evp and executive creative director at DraftFCB in New York and a Direct Lions juror.

Friday, June 22, 2007
  I’ve been wanting to wrap this up. But I keep getting distracted.
  There was the party after the show. There was the party after the party after the show. There was the gala the following night. There was amazing work to be seen. There were the industry legends hanging out at the Carlton Terrace. There were conversations with heroes at the Gutter Bar at 2 a.m. There were, of course, a few too many glasses of rose.
  But wait. I think they want me to write about the work.
  So here’s what I’m going to tell my teams when I get back, the teams who spend most of their time on briefs that require calls to action, specific results and ROIs. Whose clients (and bosses) have the classic direct models etched in their brains.
  In the Cannes Direct Lions, you see models for new kinds of direct work. Starting with ideas that are more experiential than much of what we do in the U.S. Ideas that strive to create loyalty through experience rather than points. And sell with life relevance rather than product claims.  

Click to read more ...

Published on June 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)