So far so good. Cannes has delivered beautiful weather and some great speakers.
There were a couple of seminars on day one that really resonated with me and the Palais audience. The sessions talked about pushing boundaries - how to activate people, make ideas truly social by empowering your audience, and seizing on favourable opportunities. They came from a mix of ad and PR agency specialists - who broke down old and traditional conventions of how to craft a brand story and what mediums need to be used. The message came from people who are genuinely contributing to how marketers are reengaging their audiences. And subsequently, they making huge positive changes to their clients' business. It was an impressive display.
During 'thenetworkone' Seminar, we heard from Tom Beckman, executive creative director and partner of Swedish PR agency Prime, and Carlos Holemans, founder & CEO of Spanish ad agency - El Laboratorio.
Tom spoke about how the smart marketers are moving from building brands to taking stands - realising that they can't create advocates for their brands without advocating something themselves. He talked of the need to break down traditions - living in a world of post-commericialism - where consumers no longer accept marketing messages because there are a hundred ways to avoid them. And this allows consumers to feel empowered to support only brands that stand for something. They decide who deserves to earn their money, and they will only listen to the ones saying the right things. Their work for Swedish brand Comfort, a franchise of plumbers, is testament to this - Google it.
What I loved about Carlos Holeman and El Laboratorio's projects is they were presented with opportune situations and took absolute advantage of them through moving swiftly. Carlos, whose agency is based in Spain, spoke of the country's hard economic times and the fact that brilliant ideas and stories are needed more now than ever.
There was a social media idea for betting firm Bwin that pitted mates against each other on Facebook, harnessing the intensely competitive matches between Spanish football teams Barcelona and Madrid. The project coat tailed the immense hype of these 'El Clásico' football matches and harnessed the mate against mate banter that so often exists on Facebook in a really clever way that worked for the brand.
Another of their projects for Mercedes took a traditional TV brief and created a beautiful piece of video art that has now been accepted into the Reina Sofia Contemporary Art Museum forever more. That's a real legacy. And finally, 'Donate your star' made the most of the Spanish football team's mistake of not printing a world champion star on one of their footballers jersey and transformed it into a project that became an incredible PR and social media story across the country and beyond for their not-for-profit client Save The Children. Google those projects too.
The final seminar of the day came from Morihiro Harano, creative director, founder & CEO of Japanese Agency Party. Morihiro and Party believe that a new story derives from new technology - and their portfolio of work supporting this was first-class. He shared some of the lessons Party has learnt with the audience. Firstly, don't make another waste for waste's sake. To make stories that get people talking you cannot expect the same way of thinking to work. Secondly, search in the right place, not the bright place - if your brand is only thinking using traditional media you are only looking in the bright places. And thirdly, it's no longer about what kind of ad we need, it's what kind of story do we need - and how innovation contributes to that.
Projects wise Party is leading the way in empowering and engaging consumers. It has created an app for Toyota which is a virtual car for the backseat driver that actually links to your driving route, made a live TV show for Sony where the audience at home steered the entertainment via smartphones, tablet and PC, and built a social fashion app called Wall which promotes your fashion tastes to your friends and subsequent sales earn you retail credits.
All these speakers from different parts of the world are pushing the boundaries of how we can rethink what we do to make better relationships with customers. And it's happening back home too. So let's keep pushing.
Josh Mullens
Head of Projects
Will O'Rourke