Bonjour Australia.
Judging for the Cyber category at the 60th Annual International Festival of Creativity got underway today. There were a few judges late to the party due to the air traffic control strikes in France, some had to come by car and train. Rumour has it, one judge chartered a private jet in order to avoid the delays – la di da. No such extravagances from the judge representing the independent agency.
Along the Boulevard de la Croisette, Spotify are advertising a new campaign aligned with the Festival which sees six creative minds sharing their 10 most inspirational tunes. Among them are Bob Greenberg from R/GA who is also the President of the Cyber panel. I had the honour of walking to the Palaise De Festival this morning with Bob and exchanged opinions on our favourite Beatle. No surprises, Bob is a Lennon man.
During the morning address Bob touched on the importance of the anniversary. He noted that when the festival began it was 1953 and the first colour television broadcasts were still a year away. He spoke of the way TV is adapting and changing and also how the internet is still very much in its infancy. He asked us to look for great user experiences in the work we are judging and work that elicits an emotional response.
And there's plenty of work to judge. Cyber has the most entries of any category at Cannes this year. There were 2,627 pieces of work entered. After one day the work appears to fall into five main categories:
1. Crowd Funded
2. Choose Your Own Adventure
3. Experiments (we took X and did Y)
4. HTML 5 scrolling parallax websites, and
5. Campaigns using the Black Eyed Peas
I'm thrilled to be judging alongside two fellow Aussie (expats). Neil Heymann from Droga 5 in New York and Bridget Jung from Digitas in Paris are also here bringing some familiar twang to the conversation.
I must away, the lure of Macaroons is too strong.
Bradley Eldridge
Executive creative director
Soap Creative