Tuesday was packed full of some pretty interesting sessions relating to digital media, a new approach to communication and an interesting take on things presented by HP. With so much digital discussion it was refreshing to hear HP's perspective on the cycle of communiication and how they believe we are moving back to what you can touch, feel and hold. Whlst not necessaily predicting the growth of magazines and newspapers they pointed out how much more importance we now place on receiveing a letter and reading a book - basically moving away from the digital world that can only be seen through a computer or TV screen.
And the worst session of the week so far goes to - Yahoo's terrible discussion with Ben Stiller. With pretty much everyone in Cannes either in the main auditorium or in a nearby theatre where they streamed the discussion, one of Yahoo's global head honchos hosted the most boring session so far. Accompanying Ben was Goodby for Goodby Silverstein and as they bumbled through their chat, took inane questions from the audience and were generally boring, people began walking out. What a missed opportunity for Yahoo. The best bit - Ben Stiller doing 'Blue Steel' to the crowd and uploading to Flickr so that when any user views the pic, money will be donated to charity.
However I digress...
By now everyone will be well across the announcements - despite tons of hard work and a great idea Maura and Eb weren't awarded the global Young Lions prize and some young Danes took it out. We're still really proud of how far they made it and their work, so well done again.
Later that night we had the Awards ceremonies which were remarkably snappy but gave you a good feel of the winning entries.
The good - the amount of Australian recognition and awards - both Leo Burnett Sydney and Starcom Melb.
The bad - a creative agency winning Media Agency Of The Year. We've got to fix that and in a hurry and put media agencies back on stage.
The auditorium was packed out yesterday however it's a little cruel/rude to schedule Google's session at 9am after the Gala. With a sore head we heard all about their plans to basically dominate and change the world as we know it. TV will be no longer via the channels we know so well - in the next 12-36 months IPTV will proliferate with Google leading the charge.
Dynamically inserted high quality TV ads will be inserted into the shows you know and love and target you so specifically using demographic, behavioural and other data that you won't even know what hit you.
And if you don't engage with the ad in some way, shape or form, they'll figure you're not interested and will move onto flogging the next advertiser lined up to you.
The fact that Henrique de Castro, Vice President of Global Media and Platforms said himself that this sounds 'scary' about half a dozen times says something. I am a little bit more scared about Google after that session.
Later that day Spike Jonze talked about creativity. He is widely acclaimed for his work on films like Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Where the Wild Things Are. He is also Co-creator and Producer of the Jackass TV shows and films and has done a ton of ads.
His message was simple. Get and idea. Believe in the idea. Don't stray from the idea.
And if someone wants to water things down or compromise, just say NO.
His perspective is to keep it edge and pure or not bother.
When we get up to media schedule #65 we've really got to question where we've ended up and why - and will it achieve what we originally set out to do.
After the Spike session, not a person left the main auditorium... Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook was next.
He spoke to an interviewer for Advertising Age and the session was generally well constructed and interesting. However you couldn't help but notice that he's still twenty-something and it all of this questioning and presenting to such a big crowd just doesn't come naturally to him.
The main questions and answers:Q. Will he be appointing somebody more business-y to run the show instead of himself and take up a side role as chief product architect or something like that? A. Not while the company is still growing and he's able to bring the world together.
Q. How is their 'Locations' technology progessing (where you can see where your friends are at any point in time if they permit) A. Final tweaks and likely rolling out in next few months.
Q. Will they float Facebook? A. He said they're in no hurry - but you could tell the answer was YES, and probably soon.
He also copped a bit of flack about the recent privacy debates and highlighted their commitment to simplifying their settings and only sharing what people want to share.
All-in-all you've got to admire what the guy has created and a noble vision to bring the world closer via a universal platform. I couldn't help but feel that every answer was well rehearsed and scripted so it felt like he was simply repeating a string of press releases verbatim and end to end. With such interest in the company and its importance I guess that's understandable - there's a lot at stake.
Finally, I wonder if he's ever competed in the 'World's Fastest Speaker' competition as I'm sure he'd win.
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And yes, despite back to back sessions it's also a fair bit of fun here.Some highlights below:
1. The Interactive directory - it shows every session and you can even map what you're doing and find out more. It's touch screen and very cool.
2. There's a ton of art around the place including pieces where they commissioned famous artists to create using flowers.
3. The sand sculpture guy fills his little blanket with coins each day. He's probably a millionaire and owns one of #4 below.
4. The boats and wealth here is just crazy. More money and decadence than I've ever witnessed... quite inspiring actually and you start to wonder how many hours you need to work, what job you need to take, and generally who do you need to crush that is in your way so you can get youself on a $5m+ annual salary to get the mother of all boats.
For both work and fun, if you ever get the chance to come to Cannes, do it.
Young Lions in particular - you have no excuse. It's awesome here.