A SUIT IN CANNES (PART 3)

Paul Yole, General Manager, Gatecrasher, Perth reports exclusively for Campaign Brief...


Wednesday – Day Three
The ads that won the press Grand Prix are bloody great. They’re for Ultra Tide stain remover and there is an Aussie connection as one of the ECDs at Saatchi New York is Australian – Leo Premutico.
Have a look at the ads on the Cannes web site - they are stunning.
Another press gold was won by TBWA New York with an Aussie creative team coming up with the winning idea for Snickers. When Rob Klemen picked up the award he did three one-handed press-ups on stage, which was very funny if you know Rob.
Wednesday afternoon was spent in St Paul de Vence at a stunning restaurant called La Colombe d’Or in the company of FBI, CB and around 50 Australian people. It was great to be able to talk to people like Garry Horner, Warren Brown, Tom Moult, Craig Davis, Rowan Dean and my old Perth colleagues Matt Eastwood and Steve Back.
In the evening we went to the Getty Images Massive Music party on the beach, accompanied by Getty’s gorgeous Rachel Dennis. Then it was on to the infamous Gutter Bar until daylight.
Which brings me on to the tricky issue of combining the social side of Cannes with the more educational and inspirational side. It’s very easy to get sucked in to the all-day-and-night party culture and miss out on some really good stuff.
So if you are thinking of coming for the first time, be prepared for working on very little sleep but do resist the very strong temptation to neglect the serious side of the Festival.

Thursday – Day Four
Here is a classic example of what I said yesterday. After a very late night I overslept and missed one of the highlights of the Festival, the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase.
Thankfully Murray Laird from Marketforce Perth was able to give me a full report. Murray is over here courtesy of winning the fellowship award given by The West Australian newspaper.
I did sit through a fairly dull debate on a very interesting subject – user generated marketing. The MC lost her way a little bit but some of the examples from the likes of Nike and Dove were really good.
Today the film shortlist was released. It’s ironic that despite online being such a red-hot topic these days, television advertising is still what everyone wants to see.
They have screenings of all the TV entries every day so if you have the patience you can sit through them all, but be warned it may be better to wait to see the more quality-intense shortlist screenings.
Or you can sit at the bank of Macs and search to see work from any category.
There is so much to see and do here that it is easy to miss something but you can catch up through the 80-page full colour magazine that is produced every day. It’s a full-on magazine just like ad Age or Campaign Brief, but it is published daily which must taking a huge effort.


Friday – Day Five
Although this is my fifth day at the Festival, it is actually the seventh day of the event proper because seminars started last Saturday.
I’ve heard some interesting stuff this week. In no particular order, here are some facts, figures and findings.
This year there are a record 11,000 delegates with several thousand more coming along just to hang out.
25,660 entries is also a record.
The Internet now has a 21% share of media consumption worldwide.
One in four USA workers spend an average of 3.5 hours a week (9% of their working time) reading blogs at work.
55% of 12-17 year olds in the USA are reported to be members of an online social network. In reality, that figure will be higher now.
Zenithoptimedia has just invested the equivalent of over A$12m on a new ROI tracking tool called Touchpoints. They are obviously keen to work out how all this money that is being poured into new media is actually working.
In the past 4 years, we have been subjected to 48% more door drops.
In the UK, 80% of people who own the Sky+ DVR skip the ads. I’m sure that means the sales guys are going to be reducing their rates by 80%.
The USC Annenberg School has produced a study called ‘Surveying the Digital Future’, which tells us that dial up Internet was actually a bigger threat to TV viewing than is broadband. This is because broadband users tend to use the Internet more often but for less time each visit so they often have the computer near their TV set. In fact, USC predicts that TV will actually grow in the future, in conjunction with the Internet not in competition to it.
Music licensing firm Ricall has just announced a new online platform that connects buyers of music rights directly to the license holders, thus eliminating some hefty commissions and finders’ fees.
Manchester United has 75 million fans worldwide. The several billion other soccer fans in the world hate them, so you could say Man U is a niche brand. But it’s a bloody big niche.
WGSN (which stands for worthglobalstylenetwork) tracks the new and innovative cultural drivers. They predict four new trends for 2008: New Frontiers, Curated, Elusive and Disturbed.
In the USA, 100,000 canned drinks are consumed every 30 seconds.
I could go on but suffice to say that although topics such as user generated marketing, digital media and content are major themes here, nobody is saying that the so-called old media are dying.
Today was the day of the Campaign Brief Villa Pool Party, sponsored by Paul Prince at The Sweet Shop. Although the Festival ends tomorrow we still have the highlight of the Film Lions and the closing gala to come. After a long week already I’m not sure whether the pool party was a wind down or warm up but it was great way for the very strong Australasia contingent to let their hair down together and do a bit of bonding.
I’ve met a lot of new friends this week and many of them have talent that I am in awe of. I guess that is what they call networking and that is what I’ll tell my employers when I get back.
This afternoon was the Cannes Debate about the future of agencies with four of the world’s greatest ad men - David Droga, Andrew Robertson, Daniel Morel and Jeff Goodby. One clear message was that the task remains the same but the canvas is just bigger.
The message I took out of this summarised the whole week: no matter what medium you use it is the idea that counts. You just need to make sure you surround yourself with people who can create those ideas and execute them in whatever medium counts.
And then, as Andrew Robertson so eloquently put it, “craft the snot out of it.”