Nike - Nike Football - Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam - The Netherlands
Nike-Write your own future
This last commercial was production wise, one of the best of the whole festival. The edits, the cuts, the storyline, everything about the commercial works. There are almost no words but comments here and there and I think that's one of the things that genuinely helps the commercial. I love soccer and my parents love it too so watching this commercial brought back all the excitement of watching the world cup with them. I think that's what I liked best about it, the fact that it captured the excitement of watching play by play so exactly. Of course the production techniques were amazing too. Getting every emotion that the players have during the games and especially the good play/bad play reactions. I think Nike has always done a great job of finding agencies that capture the essence of their brand which is real sports.The just do it campaign flows perfectly from commercial to commercial and it's just effortless. It also helps that my favorite soccer team ever is Brazil and they are a part of the commercial as well! I also love that Cristiano Ronaldo is also in the commercial because he's such a great soccer player, but, more realistically because he's gorgeous. I think the aftermath of the plays are hilarious too because they're so extreme. The tone of the commercial is rugged and serious but the results of the plays are funny to me. It's a perfect marriage of everything Nike is and what it wants to be.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Commercial 4: Chrysler
Chrysler - Chrysler 200 - Wieden + Kennedy - USA
This commercial was awesome to me. I use stumbleupon.com a lot and there was a page that had the ruins of detroit on it and it was pretty intense. They had all of these abandoned buildings and it just looked like the apocalypse or something from Cormac McCarthy's The Road. My impression of what Detroit is became the apocalypse because that's what I thought it had come down to. When I first saw this commercial, however, I was surprised to see all of the nice statues and all the people that still live there. I think people from Detroit would also be proud of this commercial because it reminds them of the home they remember, not the ruins that people post on the internet. I also love that Eminem was in it because he does for Detroit what Jay-Z does for New York. It's just this loyalty to their city that makes you respect it. The narration on this was also amazing. It built up the scene and told the story of why the city is still great and how it will rise back up to its former glory. I love the camera angles as well because it literally felt like a movie, narration and everything. And of course I loved the end with Eminem announcing that it was motor city and "this is what we do" the whole commercial was just done so well. I also liked that it showed the good and bad of the city. It really tried to show the fact that they are tying to make a come back and buying the car, you would be helping the people of Detroit out in their goal to rise their city up. It kind of makes you patriotic in the fact that by helping one state, you help your country. Awesome.
Commercial 3: Axe
Unilever - Axe Full Control - Ponce Buenos Aires - Argentina
Axe Full Control
This commercial was also one of the ones I had seen before hand in the commercial screening room. What I really liked about this was how serious the tone was for such a funny commercial. The camera angles were pretty simple, cut and go on to the next shot. What I really liked about their technique however was that it had an almost movie like quality. Everything about it would suggest that this was a serious disease and a real problem that men have to deal with it. The theme of the commercial was "premature perspiration," a play off the premature ejaculation problem that many men apparently suffer from. I thought it was hilarious because men are so embarrassed of this issue and the fact that it is actually so similar to sweat stains and such made it even better. Somebody at the festival told me that this was already in america but I haven't actually seen it yet. I agree with my friend Tommy when he said that it probably wouldn't fly in the US. As much freedom as we think we have, the US is still pretty conservative and although the commercial is hilarious and it really is a good promoter of axe, the similarity to the ejaculation thing might not be great. I might just make it go viral in the US by posting it on all my social media sites just so that the world can enjoy! But, it would give a lot of free advertising to axe and I don't really like them, so, I probably won't.
Axe Full Control
This commercial was also one of the ones I had seen before hand in the commercial screening room. What I really liked about this was how serious the tone was for such a funny commercial. The camera angles were pretty simple, cut and go on to the next shot. What I really liked about their technique however was that it had an almost movie like quality. Everything about it would suggest that this was a serious disease and a real problem that men have to deal with it. The theme of the commercial was "premature perspiration," a play off the premature ejaculation problem that many men apparently suffer from. I thought it was hilarious because men are so embarrassed of this issue and the fact that it is actually so similar to sweat stains and such made it even better. Somebody at the festival told me that this was already in america but I haven't actually seen it yet. I agree with my friend Tommy when he said that it probably wouldn't fly in the US. As much freedom as we think we have, the US is still pretty conservative and although the commercial is hilarious and it really is a good promoter of axe, the similarity to the ejaculation thing might not be great. I might just make it go viral in the US by posting it on all my social media sites just so that the world can enjoy! But, it would give a lot of free advertising to axe and I don't really like them, so, I probably won't.
Commercial 2: Otrivin Nasal Spray
Novartis Consumer Health - Otrivin Nasal Spray - Saatchi & Saatchi, carouge - Switzerland
Otrivin Nasal Spray
This was probably one of my favorite commercials in the entire show. It's so simple and it was probably really cheap to make but it was hilarious! Otrivin nasal spray was trying to promote that it's better to breathe through your nose because you look dumb breathing with your mouth open. The camera angles were pretty simple, it just followed the teacher handing out a pair of scissors to every student. I think what made the commercial so good is that they didn't use any words. It was simple enough that just by watching it you knew what was going on. The only thing I think they could have done better was making it more apparent that the one little girl breathing through her mouth got a pair of safety scissors. I got the looking dumber thing the first time but didn't actually catch the little girl getting safety scissors until the second time I watched it. They also had a second commercial where a guy is breathing with his mouth and a lady decides to be nice and help him by tying his shoes. Again, hilarious. I was actually lucky enough to catch this commercial in the commercial screening room where I saw a lot of the winners in this category.
Otrivin Nasal Spray
This was probably one of my favorite commercials in the entire show. It's so simple and it was probably really cheap to make but it was hilarious! Otrivin nasal spray was trying to promote that it's better to breathe through your nose because you look dumb breathing with your mouth open. The camera angles were pretty simple, it just followed the teacher handing out a pair of scissors to every student. I think what made the commercial so good is that they didn't use any words. It was simple enough that just by watching it you knew what was going on. The only thing I think they could have done better was making it more apparent that the one little girl breathing through her mouth got a pair of safety scissors. I got the looking dumber thing the first time but didn't actually catch the little girl getting safety scissors until the second time I watched it. They also had a second commercial where a guy is breathing with his mouth and a lady decides to be nice and help him by tying his shoes. Again, hilarious. I was actually lucky enough to catch this commercial in the commercial screening room where I saw a lot of the winners in this category.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Commercial 1: Old Spice
Old Spice - Odor Blocker Body Wash - Wieden + Kennedy Portland - United Kingdom
Odor Blocker
The old spice legacy that Wieden + Kennedy have created is amazing. They've managed to bring back a brand that was falling into the shadows against new, cooler brands, such as axe. That being said, I'm really tired of the old spice guy. In this specific commercial they attempted to play off the campaign that shot them to stardom and recruited Terry Crews to basically create the same commercial except on steroids. The point of the commercial is to promote their new line of odor blocker body wash. I like that it's a new guy (and Terry Crews is pretty cool), but, the muscular black guy in a towel is just getting old and annoying for me. The concept of the commercial is on track and the filming is done very well. I don't blame them for trying to capitalize on their very successful idea, but, I think they're all about creating different types of ads that people haven't really seen before. I did like how in one of the spots the camera went into his armpit and then into that guys armpit and so fourth. It was a really cool effect and I think it helped convey the message that it penetrates deep enough to keep you smelling good. The rest of the camera angles were pretty stationary, Mostly Crews standing in one spot and things happening in the background. They didn't use as much green screen technology as the first commercial and that was a plus because it differentiated the two. I also liked that they tried to make it a little rougher of a commercial then the previous one. Crews was tougher looking and spoke like a big guy, unlike the original old spice man who's more elegant and handsome. I also think they could have mentioned more studies to prove that it actually does work better but, it was still a pretty good commercial.
Odor Blocker
The old spice legacy that Wieden + Kennedy have created is amazing. They've managed to bring back a brand that was falling into the shadows against new, cooler brands, such as axe. That being said, I'm really tired of the old spice guy. In this specific commercial they attempted to play off the campaign that shot them to stardom and recruited Terry Crews to basically create the same commercial except on steroids. The point of the commercial is to promote their new line of odor blocker body wash. I like that it's a new guy (and Terry Crews is pretty cool), but, the muscular black guy in a towel is just getting old and annoying for me. The concept of the commercial is on track and the filming is done very well. I don't blame them for trying to capitalize on their very successful idea, but, I think they're all about creating different types of ads that people haven't really seen before. I did like how in one of the spots the camera went into his armpit and then into that guys armpit and so fourth. It was a really cool effect and I think it helped convey the message that it penetrates deep enough to keep you smelling good. The rest of the camera angles were pretty stationary, Mostly Crews standing in one spot and things happening in the background. They didn't use as much green screen technology as the first commercial and that was a plus because it differentiated the two. I also liked that they tried to make it a little rougher of a commercial then the previous one. Crews was tougher looking and spoke like a big guy, unlike the original old spice man who's more elegant and handsome. I also think they could have mentioned more studies to prove that it actually does work better but, it was still a pretty good commercial.
Satuday! :)
The moment we've all been waiting for...
The highlight of today was definitely the film awards show. We walked in to the always beautiful auditorium and tried to fight our way into some seats. This was probably the most anticipated award show because it's the commercials one. This was also particularly important because they were revealing the titanium and integrated categories tonight. They also opened a new category, creative effectiveness which measures not just how creative a campaign was, but, how effective the campaign actually was. The commercials were all great, but, they were actually most of the ones we had previously seen in the screening rooms and a lot of them were the ones I chose to critique for a different assignment so I'm just going to talk about them all together in later posts. Wieden + Kennedy won a lot of awards, as expected, including independent agency of the year. WPP won holding company of the year, BBDO won network of the year, and BBDO sao paulo won agency of the year. I was particularly excited for these wins because I LOVE BBDO. I just think their style, their motto, everything is pretty cool and I would love to work for them! We all decided to dress up for this so I was in new heels that I had just bought before I left for France and I've officially decided that I'm never wearing them again without some kind of padding or something because next day blisters are not okay!! I just wanted to throw that out there to vent about my frustration with them.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Friday!
Who's Patti Smith?
So Molly and I woke up late again. Shocker. But, we did make it to the highlight of my day which was a talk with BBDO atlanta CEO Chris Hall. He was a pretty down to earth guy and had three take home points for us. Creativity=effectiveness, we're in the golden age of creativity and collaboration is key. He elaborated on each of those points and it was a really good talk. He didn't sound like a seminar speaker and was very genuine about the advice he was giving. He was also ready and willing to answer any and all questions we had for him. The next seminar was intriguing to me because I had no idea who Patti Smith was, but, I definitely found out. I think it hit me that she was a big deal when she walked in and people stood up for her and gave her a standing ovation without even saying anything. Her book, Just Kids, is very popular and she herself is an inspiration as well as a great speaker. She even read a personal letter from the book out loud and sang a song. She's iconic and apparently a rock and roll legend and I still can't believe we got to hear her sing and give her opinion. After this we all decided to just come home since there weren't really that many seminars left and to be honest, I think we were all getting a bit tired of being in there for so long. We had a nice quiet time at home and went on a beach trip later on in the night to share stories and such. Really great way to spend a Friday night.
So Molly and I woke up late again. Shocker. But, we did make it to the highlight of my day which was a talk with BBDO atlanta CEO Chris Hall. He was a pretty down to earth guy and had three take home points for us. Creativity=effectiveness, we're in the golden age of creativity and collaboration is key. He elaborated on each of those points and it was a really good talk. He didn't sound like a seminar speaker and was very genuine about the advice he was giving. He was also ready and willing to answer any and all questions we had for him. The next seminar was intriguing to me because I had no idea who Patti Smith was, but, I definitely found out. I think it hit me that she was a big deal when she walked in and people stood up for her and gave her a standing ovation without even saying anything. Her book, Just Kids, is very popular and she herself is an inspiration as well as a great speaker. She even read a personal letter from the book out loud and sang a song. She's iconic and apparently a rock and roll legend and I still can't believe we got to hear her sing and give her opinion. After this we all decided to just come home since there weren't really that many seminars left and to be honest, I think we were all getting a bit tired of being in there for so long. We had a nice quiet time at home and went on a beach trip later on in the night to share stories and such. Really great way to spend a Friday night.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Should be 6/23
No big deal, I was just crucial in the Egyptian revolution and got kidnapped a bit...
This was a pretty laid back Thursday and the day I think everyone took to kind of recharge before the last push. The day started off with us waiting in line to get into the McCann Worldgroup seminar. Why was there a line? Probably because the panel included the CEO of Mccann Worldgroup as well as Will.I.am of the black eyed peas. The guy that created rock band was also there and that was really cool. He said at one point that "technology is the most malleable resource we have." I couldn't agree more. I thought this panel was pretty good, even though I expected Will.I.am to be a better speaker, he still did a good job and had lots of good comments. I went to a pretty cool master class by 20something which is an agency in Belgium. What really made me interested in this agency is the fact that it's run completely by students. It sounds weird but it's actually a really cool concept. An agency called 6+1 came up with the idea for it. I love this agency because they are all about the client and what is best for them. The name 6+1 explains it all. These guys go and work for their clients for a day to understand them better. The name break down is as follows; 6, because of the six founders + 1, which is the client = 7 the optimal number signifying that together they make great advertising. I thought that was pretty awesome. They went on to explain how the 20something process works since it continuously has new students at the agency. It actually made a lot of sense and it was really interesting to see how it came to be. The final talk of the day was the most intense in my opinion. We got the amazing opportunity to speak with Amr Salama. He is a film producer from Egypt but was a huge player in the Egyptian revolution. I honestly don't think I could explain his talk because it was just so humble and interesting and a combination of a million things. I still can't believe we got the chance to talk to him. He told us what it was like to live in Egypt and all about the censorship and how much they tried to stop the news from spreading about the revolution and how everyone is trying to learn about a constitution and social media played and still plays such a big role, it was just a lot all at once. I think what surprised me the most was his honesty. He genuinely just wanted us to know what happened and what it was like and just barely said he got kidnapped and that basically he played a huge role. I really admired his humility and especially how he said that it wasn't about one person being the leader of the revolution, it was about everyone being a leader. He told us that when we chose a client, to make sure we believe in the company and the product because if we don't we're going to fail. Just the fact that he tried to tie something that seems insignificant in comparison to a whole revolution was another sign of humility on his part in my opinion. I'll probably tell my kids about him one day!
This was a pretty laid back Thursday and the day I think everyone took to kind of recharge before the last push. The day started off with us waiting in line to get into the McCann Worldgroup seminar. Why was there a line? Probably because the panel included the CEO of Mccann Worldgroup as well as Will.I.am of the black eyed peas. The guy that created rock band was also there and that was really cool. He said at one point that "technology is the most malleable resource we have." I couldn't agree more. I thought this panel was pretty good, even though I expected Will.I.am to be a better speaker, he still did a good job and had lots of good comments. I went to a pretty cool master class by 20something which is an agency in Belgium. What really made me interested in this agency is the fact that it's run completely by students. It sounds weird but it's actually a really cool concept. An agency called 6+1 came up with the idea for it. I love this agency because they are all about the client and what is best for them. The name 6+1 explains it all. These guys go and work for their clients for a day to understand them better. The name break down is as follows; 6, because of the six founders + 1, which is the client = 7 the optimal number signifying that together they make great advertising. I thought that was pretty awesome. They went on to explain how the 20something process works since it continuously has new students at the agency. It actually made a lot of sense and it was really interesting to see how it came to be. The final talk of the day was the most intense in my opinion. We got the amazing opportunity to speak with Amr Salama. He is a film producer from Egypt but was a huge player in the Egyptian revolution. I honestly don't think I could explain his talk because it was just so humble and interesting and a combination of a million things. I still can't believe we got the chance to talk to him. He told us what it was like to live in Egypt and all about the censorship and how much they tried to stop the news from spreading about the revolution and how everyone is trying to learn about a constitution and social media played and still plays such a big role, it was just a lot all at once. I think what surprised me the most was his honesty. He genuinely just wanted us to know what happened and what it was like and just barely said he got kidnapped and that basically he played a huge role. I really admired his humility and especially how he said that it wasn't about one person being the leader of the revolution, it was about everyone being a leader. He told us that when we chose a client, to make sure we believe in the company and the product because if we don't we're going to fail. Just the fact that he tried to tie something that seems insignificant in comparison to a whole revolution was another sign of humility on his part in my opinion. I'll probably tell my kids about him one day!
Should be 6/22
"This isn't real life y'all, this is THE life" -Gabby Callaway
So me and my roomie Molly apparently have a sleeping problem. Sometimes we try to get up and it just doesn't work out for us. Long story short, we got to the festival late today and I ended up missing Jesse Eisenberg (who I heard was pretty good) and the person I'm most disappointed I missed out on (next to Pharrel), Jennifer Frommer. BUT, we did make it to our meeting with David Simon who works for HBO. He was pretty cool and not just because we got to into an amazing hotel. He made a series called wired and is basically a "I don't give a ****" kind of person. He's smooth and has a weird sense of humor but overall, I really liked him! He was raw about life and at the same time passionate which I found interesting. The next person we got to speak to was Allison Arden, she's basically a big deal at ad age. She was really cool too, and has a lot of years of experience to back her up. It was pretty interesting to hear about how ad age works, especially since I'm all about industry news. This is where I insert my plug for the 4a's smart brief. If you're into advertising, this is one of the most informative, quick news digests that you can get. It tells you all about what's going on in the field and who's making news. And it's in connection with ad age! She's very inspirational and knows what's going on. I thought it was really cool that we got to talk to such an important person and it really put into perspective just how lucky we are to, as students, be on this trip dealing with the real deals and even having personal time with them. This was also the night of the Cyber Lions Awards show which is my category for our assignment since, to the disbelief of many who see and hear what we're up to on a daily basis, we are here for a class. I specifically have the task of being the ambassador for the websites category which was pretty awesome. These award show are NOT AT ALL what I expected. I guess I knew it would be a cool design, but, I walked in and the place looked better then the stage for the grammy's, it was just so unreal. It was a bit long but it was so interesting to see all these cool designs and how the jury went about choosing the winners. I think the best part though was when when they announced the winners of the soccer competition. My mom and dad are soccer fanatics and my dad has always loved Brazil and my mom has always loved Argentina. This is one of the biggest soccer rivals in the game. The world cup is always intense when these two teams play each other and it ended up being that here, in Cannes, the final two came down to Argentina vs. Brazil, with the win going to Brazil (woo-hoo, I love Brazil!) It was just a really good atmosphere and Brazil has been basically taking over this festival, they're literally everywhere and winning stuff all the time but I love Brazilians so it doesn't annoy me at all. This was also the night they decided to honor the media person of the year, in this case google CEO Eric Schimdt. He was surprisingly down to earth and has done a lot more for google then I thought. It was actually surprising to hear of all of his accomplishments because I really didn't know much about him. All in all, the award show was great. Next, however, was what became the real highlight of the night, the microsoft party. We were lucky enough to get invited to this party because two of our alumns actually work for microsoft. It was so much fun and the people were great. At the end of the night, one of the alumns and his girlfriend or wife, not quite sure which, stayed with a group of us until we safely got into a taxi and helped us pay for it so that they could make sure we got home. I just gotta say, I now love microsoft. I'm still on my mac, but, microsoft has some genuinely great people working for them.
So me and my roomie Molly apparently have a sleeping problem. Sometimes we try to get up and it just doesn't work out for us. Long story short, we got to the festival late today and I ended up missing Jesse Eisenberg (who I heard was pretty good) and the person I'm most disappointed I missed out on (next to Pharrel), Jennifer Frommer. BUT, we did make it to our meeting with David Simon who works for HBO. He was pretty cool and not just because we got to into an amazing hotel. He made a series called wired and is basically a "I don't give a ****" kind of person. He's smooth and has a weird sense of humor but overall, I really liked him! He was raw about life and at the same time passionate which I found interesting. The next person we got to speak to was Allison Arden, she's basically a big deal at ad age. She was really cool too, and has a lot of years of experience to back her up. It was pretty interesting to hear about how ad age works, especially since I'm all about industry news. This is where I insert my plug for the 4a's smart brief. If you're into advertising, this is one of the most informative, quick news digests that you can get. It tells you all about what's going on in the field and who's making news. And it's in connection with ad age! She's very inspirational and knows what's going on. I thought it was really cool that we got to talk to such an important person and it really put into perspective just how lucky we are to, as students, be on this trip dealing with the real deals and even having personal time with them. This was also the night of the Cyber Lions Awards show which is my category for our assignment since, to the disbelief of many who see and hear what we're up to on a daily basis, we are here for a class. I specifically have the task of being the ambassador for the websites category which was pretty awesome. These award show are NOT AT ALL what I expected. I guess I knew it would be a cool design, but, I walked in and the place looked better then the stage for the grammy's, it was just so unreal. It was a bit long but it was so interesting to see all these cool designs and how the jury went about choosing the winners. I think the best part though was when when they announced the winners of the soccer competition. My mom and dad are soccer fanatics and my dad has always loved Brazil and my mom has always loved Argentina. This is one of the biggest soccer rivals in the game. The world cup is always intense when these two teams play each other and it ended up being that here, in Cannes, the final two came down to Argentina vs. Brazil, with the win going to Brazil (woo-hoo, I love Brazil!) It was just a really good atmosphere and Brazil has been basically taking over this festival, they're literally everywhere and winning stuff all the time but I love Brazilians so it doesn't annoy me at all. This was also the night they decided to honor the media person of the year, in this case google CEO Eric Schimdt. He was surprisingly down to earth and has done a lot more for google then I thought. It was actually surprising to hear of all of his accomplishments because I really didn't know much about him. All in all, the award show was great. Next, however, was what became the real highlight of the night, the microsoft party. We were lucky enough to get invited to this party because two of our alumns actually work for microsoft. It was so much fun and the people were great. At the end of the night, one of the alumns and his girlfriend or wife, not quite sure which, stayed with a group of us until we safely got into a taxi and helped us pay for it so that they could make sure we got home. I just gotta say, I now love microsoft. I'm still on my mac, but, microsoft has some genuinely great people working for them.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Should be 6/21
STILL failing...
So I got really sick this morning and wasn't actually able to go to much. I woke up and started throwing up and...yeah, I'll spare the details. But I basically cried because this was the day pharrell was there and so was martha stewart and so was soledad obrien. Of course this is the day I get sick. I eventually got up and tried to make it to a seminar but ended up just meeting up with everybody at the google creative sandbox happy hour which we like to frequent now (and made a shirt!). We were also invited to a young lions party which we were kind of hesitant about but it actually ended up being one of the best parties I've ever been to in my life. The Djs were amazing, and we're definitely keeping in contact with them. The scenery was beautiful, the people were smart, and fun. We were all dancing and having a good time. Then the epic fail of the trip happened...(or one of I should say). We waited 2 hours for a cab in cannes and then had to figure out how to get 12 people home safely. It was chaos, it was a pain, it hurt my feet, but, at the end of the day, it was still an amazing time with some cool people.
Should be 6/20
Internet fails here...
So the internet decided to complicate life as well as an already hectic schedule so now I'm posting all of these one after the other. So lets go back in time *Lost flashback sound effects* Okay, it's now Monday, June 20th.
The first seminar of the day was the one I was the most excited about. It was Microsoft & BBDO. I'm literally obsessed with BBDO so I was freaking out to hear what they had to say. They definitely didn't disappoint, giving a great presentation about all of the different screens in our lives and how they are archetypes in our lives. This was fascinating to me! They described the TV screen as 2 archetypes; the everyman and the jester. The everyman is the long time friend, the one you feel comfortable with, a trusted friend. The jester is the guy who entertains and brings humor. They gave statistics, and moved on to the PC screen. They referred to this as the sage. Kind of an older sibling or an older guy that stands for wisdom who's there to guide you through life (think, Hans Solo of sorts). I thought this was particularly interested because they mentioned how sometimes we're even jealous of it, like we would be of an older sibling for being know it alls. I never thought of my PC in that way. The next screen was the mobile phone. This is where they really sold me. They described this screen as a new lover; intimacy, lover, lives in the moment, these are the kind of representations of it. It's a very personal relationship you have with your phone. This was also the one screen with no generational gap, a lover is a lover, everyone has a bond with their phones equally. The final screen was a tablet, or the wizard. This is like a obi-one kanobi in your pocket (exact description guys). This is the guy that makes things happen in a mysterious way. They do things we haven't seen before. *Magic* No, but really, great seminar. My seminar was Kraft Foods. So I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think this was going to be that great. I for some crazy reason didn't know who Malcolm Gladwell was, how I don't know. I must have been living under a rock. This guy is amazing, one of the best story tellers in life. He talked about why it's better to be third then first. He started off with a war between Israel and Syria and gave a description of how Israel was third after USA and Russia with their intelligence but implemented it the best against Syria and turned the war into a "turkey shoot-out." Then he explained how apple and facebook are also third. He said the order was the inventors, the tweekers and the implementers. All of the presentation was him with a mic standing in one spot, and it was one of my favorites, even more than BBDO. The guy is just amazing at telling a story and weaving it all into the point. He kind of made me of think of a highly skilled preacher or someone of the sorts who ties in lots of broad things to a very narrow and effective idea. I thought it would be hard for the next seminar to be as good, but, Draftfcb didn't disappoint at all. I think what made me love this particular seminar was the perfect marriage of psychological research and advertising. They talked about different instances when you get a moment of insight. One example was the mann gulch fire where only one man survived because of this moment of insight. They went on to explain the research that the neuroscientists conducted and how they proved that you can predict, within about 8 seconds if the participant would have an epiphany or not. The whole seminar was about advertising, even though it kind of looks like they strayed a bit. The point of knowing about this moment of insight and alpha waves and such is so that as advertisers, creatives, etc, we can create the right environment for the perfect idea to come. They proved there was no gender difference with this, insight is insight. Another point they made which I thought was truly brilliant was that of the importance of criticism and the failure of brainstorming. With regards to the brain storming, they talked about how criticism pushes you and draws you out. A fun fact I didn't know that ties into the point is Pixar. Apparently, they come in everyday and shred old boxes of movies. The brilliance in this is that you fail fast. Rather than trying to avoid failure, you're coming towards it head on and deciding to fix it early on, when it's not so much of a problem. This routine has worked out for pixar seeing as they have 11 out of 11 highly praised movies. For this same reason they argued that brainstorming doesn't work. This is because there is no criticism really involved. You're floating around a cloud of your own ideas and it's not really progressing. The failure is hiding out in the back. Awesome, awesome seminar. My final seminar, and my most futuristic, was PHd. It was basically a showcase of all the new technology that's on the horizon. They had amazing new concepts on everything from optimized social networking, to new organic LED devices, ultra HD, it was intense. I had actually already seen some of the things on yankodesign.com but it was still cool to hear him explain how everything would work and why it was so close to mass production. The views on what society was going to look like in 2016 was intriguing as well. Overall, the whole seminar is just hard to explain without pictures, but, it was interesting to say the least.
So the internet decided to complicate life as well as an already hectic schedule so now I'm posting all of these one after the other. So lets go back in time *Lost flashback sound effects* Okay, it's now Monday, June 20th.
The first seminar of the day was the one I was the most excited about. It was Microsoft & BBDO. I'm literally obsessed with BBDO so I was freaking out to hear what they had to say. They definitely didn't disappoint, giving a great presentation about all of the different screens in our lives and how they are archetypes in our lives. This was fascinating to me! They described the TV screen as 2 archetypes; the everyman and the jester. The everyman is the long time friend, the one you feel comfortable with, a trusted friend. The jester is the guy who entertains and brings humor. They gave statistics, and moved on to the PC screen. They referred to this as the sage. Kind of an older sibling or an older guy that stands for wisdom who's there to guide you through life (think, Hans Solo of sorts). I thought this was particularly interested because they mentioned how sometimes we're even jealous of it, like we would be of an older sibling for being know it alls. I never thought of my PC in that way. The next screen was the mobile phone. This is where they really sold me. They described this screen as a new lover; intimacy, lover, lives in the moment, these are the kind of representations of it. It's a very personal relationship you have with your phone. This was also the one screen with no generational gap, a lover is a lover, everyone has a bond with their phones equally. The final screen was a tablet, or the wizard. This is like a obi-one kanobi in your pocket (exact description guys). This is the guy that makes things happen in a mysterious way. They do things we haven't seen before. *Magic* No, but really, great seminar. My seminar was Kraft Foods. So I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think this was going to be that great. I for some crazy reason didn't know who Malcolm Gladwell was, how I don't know. I must have been living under a rock. This guy is amazing, one of the best story tellers in life. He talked about why it's better to be third then first. He started off with a war between Israel and Syria and gave a description of how Israel was third after USA and Russia with their intelligence but implemented it the best against Syria and turned the war into a "turkey shoot-out." Then he explained how apple and facebook are also third. He said the order was the inventors, the tweekers and the implementers. All of the presentation was him with a mic standing in one spot, and it was one of my favorites, even more than BBDO. The guy is just amazing at telling a story and weaving it all into the point. He kind of made me of think of a highly skilled preacher or someone of the sorts who ties in lots of broad things to a very narrow and effective idea. I thought it would be hard for the next seminar to be as good, but, Draftfcb didn't disappoint at all. I think what made me love this particular seminar was the perfect marriage of psychological research and advertising. They talked about different instances when you get a moment of insight. One example was the mann gulch fire where only one man survived because of this moment of insight. They went on to explain the research that the neuroscientists conducted and how they proved that you can predict, within about 8 seconds if the participant would have an epiphany or not. The whole seminar was about advertising, even though it kind of looks like they strayed a bit. The point of knowing about this moment of insight and alpha waves and such is so that as advertisers, creatives, etc, we can create the right environment for the perfect idea to come. They proved there was no gender difference with this, insight is insight. Another point they made which I thought was truly brilliant was that of the importance of criticism and the failure of brainstorming. With regards to the brain storming, they talked about how criticism pushes you and draws you out. A fun fact I didn't know that ties into the point is Pixar. Apparently, they come in everyday and shred old boxes of movies. The brilliance in this is that you fail fast. Rather than trying to avoid failure, you're coming towards it head on and deciding to fix it early on, when it's not so much of a problem. This routine has worked out for pixar seeing as they have 11 out of 11 highly praised movies. For this same reason they argued that brainstorming doesn't work. This is because there is no criticism really involved. You're floating around a cloud of your own ideas and it's not really progressing. The failure is hiding out in the back. Awesome, awesome seminar. My final seminar, and my most futuristic, was PHd. It was basically a showcase of all the new technology that's on the horizon. They had amazing new concepts on everything from optimized social networking, to new organic LED devices, ultra HD, it was intense. I had actually already seen some of the things on yankodesign.com but it was still cool to hear him explain how everything would work and why it was so close to mass production. The views on what society was going to look like in 2016 was intriguing as well. Overall, the whole seminar is just hard to explain without pictures, but, it was interesting to say the least.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Not what I expected...
First day of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity
I am definitely overwhelmed with everything going on at the festival. There is so much to see and do that it makes it hard to allocate your time just right. The first seminar I went to was the GoViral: The long idea. It was really good, I especially think the second speaker was awesome. They basically talked about how the same 10 pillars that apply to religion can also apply to brands. They compared microsoft and apple and pointed out why apple is better which I actually found kind of scandalous since microsoft has such a huge presence but I'm writing this on a mac so I guess I get the point. What really caught my eye though was the huge neuroscience experiment that was conducted on emotions with concern to brands, it must be the psychology major side of me. They also talked about smashables which was a concept that I hadn't actually considered. The example they gave for that was how coke designed a bottle that even after being smashed in to a bunch of pieces, would still be recognized as a coke brand. They also showed some examples from apple such as the sound that comes on when you turn on a mac. It was one of the better seminars of the day. The next seminar I went to was the one run by Um, L'Oreal, & BMW. This in my opinion was probably the biggest fail of the day in terms of content. The whole point of the seminar, as far as the description, was to talk about entrepreneurs and why they are future and vice versa, but, it failed. They didn't really talk about that at all and it felt more like I was intruding on a conversation between professionals. I liked the Direct Media lady, she was trying to make an effort along with the L'Oreal guy, but, it just wasn't what I expected. Basically they talked about their work and it felt more like a showcase. They had good tips here an there but nothing really great, especially not after the enlightenment I felt with GoViral. The next seminar stole the show in my opinion. It was thenetworkone and it was basically showcasing 3 independent agencies. My mind was in overload from all the good tips I was absorbing. It highlighted, the special group, muh-tay-zik/hof-fer and elephant cairo. They were really raw and just passionate about their work. They pointed out that big agencies were "dinosaurs" and that big agencies aim to please the client, and they aim to make great ads, and that they do. My favorite was definitely the panda one from elephant cairo. It was just so simple but hilarious! I also didn't realize how successful independent agencies were until they compared their wins last year against the big holding companies. Each agency gave amazing tips and I will definitely be looking back on those even when I go into the field.
The next seminar was supposed to be the highlight of people's day, I just went to see how dumb Nick Jonas could look in front of top names in the advertising world. However, nobody got what they expected. IMC2 hosted this panel style seminar with nick jonas as the headline. The moderator was apparently a big name in the industry but the only name I had was kind of a jerk. He was pushing really hard to be funny and placed way too much attention on Nick. I was pleasantly surprised by Nick's comments (kid did his homework) but it still wasn't enough to save the kind of boring/repetitive seminar. And the photographers taking the same picture a million times was really distracting. They talked about, or attempted to talk about, how the industry is in a kind of friends with benefits relationship. They had rules and guidelines but every time someone tried to express these, they would get interrupted (pretty rudely) by the moderator. I don't wanna bash the guy because I'm sure it takes guts to go up there and lead a whole discussion in an interesting manner, and humor is probably the best way to go, but, he pushed it almost to the point of being rude. Nonetheless, I didn't really learn much but that Nick Jonas isn't as bad as I thought he was, and he's not as bad looking as I thought either. My final seminar for the day was Felishman Hillard and it was on mobile media. I was pretty tired at this point, my brain wasn't mentally prepared for all of the disappointment/surprise/inspiration kind of feelings all at once. That being said, I thought it was pretty cool. The first speaker was basically trying to save the world, how can you be mad at that? He said for every 9,000 people in Kenya, there was 1 doctor. Yet studies showed the mobile phone ration was 1 out of 2. He thought it would be genius to send a reminder through SMS to have your kids vaccinated for Pneumonia (which apparently is the number 1 cause of death for kids) and receive a small incentive which would be the equivalent of what it cost to make the trip. This guy won the sympathy vote. Another surprise for me, however, was how much I liked the living social guy. I only know about living social because of the annoying ads that come on when I use pandora. But, this guy really won me over. He made a pretty cool video about interrupting the decision point in a consumers mind. Pretty awesome stuff. I ended the day by watching some commercials, they weren't as good as everything else I had seen so I left. I have pretty long day tomorrow and I'll probably have a lot to say, so, I'll cut it here. But I'm still really excited and hopefully I keep learning more! and meeting new people.
I am definitely overwhelmed with everything going on at the festival. There is so much to see and do that it makes it hard to allocate your time just right. The first seminar I went to was the GoViral: The long idea. It was really good, I especially think the second speaker was awesome. They basically talked about how the same 10 pillars that apply to religion can also apply to brands. They compared microsoft and apple and pointed out why apple is better which I actually found kind of scandalous since microsoft has such a huge presence but I'm writing this on a mac so I guess I get the point. What really caught my eye though was the huge neuroscience experiment that was conducted on emotions with concern to brands, it must be the psychology major side of me. They also talked about smashables which was a concept that I hadn't actually considered. The example they gave for that was how coke designed a bottle that even after being smashed in to a bunch of pieces, would still be recognized as a coke brand. They also showed some examples from apple such as the sound that comes on when you turn on a mac. It was one of the better seminars of the day. The next seminar I went to was the one run by Um, L'Oreal, & BMW. This in my opinion was probably the biggest fail of the day in terms of content. The whole point of the seminar, as far as the description, was to talk about entrepreneurs and why they are future and vice versa, but, it failed. They didn't really talk about that at all and it felt more like I was intruding on a conversation between professionals. I liked the Direct Media lady, she was trying to make an effort along with the L'Oreal guy, but, it just wasn't what I expected. Basically they talked about their work and it felt more like a showcase. They had good tips here an there but nothing really great, especially not after the enlightenment I felt with GoViral. The next seminar stole the show in my opinion. It was thenetworkone and it was basically showcasing 3 independent agencies. My mind was in overload from all the good tips I was absorbing. It highlighted, the special group, muh-tay-zik/hof-fer and elephant cairo. They were really raw and just passionate about their work. They pointed out that big agencies were "dinosaurs" and that big agencies aim to please the client, and they aim to make great ads, and that they do. My favorite was definitely the panda one from elephant cairo. It was just so simple but hilarious! I also didn't realize how successful independent agencies were until they compared their wins last year against the big holding companies. Each agency gave amazing tips and I will definitely be looking back on those even when I go into the field.
The next seminar was supposed to be the highlight of people's day, I just went to see how dumb Nick Jonas could look in front of top names in the advertising world. However, nobody got what they expected. IMC2 hosted this panel style seminar with nick jonas as the headline. The moderator was apparently a big name in the industry but the only name I had was kind of a jerk. He was pushing really hard to be funny and placed way too much attention on Nick. I was pleasantly surprised by Nick's comments (kid did his homework) but it still wasn't enough to save the kind of boring/repetitive seminar. And the photographers taking the same picture a million times was really distracting. They talked about, or attempted to talk about, how the industry is in a kind of friends with benefits relationship. They had rules and guidelines but every time someone tried to express these, they would get interrupted (pretty rudely) by the moderator. I don't wanna bash the guy because I'm sure it takes guts to go up there and lead a whole discussion in an interesting manner, and humor is probably the best way to go, but, he pushed it almost to the point of being rude. Nonetheless, I didn't really learn much but that Nick Jonas isn't as bad as I thought he was, and he's not as bad looking as I thought either. My final seminar for the day was Felishman Hillard and it was on mobile media. I was pretty tired at this point, my brain wasn't mentally prepared for all of the disappointment/surprise/inspiration kind of feelings all at once. That being said, I thought it was pretty cool. The first speaker was basically trying to save the world, how can you be mad at that? He said for every 9,000 people in Kenya, there was 1 doctor. Yet studies showed the mobile phone ration was 1 out of 2. He thought it would be genius to send a reminder through SMS to have your kids vaccinated for Pneumonia (which apparently is the number 1 cause of death for kids) and receive a small incentive which would be the equivalent of what it cost to make the trip. This guy won the sympathy vote. Another surprise for me, however, was how much I liked the living social guy. I only know about living social because of the annoying ads that come on when I use pandora. But, this guy really won me over. He made a pretty cool video about interrupting the decision point in a consumers mind. Pretty awesome stuff. I ended the day by watching some commercials, they weren't as good as everything else I had seen so I left. I have pretty long day tomorrow and I'll probably have a lot to say, so, I'll cut it here. But I'm still really excited and hopefully I keep learning more! and meeting new people.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
First Post!
I'm in France!
I'm so excited to be in such a different/beautiful/unreal/somewhat expensive/new place! I've never been somewhere I don't know the language so it's such a different experience. I'm really excited about the festival too. I went to the Advertising Women of New York conference one year and that was a great networking and professional experience, but, I feel like this is on a whole other level. I never really thought when I got into advertising that I would love it so much or that it would be so fun! I especially never thought I'd be spending a month in Europe. Hopefully I can meet all my ad idols and maybe even land an awesome internship somewhere.
I'm so excited to be in such a different/beautiful/unreal/somewhat expensive/new place! I've never been somewhere I don't know the language so it's such a different experience. I'm really excited about the festival too. I went to the Advertising Women of New York conference one year and that was a great networking and professional experience, but, I feel like this is on a whole other level. I never really thought when I got into advertising that I would love it so much or that it would be so fun! I especially never thought I'd be spending a month in Europe. Hopefully I can meet all my ad idols and maybe even land an awesome internship somewhere.
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