NEW YORK David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America, won his first Cannes Lion in the early 1990s for Polaroid while he was at Leonard/Monahan in Providence.
Since then, the copywriter has won every major industry creative award including multiple Grand Prix Lions and four Emmy Awards. As president and executive creative director of Fallon Worldwide, Lubars was honored with Cannes' first Titanium Lion -- an award introduced in 2005 to celebrate groundbreaking work -- for the trailblazing online series BMW Films. Last year, BBDO's multimedia "HBO Voyeuer" was the big winner at Cannes, taking both the Outdoor and Promo Grand Prix Lions.
Here, Lubars, who is president of this year's Cannes Film and Press juries, discusses the value of award shows in today's economy and what he expects from Cannes this year.
Adweek: Are awards even important considering the economic times we live in? Some people are saying that in this economy, Cannes and the other big shows are unnecessary "beauty contests."
Lubars: Well, there is a beauty contest element to it, sure, but that's a small part of what these shows are about in my view. Consider that in the past year, clients all over the world had to cut back massively. They had to accomplish more with way less. Logic follows that everything they created had to pop that much more and be that much more of a punch in the face. In this light, you could view Cannes and other big shows as a primer on how to take the power of creativity out for a ride, press the pedal down, and see what it can do on a bumpy economic road. These good shows are the closest thing we'll ever have to measuring this kind of "pop." It's not an exact science, it never can be. But if a bunch of creative people who rarely agree on anything believe one piece stands out from thousands, it probably is working hard to get noticed.
Will this year's economic environment return Cannes back to basics?
The whole thing about this is to recognize brilliant work that pops out. It should be about studying and recognizing the best work. And what it became was a Euro beach version of Vegas. That's all fine, but the original charter of this show is to recognize brilliance and work that distinguishes itself, that doesn't pollute the culture [that epitomizes] all the best aspects of the industry, tries new things -- all those idealized things that we all shoot for. I'm going to be spending 12 days there doing this thing.
BBDO was the most awarded agency network in the world last year. To what do you attribute this success?
Well, that's an area where we believe we should consistently be No.1 every year. The cool thing about BBDO is, it's not just a few offices that are creating excellent work around the world. Last year, we had 20-plus BBDO agencies winning Lions and another 20-plus short-listed. The network has sort of become a global boutique, if you will. You have these great -- and for the most part, not huge -- agencies doing brilliant individual things. But you also have groups of them working together on cross-border things. Recently, we had 10 offices doing an international project with Gillette. It was inspiring; it was all about the work, not ego -- a thing of beauty.
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