A Festival In Flux

As usual at Cannes, I slept maybe an hour and a half each night, met a huge number of people, saw massive amounts of work and recognized that this was a pivotal year. Having attended Cannes as a juror for three years, I noted significant differences this time. There was a palpable feeling among the attendees—from agency people to clients to the press—that dramatic changes are afoot in our industry. While the writing was on the wall during my previous visits to Cannes, this time it became real; transformation is here for the foreseeable future. This was the first year I was invited to present at Cannes, and the theme of my speech was, "Putting a New Agency Formula to Work." It was an incredibly exciting experience to present our thinking to the industry at such an important forum. Since my presentation, I've been overwhelmed by requests for copies of the speech. It made me realize how hungry people are for new thinking about the complex issues facing our industry. There is certainly more competition and money shifting about, but there are also many opportunities for agencies to grow and prosper. Most of the transformations taking place are great news for consumers and for clients, but they will certainly cause pain for many of the dominant agency brands that are suffering from their own inertia. The overall direction of big agencies has led them to lose touch with the changing marketplace. Consequently, they are not always doing what is best for their clients and, ultimately, their customers. Clients are waking up to this concept and were telling me just that. As agencies become more actively managed by clients, slowly their base will erode as metrics, interactive, etc., get parceled out to smaller agencies that are best of class. This is not to say it is the end of big agencies—they will just be the hardest hit. And the ones that are doing the best financially are likely to be the ones slowest to change. Many in the production community asked me about what this means for them, since their fate has been so closely tied to the old model of the big-time 30-second spot. Some of our discussions resolved around the new generation of creatively driven boutiques which don't begin every conversation with a commercial concept. As I discussed in my speech, the demands of multichannel marketing put new pressures on production companies to do more with less. Consequently, we foresee a new trend emerging where agencies are taking digital production in-house rather than outsourcing it, and creating the music, print, video, photography and other assets that make up the multichannel broadband customer experience. The old film-driven model is dead. It was also a great privilege to be chosen to serve on the Titanium jury, since advertising and marketing will increasingly be composed of integrated campaigns. Having reviewed the entries this year, it was apparent to me that agencies and clients are still trying to figure out how to tell a multichannel, integrated story—and how to enter it into an award show. Although the voting was pretty much unanimous, we still haven't figured out the best methodology to judge the work. I came to a similar conclusion last year about interactive after serving as jury president for the Cyber Lions. Showing the work also has obstacles. At the award show, the print, television, outdoor and radio work is seen in nearly the same way that a consumer would encounter it in the "real world," but the interactive and Titanium entries are shown out of context. Volvo was a perfect example. When you see the body of work, it is truly compelling, but the way it was presented at the award show, it fell flat. There is a need to change the presentation method so that the audience really understands the importance of these campaigns and how each part is integrated into the whole. As Titanium jury president Jeff Goodby said, "Being integrated is not enough anymore." It is really about the "big-ness" of the idea. If you deconstruct the big idea behind any great integrated campaign, it should almost give you a headache to think about how much strategic and creative thinking went into its construction. It seemed to me that clients and agencies were merely checking off boxes for each channel rather than coming up with a big idea that travels across the most appropriate channels for that campaign. This is a good benchmark to use when considering what to enter in the Titanium category next year. As a final prediction, I believe we will see a very different Cannes next year. Clients have become more involved, and this trend will certainly continue. But the real change will be the increased focus paid to the newer categories like Cyber and Titanium, which are about creating new and innovative ways to engage the customer.

Brand Marketing

A Festival In Flux

Adweek Staff

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