The Lion Tamers

Speak to anyone in the U.S. direct marketing creative community about this year's Cannes Direct festival, and you'll get reactions ranging from "We can't get anything good produced" to "It's all Bush's fault." Both excuses are nonsense. Over in Cannes, there was much talk about the lack of U.S. winners, the lack of U.S. entries on the shortlist for direct, the lack of U.S. entries period. True, our showing at this second annual Cannes Direct festival was not stellar. Of the 117 U.S. entries, a pretty small number got past the prelims, and only five made it to the shortlist. One entry, the brilliant BMW Films, won a silver Lion in the category of traffic building. What's going on here? How is it the U.S. comes away with one Lion while countries like Brazil and Austria go home with armfuls?Certainly, many forces came into play. But they were not forces of evil. They were forces of change. And, good for us, they have everything to do with the power of the creative idea. This year, under the excellent leadership of jury president Daniel Morel, the weighting of criteria changed: 40 percent of the consideration went to the creative idea, and 20 percent went to execution—a full 60 percent just for creative. The remaining 40 percent was divided evenly between strategy and results. Quite a contrast to the 60/30/10 media/ offer/creative ratio we live with here. Did that mean results didn't matter? No. Everything that won had achieved strong, measurable results for its clients. What was different was how these results were achieved. For the winners, it was with startling ideas that struck a powerful emotional chord. Like the "Plan From the Pru" campaign from the U.K., which reached the hearts of different segments with poetry. Or the "baked beans" mailing from Australia, which used a simple grocery store cashier's receipt to tell students that if they open a savings account at ANZ Bank, they won't have to subsist on endless baked beans. Did these campaigns come from "above-the-line" or "below-the-line" agencies? Who cares?Don't get me wrong. The state of creative in the U.S. is alive and well. And, in fact, many U.S. entries came close to winning Lions. But to accumulate those trophies on our national shelf, we need to do a few things. First, direct agencies need to enter. And agencies that don't think of themselves or their work as "direct" need to enter. Second, we need to remember it's a big world out there. Basically, we've been playing on a different field. The Caples and the Echoes, while increasingly international, are still U.S.-based. We enter with the confidence of knowing the work will be judged by people with U.S. sensibilities and cultural understanding. We also enter in far greater numbers (more than 700 U.S. entries in the Caples last year, for example). And we tend to do very well. If we're going to win in Cannes, we'd better get used to the fact that the U.S. is part of a global community and make sure that what we enter, and how we enter it, takes that into account.Third, and most important, we must encourage our clients to take more creative risks. In our market, clients tend to stick to the tried-and-true. You can't blame them: Under increasing pressure to make their numbers with fewer resources and less time, they are satisfied to take baby steps. But the purpose of Cannes is to help redefine the boundaries of direct marketing. Many of us have known for years that great direct creative is not a formula or a pure science. It is the art of making an emotional connection strong enough to drive an action. What the winners this year demonstrated was that it's not just OK to take creative risks—it's essential. A l'annee prochaine! Or, as they say in the New World, wait till next year!

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The Lion Tamers

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