2. CANNES LIONS FESTIVAL 2015
Last week, the biggest names in media and
advertising convened in France for the Cannes
Lions International Festival of Creativity. Cannes
Lions is the largest gathering of advertising
professionals, with over 20,000 delegates from
more than 90 countries and over 40,000 award
entries.
2015 was yet another great year for WPP who were
named Holding Company of theYear for the fifth
consecutive year.
Sadly, the week was overshadowed by loss and
sadness for many people after the untimely deaths
of two friends during the festival. At MEC, we’d like
to offer our deepest sympathy to everyone
affected by these tragic events.
3. TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION MOVING
IN WITH CREATIVITY
This year’s festival lived up to its legacy as the centre for creativity
and for inspiring and influencing people and brands.
Overall one theme stood out; how technology is transforming the
marketing landscape. This was most visible with the launch of a
new two-day festival celebrating the coming together of data,
tech and creativity: Lions Innovation, with MEC as a founding
sponsor.
The spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation hovered over
Cannes this year: start-up technologies, artificial intelligence,
virtual and augmented reality – and how those technologies will
impact our lives and our businesses.
Also at the Cannes fringe, tech providers were making more noise
than ever before. Google, Facebook and Microsoft have always
been major parts of Cannes, but this year a huge new raft of
companies, technologies and marketing phrases were on show –
complete with a phraseology that sounded more like it was taken
out of a botanical convention than an advertising festival.
5. TECHNOLOGY,
A MOTHER OF
INVENTION
Pre-rolls and programmatic; often maligned or over-
looked for shinier marketing activity gave us two
stand-out winners for Geico in the Film Lions and 3M
in the Media Lions.
These were powerful, simple ideas that took
creativity and technology to a new level.
Creativity doesn't and should never be focused purely
on the grandstand moments, but be everywhere
and every time we want to make a connection
with consumers.
Why this matters
As technology and formats grow and grow, we need
to make sure that no placement is left behind.We're
all only as good as our worst activation or moment
with consumers – that's why these winners shone.
Geico, Unskippable: http://bit.ly/1JsDclw
3M, The Banner That Makes You Like Banners: http://bit.ly/1LxoAAH
6. GENDER
EQUALITY
ON THE
AGENDA
This was the first year of the Glass Lion, the new Lion award that
recognises work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of
gender inequality or prejudice.The Grand Prix winner Touch the
Pickle and contesters #LikeAGirl and This Girl Can are examples
of brands working to enable girls to do whatever they want. On
the other side of the same coin, the inspiringly brilliantVodafone
work, Red Light Application, fromY&R andTeam Red in
Istanbul were created to prevent girls from harm. And won the
Media Lion Grand Prix.
From the work, to speakers like Monica Lewinsky and Julia Louis-
Dreyfus, gender equality was the talk of the town this year.
Why it matters
Institutional change and policy reform alone won’t solve gender
inequalities; the solution is cultural change. Marketing not only
reflects the culture it’s part of, it also reinforces and shapes it.
Therefore, as brands and marketers, we have the responsibility
to put gender equality on the agenda. Creativity can drive
change.
Touch the Pickle: http://bit.ly/1LxKhkd. #LikeAGirl: http://bit.ly/1BQqWZ5. This Girl Can:
http://bit.ly/1GKF9n5. Red Light Application: http://bit.ly/1JsD4Cj
7. DOING GOOD
IS DOING
WELL
Authenticity seemed to be the magic word this year.The
Glass Lion winners are a slew of examples, cases like
Volvo’s LifePaint or What3Words are others.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Freida Pinto and Richard Curtis took to
the stage to launch Global Goals, a campaign to raise
awareness of the UN goals for sustainable development.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver attended to promote his
healthy livingYou-app and former USVice PresidentAl
Gore received the Cannes Lion Heart award for his work
promoting climate change. Monica Lewinsky gave a strong
presentation on Upstandr, her initiative against cyber
bullying.
Why it matters
Brands and marketers have the potential to change
people's worlds for the better.The implication here is that
every brief has the responsibility and the potential for
doing a lot of good. Luckily, brands that ‘do good’ are also
the most popular because consumers believe in them and
want to be part of something bigger than just commerce.
LifePaint: http://bit.ly/1C1fIRX.What3Words: http://bit.ly/1LxCin9
8. While Geico’s Unskippable showed us what we can
do in 5 seconds; it is important to note that the
industry still hasn't nailed longer formats in branded
content.Yet again, no Grand Prix was awarded for
Branded Content in 2015.
Creativity adores restrictions, laws, rules and
obstacles – when we're pushed, we do our greatest
work. The freedom that branded content gives us to
create almost feels like a barrier too high to
overcome. We are all still finding our feet in this field
as are consumers finding theirs with brands creating
long-form and high-quality work. Will they choose to
spend longer with us of their own free will?
Why this matters
We can't allow another year to go by without branded
content work that stands alongside the 5-second; 30-
second; 36-sheet and coded creativity that impressed
us all so much.There is a big potential here and a
claim to fame for the brand that cracks this nut.
CREATIVITY
ADORES
RESTRICTIONS
9. The lion, created
together with Jason
Bruges Studio, used real-
time social media data to
create a powerful symbol
of how MEC works with
data and technology;
creatively and out of the
‘live room’.
A founding sponsor of the
Lions Innovation, MEC stood
out with an anamorphic
digital installation.
A bespoke solution where
169 screens displayed the
fluctuating emotions of
Cannes in the iconic shape of
a lion.
More about #EmotiCannes:
http://bit.ly/1BC6ECr
#EMOTICANNES
THE ART OF ALWAYS-ON
MEC@CANNES
10. MECVelocity uses rich data from MEC
Momentum, our proprietary approach
to understanding and quantifying how
consumers make purchase decisions.
MEC is the first media agency to
introduce predictive marketing in
strategic planning at scale.
MEC@CANNES
MEC VELOCITY
Launching
UsingAgent Based
Modelling, a technology
borrowed from biology, we
can build purchase
simulations that run into the
future, predicting consumer
behavior and interaction
with brands.
More about MEC Momentum and MEC
Velocity: http://bit.ly/1SMDEMP
11. MEC@CANNESOurTalent Manifesto encourages
our people to step outside of
their comfort zone and to
innovate.
This year at Cannes we sent our
inauguralTalentThriveTeam, 13
young MEC’ers to experience
and report on Cannes Lions.
They came away inspired and
energised.
For their human social story and
news and views from the event
see below:
https://storify.com/MECideas/me
catcannes
12. “The real gravity of what
you do, is knowing your
intention.”
Pharrell Williams,
Singer, Songwriter
Producer
“We must value ‘speaking with intention’
over ‘speaking for attention’.”
Monica Lewinsky, co-founder of Upstandr
“It’s not just about data; we need leaders
with real cultural curiosity who are
connected to current happenings and
motivated to really contribute to culture. ”
Syl Saller, Chief Marketing Officer, Diageo
“You can’t replace the creativity of the
human mind with a piece of tech.”
KeithWeed, Chief Marketing and
CommunicationsOfficer at Unilever
“Snapchat is not just
about sharing. It’s
about getting over the
fear of creating. ”
Evan Spiegel, CEO
Snapchat
OVERHEARD@CANNES
13. 13
THANK YOUTO ALL THE #MECATCANNES CONTRIBUTERS
For more information, contact:
Nathalie Haxby
Global Head of Corporate Communications
nathalie.haxby@mecglobal.com
@MECIdeas
