Marcus Tesoriero: Cannes as a delegate Diary

Marcus Tesoriero, Executive Creative Director at The Brand Agency Perth, found plenty of inspiration as a Cannes delegate this year. Here he gives his highlights of the week.

Half Time at Cannes

The Soccer World Cup hasn’t quite stolen the limelight at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, but it’s definitely amplified the buzz around town. 

In fact, it seems even the soccer players themselves want in on our action. I heard an interesting comment that the Icelandic goalkeeper actually directed his own Coke TV spot recently. Yep, sounds nuts I know, Google it if you don’t believe me. And it’s not half bad for his second job to blocking penalty goals from Messi. 

But I digress. World Cup aside, Cannes is a super busy week if you make the most of it. The trick here is to balance the right amount of time to explore the work, see talks, experience activations and of course, lock in the occasional swanky lunch put on by generous production companies. So far, I’ve seemed to cover all bases, which has given me blisters on my feet from all the walking, but it’s definitely been worth it.

To kick off the week, who other to light up the stage with inspiration than the man himself, David Droga?

Opening with an honest story about where he’s come from and how he got here, David explained how creativity has led every key career decision in his life. Many times, that meant taking the hard road – from halving a nine-grand salary, accepting his first copywriting position to stepping down from his cushy Worldwide CCO role at Publicis to build a little unknown start-up called Droga5. Deep down, he’s always wanted to be about the work, no matter the compromise, and it’s always paid off.

Following the speech, I caught up with David for a quick chat too. After mentioning my new move to Perth, he discussed the opportunities that lie there, equating them to the kind of opportunities he had when arriving at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore in the late nineties. Thanks David, low benchmark. But, I do agree. It’s how you use those opportunities that makes the all difference, leading every key decision with creativity at the forefront.  

Another energising talk I came across on mainstage was The Rise of Hackvertisng. Led by Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer for Burger King, this really showed me how a client can be as excited about creating great work than any agency can. Fernando was literally jumping out of his skin to tell us about this new winning formula. Scan the internet for a popular trend then hack it with your brand in real-time. Google ‘Home of the Whopper’,  one of the projects agency, DAVID Miami, has created – look it up if you haven’t already. 

More than anything this new form of advertising, or Hackvertising I should say, shows how the bravery of a brand can pay huge dividends financially. 

Hackvertising doesn’t come without its risks. Throughout their projects, Burger King has been banned from Wikipedia, sued by Fox, Blocked from Google, Facebook and Instagram, and that’s just the beginning. But to them, who cares? They’ve earned over $400 million in earned media and their lawyers cover the rest. 

Now I know hackvertising isn’t for everyone but there are definitely learnings from it that every brand should look at and dabble with. Staying relevant and reacting to what customers want is large reason why Burger King was named Creative Marketer of the Year at the Cannes Lions 2017.

As for the work this year, the bar has been raised yet again. Many of the top honours are starting to be announced – all available on the fancy, new online platform called The Work. Check out the free trial on www.lovethework.com if you’d like to be inspired from anywhere in the world – that is, if you’re not too busy watching the World Cup.

Full Time at Cannes

While the Soccer World Cup battles on, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity flickers to a close. But unlike a clearly defined triumph on the football field, there was no clear winner in Cannes this year that has stolen the conversation. In contrast to 2017, with Fearless Girl and Meet Graham shooting it out for a number of top honours, the Grand Prix for most categories in 2018 was represented by different work.

I felt some awarded projects were better than others with work often pushing the categories so much, they almost didn’t feel right for the category itself. But I guess that’s what progression is all about – reward a sweetly completed reverse triple pike over the perfect swan dive. 

Advertising to save the world was yet again the dominating theme in Cannes, too. If your LinkedIn feed is anything like mine, you’ll see it clogged up with agencies backslapping each other about metal won for making a worthy difference on our planet. And in some cases it’s actually true. But in most cases it’s just a way to find an emotional connection with their audience – or from a cynical perspective, an emotional connection with award judges.

Personally, I’m all for social good so the more our industry can promote philanthropic behaviour, the better. But let’s not forget that there are many more ways to connect with our audiences’ emotions to create connections with brands. Great stories, tech innovation, comedy – I’d love to see more of this bubbling back up to the top. That’s why it was refreshing to see some laughs slipping through the cracks with ‘It’s a Tide ad’ scooping a Film Grand Prix. The campaign that hijacked the Super Bowl with clean clothes.

Outdoor was a battle between Ronald and The Colonel with Ronald winning out in the end, taking home the Grand Prix. But personally, I felt like The Colonel was hardly done by. See the KFC Hot & Spicy campaign? An absolute cracker that won a bunch of gold in Outdoor and Print.

The Corruption Detector for ReclameAQUI won the mobile Grand Prix. An outstanding integration of mobile technology in peoples’ lives, allowing voters of an upcoming election in Brazil to take photos of politicians then instantly provide any corruption history the politicians may have had.

And yes, there is a time and place for ad people to save the world. The Palau Pledge picked up three Grand Prix in deserved categories proving how there are many more ways to solve a client’s problem than traditional advertising mediums. They manipulated the immigration process for incoming visitors to Palau, mandating that each and every visitor must sign an agreement in their passport to not damage the island’s resources. It was then launched at the UN and international media attention took over.

Wrapping up a great year of talks, meetings and inspiration, the individual conversations I had with people in Cannes are some of the highlights I’
ve valued the most. Discussing the zeitgeist of what’s next with some of the world’s best creative leaders has been a priceless channel of knowledge sharing – and it doesn’t hurt that it’s all at one of the most beautiful locations in the world. 

That’s it for this year. Now everyone can get back to the World Cup. Come on Australia, bring on Cahill!