Jeremy Hogg’s Cannes Diary #1

Jeremy Hogg, executive creative director at Howatson+Company is representing Australia on the Cannes Outdoor Lions jury. Hogg, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors, writes exclusively for CB.

Here we are in the south of France. It’s the week before the festival proper, when all the jurors get together after a month of pre-judging to decide what makes the cut, and what wins it all.

And the day started with rain and thunderstorms. Exactly how you’d think of Cannes. I hope none gets into my glass later and waters down the rosé.

Today was all about finalising the shortlist for Outdoor. Online pre-judging narrowed the number of entries down quite a lot. So it may seem like much of the work has been done before we even arrived, but today we got to interrogate each and every one of those pieces, and also debate the merits of reintroducing a few that might have fallen away. It’s the first time our 10 person jury could be in a room together, and it has certainly prompted intense discussion. There’s no such thing as an easy shortlist.

The evening provided a tonal contrast to locking ourselves away in jury rooms for a few days. Welcome drinks at Carlton Beach Club. It’s every bit the Cannes cliché — lovely location, lovely rosé, fun people. I wore linen, but probably not enough. Might need to go shopping while I’m here.

Looking forward to tomorrow where we start to chat about the medals, but for now, la vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin.