Blogging for food

Alastair Duncan

Mark Twain once wrote, upon reading his own obituary, that reports of his death were exaggerated. Here we are in Cannes, and the Cyberlion judging president now predicts the death of the category, no less. I think what she means is that because so much work is valid across categories, there is room to lose one or two of the categories. Last year, there was considerable blending of the promo and direct work, and this year there is much expectation that plenty of work demonstrates cross media effectiveness. It’s true that there is far more blurring around the edges of discipline centric awards than ever, but I think she has mistakenly created a rod for her own back.

If she genuinely believes that the Agencies can be idea neutral (in the way that they claim media neutrality), she is deluding herself. We’re all too familiar with the bunfights over owning creative leadership between Agencies, and the need for a better way. I think the industry still has a way to go, and is in need of some restructuring. Obviously I wouldn’t want to be running a TV centric creative Agency today, not because TV is no longer the medium of choice for today’s media literate consumer, as this is not actually always true, but because Clients demand Agencies that can genuinely think about more than one medium in developing brand properties.

As we move more and more towards platforms and technology-based platforms, we need the Cyberlions all the more, to seek out innovation and challenge the status quo, and invent and grow the brand propositions that will succeed in the digital world. A gardening analogy struck me -  somehow TV ads are pretty flowers that occasionally get picked and stuck in a vase for a bit, but digital platforms that are long term and never ending are more like trees. They have the potential to grow to be very tall and strong. I’d rather be doing trees than flowers, wouldn’t you?