Search results matching tag 'Cannes'

Plouffe of effectiveness

1368741 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:26:00 GMT

Maybe it’s the heat, but some recent commentary has got a bit carried away when interpreting what certain wins at Cannes portend for TV. The successes of the fantastic Obama campaign and Tribal DDB’s brilliant ‘Carousel’ - an online film for Philips TVs – have got some a little over-excited.

There is a small but noisy contingent desperate to prolong a TV versus internet polemic; so when what is effectively an online TV ad wins at Cannes they absurdly pronounce the death of TV advertising, much as they announced that online advertising can’t be working when Google started using TV to promote Chrome.

Away from the theorists and bloggers, in the real world brands are just getting on and finding out what works best for them. Increasing numbers are realizing that the combination of TV with online activity is really rather good - not least many online brands – and the Obama campaign is one of these. After Obama’s success there was an unseemly rush of media claiming credit for it, but few wrote about TV’s contribution.

So, saying more that I could hope to and not having the burden of being expected to say it, it is worth listening to David Plouffe, the brains behind the Obama campaign. His measured words help cut through any apocalyptic froth. Talking about the Cannes success he said: "It is fashionable to suggest that TV ads are less and less important, but we needed to have balance, and they were incredibly important to the campaign.”

I would add that it wasn’t just TV ads, but TV appearances, live broadcast debates and speeches plus events and rallies that inspired people to believe in Obama and make them want to interact with him and his campaign online and in person. Plouffe values the relationship that TV can start but sees that the most effective ad campaigns of all are integrated. Those celebrating the Obama campaign’s intelligent internet-ness are right to, but they must also acknowledge its terrific TV-ness, otherwise they risk missing a vital engine that made it work. Just as Democrats worked together to win, so do media.

Plouffe made some interesting points about how they used TV advertising; they wanted the reach and emotional connection of TV but opted for longer 2 minute ads, thereby sacrificing frequency for depth. In the final week they bought a whole half-hour slot. Maybe this is something that other brands can learn from.

As Plouffe does, let’s understand and acknowledge the contribution that every aspect of the marketing mix makes, let’s stop – sometimes willfully – confusing accountability with effectiveness, and let’s not get so overheated about false dawns.

Not seen on the party scene

1714221 — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:17:00 GMT

It must be seriously bad out there.

It’s normal for our camera to be literally licked at several points during the Cannes week, as shy and retiring ad folk keenly show a Campaign audience just how refreshed they are by a week of seminar-going.

But this year, several have turned positively coy, asking not to be featured in our photo gallery (more of which later), and declaring emphatically: “I am NOT in Cannes.” If you say so, guv.

No bounce back for traditional media says Ballmer

255762 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:50:00 GMT

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, was sounding pessimistic in Cannes yesterday and warned publishers that there was going to be no bounce back and that the global advertising economy had reset for good.

Ballmer argued that traditional print media will have to plan business models around a smaller share of the advertising market.

To be honest not exactly a news flash. Nor is the fact that publishers are failing to generate serious digital revenues.

Ballmer said: "Once you get past the Google search site, you say, 'Is there a publisher making a lot of money with an advertising- or fee-based model?' The answer is no. We have to ask who will be creating the content."

It could be me, but he's sounding a tad pessimistic. I think one of the issues that people often forget when they predict doom and gloom is that this is all pretty new.

And in some senses the recession has been a benefit as it has forced publishers to maybe face up to questions about paid content faster than they might have done. It's the thing about adversity driving innovation and development.

Ballmer talked about all content being digital in two, five or ten years, but it has only been ten years since we really got on this road and maybe only four or five since the levels of investment publishers were pouring in started to rise dramatically.

So far these are investments that have not been recouped. It's been a period of experimentation: it began with charging; then it became free and now we're back again with the realisation that it is probably a mixture of the two.

It is too soon to make sweeping judgements about making or not making money online. The challenge is to make money and to experiment.

Some paid content will come back as publishers also realise they can charge for mobile phone access and e-readers like the Amazon Kindle. Not all these experiments will work, but some will.

What underscores all of them is continuing to build strong communities online and building loyalty. That's the only way to ensure future growth and profitability.

Follow me on Twitter

Not Rush-ian to Cannes

1714221 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:34:00 GMT

Aha! I spied a Russian.

I couldn't miss him really (see below)

I only know anything very much about one Russian agency, IQ Marketing, run by the amazing Natalia Stepanuk. So I was extremely keen to grab Stas Zhitsky (as he turned out to be) for a quick chat.

It's his first time in Cannes and he's judging the Design Lions in his capacity as founder of OPEN! Design + Concepts. He'd also judged the Eurobest Festival in Stockholm last December, also run by Cannes Lions.

What was the main difference? That the Russians just don't enter Cannes. Don't really even know about it.

If only they did, the world would get a shock. "When you are not part of the main thing, you have a fresh view that's interesting" he says.

He says Russians know that the eyes of the world are upon them as part of the exciting BRIC axis and that they truly feel they are nurturing innovation.

Now they just need to put it forward into a global awards festival.

Hmm....I wonder. Most of the work I've ever seen created by a local Russian agency has been what you might generously call "somewhat inaccessible" to an international audience.

IQ Marketing still remains the only Russian Cannes winner. Talking of which (yet again): How long before someone snaps that agency up?

Why Cannes and TV advertising doesn't matter

255762 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:56:00 GMT

As some in the advertising industry pack their ice bucket and Bollinger and head to Cannes International Ad Festival I can't remember a year when going has mattered less. It's like Big Brother this year, but even less important than that.

Of course, this year it has become very fashion to rubbish Cannes, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to do so. Bob Garfield at Ad Age created a local weather front in the US the other week with his "Cannes Doesn't Matter Anymore... and Neither Do the TV Ads It Celebrates".

Garfield slated Cannes in response to what he called an advertising black hole (with the notable exception of some Burger King work) before he asked what's the point?

This moment of advertising irrelevance, and when I say that I'm talking really (as is everyone else) about TV advertising, has been creeping up on us for sometime. It is the elephant in the room.

TV advertising as we all know is 99% undisputed annoying, repetitive crap. Banal and largely totally forgettable dirge that pollutes the world we live in as much as any oil slick.

But worse than pollution, it is increasingly a waste of money as the effectiveness of TV advertising declines even faster than the reputation of your average banker.

I was having this conversation last week at a lunch with Thinkbox boss Tess Alps.

I said that basically I watch no television advertising anymore because I watch next to no live TV.

If I am watching a recorded programme from commercial TV when it gets to the ad break I simply tap stop; hit play again and tap the time forward by five minutes. This is roughly the gap given over to the ad break plus any programme promos. It takes about three or four seconds and it is a far easier and quicker than watching TV whilst fast forward at x30. Frankly, I am surprised that everyone doesn't do this.

But you can guarantee that if I do it plenty of others do it as well.

What I also said to Tess though was that while this process relieves me from the pollution of a stream of retail, finance, detergent and car ads, I usually cannot avoid the top and tail programme sponsorships.

In my mind these will increasingly become the most valuable item in the arsenal of many advertisers. I have a high recall of these and I can tell you of the two I saw last week are still stuck in my mind. Carpetright (sponsor of 'House' on Sky One) and BQ ('Property Snakes and Ladders').

In the first instance, Carpetright is I imagine some god awful place where carpet is sold. I could be wrong. In the second, B&Q I really don't mind so much. I have a Victorian house. It's not all that finished. I don't mind the B&Q thing. I would be in favour of the rules here being relaxed to allow them to pitch more products or little promos (sanding your floors – here's what to do).

I digress kind of, Garfield wrote about the blah that ad men come out with. How they say it is not about TV or print or outdoor, but about the idea, which then begs the question why do you need to go to Cannes on some huge party jamboree to celebrate the work (and watch it while you're there).

If you have ever been subjected to watching a few reels then after a not very long period you start to think either a) wow advertising is so powerful sometimes, I can really see that now; or b) kill me now I am so bored.

The people who think a) or at least tell you they think the first option are doing so because its their job, they're lying, or they're living in a fantasy land fuelled by booze, drugs and trips to South Africa and New Zealand that help to make selling deodorant or 4x4 slightly more appealing. Gosh it sounds harsh when you put it that way.

It fell to David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO, to hit back at Garfield's assault and having watched it (on this Adage video) you can't help but ask is that it?

Lubars agreed that Garfield was a little right (he hadn't seen much decent work either) before going on to sound a bit like a dusty record. He said Cannes needed to evolve and "recognise the cool integrated things that are happening".

He was probably referring to that digital stuff that everyone goes on about. Maybe he had been reading about Twitter. Who knows.

Maybe Cannes needs to evolve or maybe you simply don't need it. I don't care either way particularly other than to say what it does most of (and what those who get most excited about) is the "film" part, the TV ads, which increasingly a) don't seem to cut it; and b) are increasingly irrelevant in a market that a lot of advertising agencies are struggling for relevance.

Follow me on Twitter

Start the week...

1714221 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:24:00 GMT

Well, I've started the week in true Cannes style - I caught two and a half hours' sleep last night.

Sadly, it wasn't due to partying but a part-functioning air-con system whose spluttering on and off caught me each time I dared to drift off.

This is Campaign doing Cannes as never before. Yes, we're all wearing hair shirts this year.

An indicator of the grade of hotel we're in is the lack of a bathmat in the tiny shower room. But this morning I realised there was no problem: the trickle from the shower barely covered me and showed little danger of reaching the floor beyond.

Here we are looking shattered already, waiting to register outside the Palais at 8am. Promise the pics will get more glam...(they'd better)

Update: OK, even the technology is letting us down and I can't post that pic, so you'll just have to imagine us red-eyed at the Palais gates. But still smiling.

Are advertising agencies protesting too much?

1714221 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:56:00 GMT

Methinks all this talk of cancelled parties and an empty Croisette may turn out to be a case of agencies which doth protest too much.

In a year of mass redundancies, most have been keen to show that they are acting with sobriety and cutting back on the expense of jetting a whole load of people out to Cannes and keeping them fuelled with a continuous supply of drink, parties and, less importantly, food.

The only party I know of is the Massive Music "No Party" on Noga Beach on Wednesday night and it's true that, while our Cannes Week diaries at Campaign are usually rammed with invitations before June has begun, this year we have been quite concerned that we might actually have to buy dinner for ourselves at some point.

But I just wonder if there may be a rush on last minute flights to Nice later this week. All of a sudden, up will pop the chance to meet with a client or a prospect out here or - hope upon hope - the possibility of picking up a prize, and execs will find themselves supplied with an entirely plausible justification for a trip down to the Cote d'Azur after all.

And, yes, our diaries are now full to overflowing, with late invitations still coming in this week-end.

So, sitting in my credit-crunch bedroom tonight, having seen nothing yet of Cannes except the rain, I predict a quiet start to the week and a pretty packed finale. I hope I'm right.

Cannes does not fit this age of austerity

1225254 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:15:00 GMT

Today the London Business School reports marketers 'must focus on consumers looking for bargains in a new era of austerity'. For agencies, austerity is truly biting hard. Waves of redundancies have generated a miserable atmosphere, and inevitably damaged morale. And lots of very good people gone. It's not just been a case of 'dead wood'.

In these straitened times, any overt displays of opulent spending or lavish entertaining are rightly frowned upon as being out of tune with the times. This is Gordon Brown's Britain.

Except for one very visible case. In June, agency heads will be jetting off for a week of thinly disguised hedonism in the Cannes sun. I'm sorry, but it all feels very nineties, if not eighties, to me and entirely inappropriate for 2009.

Forget about the awards themselves, let's assume all the Direct winners will be very worthy and fine examples of creative innovation, even if hardly any (as was the case last year) are from the UK. And I'm sure the presentations will be insightful and well attended.

No, think of the image being projected by all those jolly important people sipping cocktails outside the Carlton and cracking open the Dom Perignon aboard a private yacht, while back home their staff await the dreaded call from HR. Think what hay the Sun or Mail would make of it. Then think of the employees who have lost their jobs to pay for those c.£2,000 tickets (plus flights and accommodation). I can tell you what those employees will be thinking about it.

I wonder how much 'insight into austerity' people will find on the beach at Cannes?

Two weeks down. Ten thousand to go...

1725283 — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:17:00 GMT

It's Thursday Morning.

Garry and Robert sit in the Electric on the Portobello reading Campaign. The Electric is our unofficial office. We think Nick Jones should give us shares.

It's two weeks since Campaign fired the starting gun. We are very much still in Beta. What have we achieved so far?

Lots that we can't talk about . And a little that we can.

We've done the 'legals' and the 'financials.' We're delighted to say that Lewis Silkin will be our laywers and Kingston Smith or Accountants. This might sound dull to some, but it isn't. These two companies have nurtured many of the great start ups. They know how to do it.

We've looked at a few buildings. Rents are fantasticaly low at the moment. We love recessions! But we're not sure. We've had several offers of 'camping' at friends companies and this is what we'll probably do for a month or two.

We're genuinely humbled at the industry response to Campbell Lace (Beta)

Most people seem to be pleased to see us back, and there's a genuine interest to see how (Beta) tackle the issues that currently face the industry.

We've been overwhelmed with offers of help from individuals and companies. Which is brilliant, because we're hoping to take up on most of them. One of our core principles is putting collaboration, not competition at the heart of our organisation.

We believe collaboration is the way to solve most of this industry's ills.

Perhaps this is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius for Adland.

We've begun the process of finding our partners. We will have news on this front soon.

We're establishing the network of companies we're going to collaborate with. It's not complete yet. But these companies cross all media and all disciplines, in the UK and across the world.

And we've started talking to clients.

Have we got a client yet? No. But there are definitely some clients circling. And they are of the innovative and courageous variety. What more could you want from a client?

Both of us feel it is really good to be back. We're loving it.

We leave the Electric to discover Garry's been clamped.

He refuses to have his picture taken standing next to the offending object.

Age of Aquarius? Will someone please tell the traffic wardens.

Talent, collaborators, and frustrated traffic wardens, e mail hello@campbelllacebeta.com

AND PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW. .

Valencia. The new Cannes?

1725283 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:31:00 GMT

This weekend Robert's judging at the Valencia Media festival. It is amazing how this festival has arrived out of nowhere, and now how big it is. The world's media buyers, planners, media owners, and some pretty major clients have gathered to discuss the present, and to carve up the future. Robert's in good company. Chuck Porter's come to speak. But apart from that no one else from above the line ad land. Pity. Lord Puttnam gives a truly scary speech at dinner about sustainability and adland's responsibility to embrace the cause. Otherwise we'll all be making like dinosaurs.

Garry and Robert take their hats off to Richard Huntingdon, Adliterate blog guru and head of planning at Saatchi. We've just heard Richard has landed the job of co-hosting the new tv ad show, The Gruen Transfer with Paris Hilton. Sorry. Not Paris Hilton, James Hilton from AKQA. Whatever, Richard is one of the best and most amusing presenters in adland. Can't wait to see the show.

Garry and Robert would like to point out that they are also available for tv appearances etc. With or without Paris Hilton. hello@campbelllacebeta.com

And speaking of tv, here's some ads we did earlier THE HISTORY OF CAMPBELL LACE (BETA)