Caren Explains the Cannes Lions 2012

If you keep up with me on Twitter, you were probably overwhelmed by my tweets from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last month in the south of France. Now in its 59th year, the festival brings together the most creative minds in business -- mostly from advertising and marketing but increasingly from other fields.


Thanks to the ever-generous Google, I was invited to the Cannes Creative Academy for Young Marketers for "Young Lions" under the age of 30. During the week, I heard from some of the industry's top creative minds in a small classroom setting, as well as the festival speakers in larger sessions.

Some staggering stats from Cannes:

• 11,000 delegates attended Cannes Lions 2012, with 90+ countries represented
• There were 34,304 entries for Cannes Lions awards, while 47% of all ad campaigns that ran last year were deemed failures by the market
• Research shows best brands in the world outperform S&P by 400%, confirming that the brand is an incredibly important intangible asset
• More #canneslions tweets were sent in a day this year than in all of the 2011 festival

If you're an ad geek like me and Don Draper, it was a week full of "pinch me!" moments (as well as business buzzwords like "earned impressions" and "creating value"). Here are some of the best things I heard and saw over the week...


The Work


Each day, the festival displayed the short list of finalists for Cannes Lions awards in each category. Other work, including videos from the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase, was shown in sessions. Here is a pinboard of the best stuff I saw.


Favorite Case Studies


Of the thousands of celebrated campaigns, here are three that stood out for their impact and effectiveness.

• Nike Fuelband by Nike + R/GA (Titanium Grand Prix winner)
• Help, I Want to Save a Life by Droga5 (Grand Prix for Good winner)
• Hilltop Reimagined for Coca-Cola by Google and Grow Interactive (Mobile Grand Prix winner)

Soundbytes: Quotes from the Experts

“Search the right place, not the bright place.” - Morihoro Harano, founder and chief of creative at PARTY Tokyo

"The revolution is coming from all sides... and I hope what we witness is the rise of the independents." - Dan Wieden, co-founder and global executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy, on the changing agency landscape

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance a heckuva lot less.” - Joe Tripodi, EVP and Global Marketing Officer of The Coca-Cola Company

"Leadership is the responsibility you have to articulate your ideas in the face of 'no.'" - Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice President of Global Advertising Strategy at The Coca-Cola Company

“Fax machines don’t have APIs” - Michael Scissons, CEO of Syncapse, on bringing companies into the present of techology

“We’re always inclined to chase the new, new thing... but it’s about pace.” - Michael Wall, President of Lowe & Partners, on bringing your customers with you when you're selling tech

"When you're a young client, you make the mistake of thinking that creatives want a big white page, but really they want more concise things." - Laurie Coots, CMO of TBWA\Worldwide

"I didn't write 'Just Do It'... I just did it." - JR, street artist and TED Prize winner, on art versus advertising

"If you ask creatives what their job is, all of them will say the same thing: to do good work." - Tor Myhren, President of Grey New York

"Our desire to measure ourselves is unique and universal." - Stefan Olander, Vice President of Digital Sport at Nike, on the insight that lent to Nike Fuelband

"The problem with advertising is you buy the drink, but don't have the friends... you buy the 4x4, but don't have the freedom... you buy the promise, but end up buying the wrong product." - philosopher Alain de Botton

"Great advertising deeply impacts the ways executivies think about and talk about their companies." - Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman of TBWA\Worldwide

"You can never expect the young people to learn if you don't let them speak... let them get involved." - Val diFebo, CEO of Deutsch NY

"Does anyone ever start at their best? That would be so depressing, to start at the top and work your way down." - Debbie Harry, lead singer of Blondie

"Nobody expected a '10' was possible... the scoreboards could not accommodated a '10.'" - Nadia Comaneci, star of new Visa campaign, on earning the first perfect score at the Olympics in 1976

"Do well and do good." - President Bill Clinton in his keynote on advertising responsibility

12 Memorable Super Bowl Commercials of Old

Are you ready for some football? (I sure am).

But since I don't have a vested interest in the Colts or the Saints, I'll be rooting for the commercials. Go advertisers!

While we wait to see which brands will surprise and delight us this year, here are twelve great commercials from Super Bowls of old.

Caren Explains Evangelism, Idolatry and the Unveiling of the iPad

This week's edition of The Economist features a cover story on "The Book of Jobs" and how the iPad stands to revolutionize three industries at once.

Perhaps it's because I read a lot of tech blogs, or because I hang out with the "Tech Tribe" at HBS, but the excitement leading up to the iPad's unveiling seemed a bit irrational, not to mention sacrilegious.

'At last,' TechCrunch wrote in a headline, with an implicit sigh of relief, while NPR observed this is the 'Most excitement about a tablet since Moses came back down with the 10 Commandments." The Economist noticed this fervor, too, describing it as "verging at times on religious hysteria."

The fact that so much attention has been given to one product is strange in and of itself, yet not surprising, given the cult-like collection of brand evangelists that Jobs and Co. have attracted over the years. It's a tough marketing and operational challenge to go mainstream without isolating hard-core users, but Apple has done well at it -- something surely considered when Apple was named "Brand of the Decade" by AdWeek.

That's what makes the negative reception of the iPad so interesting. To many of its biggest fans, Apple's iPad is a let down. TechCrunch's new iPad vs. A Rock post illustrates the disappointment quite effectively, while The New York Times notes, "To its instant critics, [the iPad] was little more than an oversize iPod Touch." And then there are the Twitter feeds flooded with maxi-iPad jokes....

The Economist does not touch on this criticism, and mentions only Apple's successes, furthering the idea that Jobs can do no wrong. But what the disappointment around the iPad indicates to me is that some of the cult members have snapped out of their daze and are starting to think for themselves. That's a good thing.

Jobs as Jesus?

At Cyberposium 15 a mobile panelist made a comment that stuck with me. "I'd rather design for [devices that aren't the iPhone]: there's 30% less cost and one-tenth the aggravation of developing an iPhone app, because you don't need the holy water of Steve Jobs sprinkled on it."

Fortune has rounded up a number of images of Jobs portrayed as a Christ-like figure. It's not hard to understand why these exist. As The Economist notes, "Mr Jobs’s record suggests that when he blesses a market, it takes off." But as the music industry knows all too well, what Apple does today can have longterm implications for the many industries it touches -- implications we might not like or immediately understand.

Steve Jobs is not God, and likening him to such is dangerous. Mortals make mistakes (like the Lisa?) and we can learn a lot from those mistakes. Without critique or questions of Jobs' and Apple's limitations, though, we risk being blindly led in whatever direction Apple chooses.

Caren Explains Murdoch, Magazines and a Smart Move in Digital Publishing

"Coopetition" will be the name of the game in 2010, at least for five powerhouse publishers who yesterday announced the creation of a joint venture that could give the publishers more control over their future.

USAToday.com and other news sources report that Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp, and Time Inc. are the founders of this yet unnamed venture, which will be led by interim director John Squires of Time Inc. Squires has also served in leadership capacities for both Audit Board of Circulation (ABC) and Magazine Publishers of America (two influential and standards-setting organizations within the print industry).

It seems that the joint venture will serve to establish standards for digital magazines and newspapers, in the way of pricing, marketing and technical standards. For an industry that competes on editorial differentiation, an alliance like this is a deviation from the norm.

That's a good thing. Such action is long overdue.

What went wrong.

The industry was slow to realize the importance of digital content and how best to monetize it. Consider this 2004 report from MPA which details digital edition subscriptions for ABC-certified magazines. Only 20 publications were listed, with PC World, Seventeen and (the now discontinued) Cosmo Girl leading the way. Notably absent in 2004 were any Conde Nast, Meredith and Time Inc. titles. By the end of 2007, 110 titles were available digitally, generating 1 million total subscriptions. Improvement, yes, but compare that against a 2005 report that there were 2,000 U.S. magazine titles with significant circulation.

The industry also failed to establish common pricing and content distribution practices early on. Instead publishers treated these things not as standards, but strategies. They tried to compete with one another by either restricting access to a fewer number of readers and making money on content, or opening content to all readers and making money on advertising.

Sometimes newspaper publishers changed strategies in the middle of the game, further tripping them up. NYTimes.com provides a good example of this. It began publishing content to the web in the mid-1990s, requiring registration to access certain articles. Then it pursued an "open-but-closed" type of policy, introducing a subscription service for certain editorial columns, before reopening the entire site in 2007. In the meantime, bloggers and online readers found ways around walls, accessing RSS feeds for content, or seeking out third-party sites for cut-and-paste content.

As a consequence, we are left with confusion about the value of content.... at least I am.

How the alliance can help.

In May 2009 The Wall Street Journal's new owner, Rupert Murdoch, announced his intention to move all News Corp. digital properties to subscription models, and went so far as to declare "The current days of the internet will soon be over." It sounded audacious, but he has stuck to his guns, restating this opinion today in an editorial for WSJ. "Some newspapers and news organizations will not adapt to the digital realities of our day," he wrote, "and they will fail. We should not blame technology for these failures. The future of journalism belongs to the bold."

So is the newfound alliance bold? It is if you consider that these publishers are willing to swallow their pride and work together; not so much if the other option is failure.

That's a real possibility. Consider that in 2008, 525 magazines ceased publication. The remaining titles scrambled to get lean and to put their online platforms in order. These online platforms included websites and/or digital subscriptions, like this fancy one from my former employer, Paste.

Coming together and establishing best practices, as well as a common storefront for digital content, will ultimately benefit both publishers and consumers. We could have an iTunes or Hulu for magazines and newspapers, with common formats, quality standards and pricing schemes. Perhaps we will even have one place to manage all of our newspaper and magazines subscriptions so that, when you change addresses, you don't have to send notice to each publication.

Still to be resolved is what role advertisers will play in digital subscriptions. Over the summer the media director of a major advertising agency told me that digital subscriptions are worth nothing, and shouldn't be counted towards circulation. Though his is only one opinion, it is an opinion that publishers will surely hear again and again. All the more reason paid digital subscriptions -- where revenue comes from consumers, not advertisers -- will be important in the future.

But will all this muscle power attract cries of collusion? Perhaps not, if the joint venture is truly independent. After all, ABC has long set standards for the industry (and is funded by dues paid by advertisers, agencies and publishers). Besides, if not the publishers themselves, players like Amazon (with its Kindle) and Apple (with the iPhone and rumored tablet) will be left to set the rules.

We're not talking about survival of the fittest anymore. Unless the industry answers the question of "How valuable is content?" it will remain fragmented and weakened.

We've come to a time when publishers can either live together or die alone. They are choosing wisely.

Caren Explains the Link between E-Ink and ZINK

Since the school year started I've had the opportunity to learn from a number of CEOs and executives, all hailing from different industries and countries. Yesterday it was Jeff Hicks, CEO of one of my favorite agencies, Crispin Porter + Bogusky; today it was Wendy Caswell, CEO of ZINK Imaging, a company that is pursuing a vision of "digital printing, now magically simple."


Polariod PoGo Instant Digital Camera, utilizing ZINK paper + tech

This is the second digital ink case study I've read this month, the first being one about E-Ink Corporation, the electronic paper manufacturer that makes the Kindle come alive.

Though we don't get to hear from case protagonists or guest speakers every day, I do find their occassional insights to be a good dose of reality when thrown into the b-school setting. [That's what I think is missing in your argument against live speakers @rafaelcorrales]. It's a reminder that you don't know what you don't know -- for better or worse.

Former E-Ink CEO Jim Iuliano spoke during one of my classes in September, and some of his comments and insights were echoed today by Caswell (and are applicable to many innovative, tech-driven ventures). First, that learning happens in the market, not the labs. The second is an extension of that thought. As Iuliano explained, "Perfection is not worth waiting for."

This go-to-market strategy certainly carries significant risk and requires that business partners are willing to go along for the ride. For these reasons, it's not surprising that the MBA classroom can be very critical of such a strategy, arguing that a company should thoroughly plot its market strategy, or perfect the technology, before launching -- and maybe that's true. But to hear both of these experienced leaders advocate a 'get-in-there-and-learn-as-you-go' strategy (or "stick with it and chunk it up," as Caswell said) warrants more consideration, especially in markets that have yet to be developed.

Is it better to shoot for the moon, or footrace to the top?

Caren Explains Vampires, Kittens and Windows 7

My ears always perk up when I hear that something new is coming out of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, the agency responsible for Subservient Chicken, the creepy King, the Truth campaign, and Mini Cooper's mega fun buzz.

In March 2008 Microsoft awarded a $300 million account to CP+B, in what at first seemed an unlikely pairing. One might expect CP+B to be better aligned with Apple (which relies on TBWA/Chiat/Day for its "I'm a Mac" campaigns). But that's what makes the match so interesting. [From a 2008 feature in Fast Company: "Can Alex Bogusky Help Microsoft Beat Apple?"-- Alex Bogusky built the country's slickest ad shop using Apple products. His next challenge: Persuade people like him to buy Microsoft's stuff....]

AdAge reported today on the new Microsoft Windows 7 commercial, which features kittens, "Kylie," and The Final Countdown theme song. It will debut on CW network. You can preview it here.

Will this help Microsoft overcome the running joke ("I'm a PC") that Apple has perpetuated in its ads? And is this commercial appropriately targeted to the right audience and media channel? Clearly the commercial placement -- during the premiere episode of "Vampire Diaries" -- has generated some press (good job, PR folks), or else I wouldn't know about it or write about it. But it doesn't seem like an obvious match, putting a cutesy commercial in front of tweens and vampire lovers... do they want to share the same software as Kylie? Maybe kittens and cute kids are universally loved?

Good luck, CP+B. What's next, TBWA?