The goal of the workshop was to present a framework for marketers and agencies to use while pursuing the elusive Big Idea – a creative concept with the power to fundamentally change the way people perceive your brand AND generate tangible business value as a result. The challenge is that although oftentimes clients and agencies set off looking for a Big Idea, they don’t always have a clear sense of what exactly they’re looking for.

Check out the workshop overview on 360i’s blog here:
http://blog.360i.com

Check out the presentation on Slide Share here:
http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/13476510#

http://www.slideshare.net/alemsah/70-inspirational-quotes-from-cannes-lions-2012

http://www.slideshare.net/salimmajzoub/the-best-inspiring-quotes-from-the-2012-cannes-lions-festival-13417398

During the panel, Josy presented Mumbai Mirror’s “I Am Mumbai” spot (a Gold Lion winner for Film Craft) and addressed the hidden social and cultural nuances of the film. Following the panel, Josy was moved by the outpouring of emotional response from the audience.

Josy writes, “On stage on June 21, I spent my 15 minutes de-constructing Mumbai city through the lens of the film. Layer by layer, I peeled the two-minute spot to show the world the hidden social and cultural nuances that make the film great. I went into emotional detail about the craft – explaining every frame, the raw gritty magic of the non-actors, the invisible cameras and the brooding music with its plaintive cry blending into the sound of the local train – the rhythm of Mumbai. Craft is as much about the activist as it is about the artist.’

Read Josy Paul’s write-up here:
http://www.exchange4media.com/46930_15-minutes-on-cannes-stage-a-lifetime-of-learning-josy-paul.html

Read more on the the panel he’s describing here:
http://bbdoatl.com/cannesweek/from-adweek-bbdo-creatives-dissect-breakthrough-spots-execs-from-new-york-london-and-mumbai-highlight-three-examples/

Check out BBDO’s Digital Lab’s coverage of Cannes here:
http://digitallabblog.com/

Check out more of Digital Lab’s coverage of Cannes here:
http://digitallabblog.com/

BBDO’s client, Mars, was celebrated as Advertiser of the Year at Cannes. In the end, BBDO won Lions with work for 40 clients: from larges global ones like Bayer, Diageo, FedEx, Mars, Mercedes, PepsiCo and P&G, to small local ones like the PIMA Air and Space Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

Winning work came from 27 different BBDO agencies, more than ever before.

Read the full report from the BBDO Digital Lab on all of our agency’s wins here:
http://digitallabblog.com/digital-lab-blog/bbdo-wins-most-gold-lions-at-cannes-update-3/

Entering a packed house in the Palais des Festivals to a standing ovation, the former U.S. president, 65, broadly painted the picture of an uncertain future—one of great promise and excitement, but also great peril—and argued that the privileged nations and classes must seize the moment and use their intelligence, resources and creativity to bend the world in a positive direction.

“The world, as we know, has a lot of problems. But we’re fortunate to be alive at this time,” he said. Seeing the crowd so full of young people, he added that he would trade places with any of them in a second. “I wish I could be 20 again,” he said. “I would take my chances on not being president just to see what happens.”

Read AdWeek’s write-up of Clinton’s presentation – where he also discussed his favorite ads – here:
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/bill-clinton-urges-ad-industry-lead-global-change-through-creativity-14129

In one spot, twin brothers unveiling the first Twix bar accidentally break it, and neither will give up his half. Instead, they divide their Twix company out of spite, into Left Twix and Right Twix, and pretend they are creating two very different products. One, for instance, is “bathed in chocolate” while the other is “cloaked in chocolate.” The spot invites viewers to try both and pick a side. The whole story is told using a voice-over, so different languages can easily be substituted.

“This is a rivalry between the two chocolate fingers,” said David Lubars, chief creative officer of BBDO, the global agency for Twix. “People like rivalry. They’re asked to pick one, but what makes it silly and fun is that they’re identical.”

He said the campaign lends itself well to social and digital pieces, like competing Facebook pages. McColl said Mars builds a collaborative approach to get great brand ideas that go across the world. “We spend a lot of time sweating those ideas [that combine] a simple human truth with a compelling brand truth.”

The Advertiser of the Year prize, which is announced before the festival, is based on performance in prior years. Mars has won 78 Lions since 1990 at Cannes, including 11 Gold awards and a Radio Grand Prix in 2007 for Snickers. As of Friday afternoon, Mars had picked up seven Lions at the 2012 festival, and has work for Pedigree Pets shortlisted in two of the contests still to be awarded, Titanium /Integrated Lions and the new branded content & entertainment category.

Read the full report on the AdAge site:
http://adage.com/article/special-report-cannes-2012/mars-cmo-bruce-mccoll-unveils-global-twix-campaign-cannes/235575/

And check out AdWeek’s coverage of the new Twix campaign here:
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/mars-previews-new-rivalry-themed-twix-campaign-bbdo-141321

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/akqa-honors-5-student-teams-future-lions-141312

Winners of this competition included:

Patrick Beskow and David Lunde from the Berghs School of Communication for their campaign “Made by Waves” for Quicksilver, Lisa Zeitlhuber and Nicholas Partyka from the Miami Ad School Hamburg for their campaign “Penguin Soundtracks” for Penguin, Florian Weitzel and Yvonne Truun from Miami Ad School Berlin for their campaign “Blackout Recorder” for German Wasted Youth, Chris Sheldon and Marybeth Ledesma from VCU Brandcenter for their campaign “Bing Automatic” for Microsoft Bing, and Kristofer Salsborn and Rickard Beskow from Berghs School of Communication for their campaign “Post from Japan” for Quicksilver.

Miami Ad School Europe in Hamburg, Gemany, was named school of the year after fielding the most shortlisted finalists in the competition, which drew more than 1,100 entries.

It’s part of the Young Lions competition at Cannes, which seeks to challenge — and reward — advertising students and young professionals.

Background info on the Young Lions competition:
http://bbdoatl.com/cannesweek/all-about-the-cannes-young-lions-competition/

See all the Young Lions winners here:
http://www.canneslions.com/work/2012/youngcreatives/

BBDO’s Young Lions White Space project for HP (from 2011)

June 21, 2012 wrapped up the 5th day of this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and so far, the winners of 11 categories have been announced. At the end of day 5, BBDO has accumulated 64 Lions (compared to 51 Lions at the same point last year). With two days remaining and the winners of five categories yet to be announced, BBDO hopes to surpass last year’s Lion count of 74.

BBDO agencies were humbled to receive recognition for some of their most compelling work. A number of campaigns have won multiple awards across categories:

• BBDO Guerrero’s “Bottle Light” campaign for Pepsi: Silver Lion for Direct and Bronze Lion for PR. One of the jurors in the direct category, Thomas Yang, noted, “[Pepsi’s Bottle Light campaign] changed the behavior of the society, especially the whole country. This is the simplest implementation. Pepsi being commercialized in the whole campaign to publicize the innovation, I think that’s fantastic.”
• Colenso BBDO’s “Sorry About the Twigs, Folks” campaign for Monteith’s: Gold Lion for Outdoor; Gold, Silver, and Bronze Lions for Promo & Activation; and Bronze Lion for Media
• Colenso BBDO’s “Skate Pinball” campaign for Mountain Dew: Silver Lion for Cyber and Bronze Lion for Outdoor
• BBDO Proximity Berlin’s “Smart eBall” campaign for Smart car: Bronze Lion for Cyber and Bronze Lion for Outdoor
• BBDO Argentina’s “Smart Twitter” spot for Smart car: Silver Lion for Direct and Bronze Lion for Design
• BBDO Proximity Germany’s “Bike” and “Child” spots for Mercedes’ Night View Assist: Gold Lion for Outdoor and Silver Lion for Press

Below is a comprehensive list of the Lions that BBDO was awarded in all of the categories announced to date:

• In Direct, BBDO picked up 3 Silver Lions and 4 Bronze Lions.
• In Promo & Activation, BBDO captured 2 Gold Lions, 3 Silver Lions, and 3 Bronze Lions.
• In PR, BBDO was awarded one lion each for gold, silver, and bronze.
• In Media, BBDO received 1 Silver Lion and 4 Bronze Lions.
• In Outdoor, BBDO went home with 3 Gold Lions, 1 Silver Lion, and 7 Bronze Lions.
• In Mobile, BBDO was awarded a Silver Lion.
• In Radio, BBDO won 2 Gold Lions and 4 Bronze Lions.
• In Press, BBDO walked away with 1 Gold Lion, 4 Silver Lions, and 5 Bronze Lions.
• In Design, BBDO got 2 Gold Lions, 1 Silver Lion, and 2 Bronze Lions.
• In Cyber, BBDO left with 2 Silver Lions and 5 Bronze Lions.
• BBDO also picked up a Creative Effectiveness Lion.

Further award wins will be posted to the Digital Labs blog.

“Creative genius is magic, and I’ve just watched two magicians dazzle their audiences. JR, a recent TED Prize winner, is a French street artist whose giant outdoor photo installations are startling and provocative. Jeff Goodby, the co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, is an adman whose brilliant and compelling campaigns include Häagen-Dazs’ “Save the Honey Bees” (a PR Lion winner.)

“JR uses pictures, paper and glue to provoke powerful reactions. With one image of a guy holding his camera like a gun, pasted on the scene of the Paris riots, he made his mark as a creative catalyst. To sell the idea of peace in the Middle East, he pasted enormous side-by-side images of rabbis and priests up along the hillsides in Israel, sparking conversations about which face was which, and how similar we all ultimately are. In Kenya, he posted beautiful, haunting faces of the local people on their rooftops, so, as one Kenyan told him, “God can see us.” His “Women are Heroes” series positions pictures on walls, up stairs and above train tracks that celebrate the faces of women in ways no advertiser here in Cannes seems to do. And his biggest effort, which he calls the “Inside Out Project,” put photography in the hands of native peoples to tell their own stories. Native Americans sent him images to paste to remind the world they’re still alive.”

More about JR’s work:
http://www.unitedexplanations.org/2011/06/30/when-art-goes-where-nobody-expected/

“Jeff Goodby doesn’t stop smiling and the crowd he plays to can’t stop laughing. The reel he shows is downright hilarious. To punctuate Hyundai’s “Car of the Year” designation, an ad shows an Asian and a German shouting the brand’s name, cut to voiceover: “Win one little award and suddenly everyone gets your name right.” An ad for “Got Milk” is a funny game show where contestants get stumped naming all the ingredients in “imitation milk.” Talking horses, mules and lizards for Budweiser are laugh-out-loud funny. His work to rechristen Sprint the “now network” and launch the Chevy Sonic digitally using the music of OK Go remains crisp and compelling as it grows more interactive and less about TV.

“(Goodby) sells brave ideas. He advocates being naughty, maintaining a sense of play and only doing work you think will be funny and effective. How does he do it? “Show stuff that’s scary. Clients are bored. Don’t stop ideas internally before they get to the client! And for the love of God, make presenting to the boss your number one goal if you want to sell great stuff.” Goodby doesn’t chicken out. He has conviction about exciting ideas and usually pitches only his best idea. His “art” moves people.”

Read Strauss’ Full write-up here:
http://blog.ketchum.com/a-fight-for-the-streets/

Strauss also provided a list of “Quick Insights” from Cannes:

Assault to the Senses

We are no longer a business of words. The artistry of the best work in Cannes is a reminder that visual spectacle has trumped all else in forging relationships with consumers. Music and sound have defined the very best work, with special effects agencies adding evocative noises to memorable campaigns. And the marvelous campaign from Febreze that put blindfolded people in places that should smell awful — but don’t, thanks to Febreze — is a salute to smell. There may be no such thing as sensory overload in a world of clutter.

We Are the World

Bill Clinton told Cannes that communicators will have a profound influence on how the next 25 years turn out: If we want a world of equality and prosperity, every citizen must do something to advance the common good for what President Clinton dubbed “the NGO movement” — our job is to convey HOW to make positive changes. He added that if we make people laugh along the way, that’s okay too.

Heart of Glass

Debbie Harry regaled the crowd with an a cappella version of one of Blondie’s many hit songs and shared the story of her growth as an artist, from playing grungy clubs in the ’70s to the icon status she has today. We all have to begin wherever we can and then grow along the way: “It would be so depressing to start at your best and then decline.”

“Approach each day with the freshness of an upstart.” These were the inspiring words of Marc Pritchard, the Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer for P&G (client). We think these are words to live and work by.”