It was a week of inspiration at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2024.
Every day Jacques Burger and Robert Grace filed an M&C Saatchi Group South Africa Brutally Simple round up on things.
Check out their posts, republished here, to get different perspectives on things.
DAY ONE
IN A WORD
Empathy
Powerful strategies, ideas and uses of technology (AI especially) put people at the centre. As the head of customer engagement for McDonald’s said often the
answers lie in your customers, and he spoke about getting to not just an insight, but a “visceral human insight”.
IN A QUOTE
“Stable on strategy, fresh on execution.” ~ Alessandro Manfredi, EVP, Dove
Unilever are marketer of the year, deservedly so. Many great talks coming up about how they achieve growth through powerful brand building – and knowing what to commit to. Dove is celebrating its 20th year of Real Beauty where “the message has been timeless, but the has always been timely in the moment”. And they achieve this because everything they do is based on empathy. Perhaps the key question we need to be asking is “what are we committing to?”.
IN A PIECE OF WORK
Halcon ‘Trip my pic’
I love this idea for its use of AI based on a simple, but “visceral human insight”. We’ve all seen those ads in magazines shot in spectacular locations and wondered, “damn it would be nice to go there”. Spanish travel company Halcón Viajes made those ads their travel brochure by developing their own AI where with a simple camera snap of the ad you can discover the location and of course Halcón was also able to generate a great travel deal to take you there.
DAY TWO
Day 2 of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity ranks as one of the most interesting and insightful. Here’s my M&C Saatchi Group South Africa Brutally Simple recap. Don’t forget to check-out Jacques Burger‘s perspective and recap as well.
IN A WORD
Fundamentals
If you were at Cannes yesterday it was a powerful reminder of getting the fundamentals right.
Mark Pritchard (CMO P&G) talked about “everyday creativity” and the power of fining those small human moments that invoke feeling and to focus on how your brand contributes to that feeling. Obvious right? But rarely practiced.
The CMO of JP Morgan Stanley Chase reflected on the journey of being purpose led – a simple observation: you know purpose is working “when people act on it when no-one is looking”.
And really useful research and data from EY on the need to re-define (and remind!) the C-suit on the role of brand – and that to get there we need a simpler, clearer language in marketing.
But probably the most incisive and fundamental perspective was from Mark Ritson:
“Before even beginning to get to a strategy, let alone the tactics, have you taken the time to diagnose the market?”
IN A QUOTE
“It turned out telling a good story was better than showing a giant call to action.” – Laura Jones, CMO InstaCard
Critical insights for all marketing and business decisions makers came from Laura Jones’ talk sharing her journey on building the case for brand at Instcart (the multi-billion dollar delivery brand), taking Instacart from a “transactional product” to an “inspirational brand”. And yes, with absolute empirical evidence demonstrated to the business the significant value the shift from being performance led (and they are a tech business) to being brand led has had on the bottom line. I’ll be pulling this case study together to share widely!
IN A PIECE OF WORK
Dove do it again. Following on from my post yesterday, they consistently take their timeless message to market, in a powerfully timely way. This is powerful and important work👇
DAY THREE
Day 3 of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Here’s an M&C Saatchi Group South Africa Brutally Simple wrap. Jacques Burger will also be sharing his perspectives.
IN A WORD
Storytelling.
We kicked-off the day with an M&C Saatchi Group event with former BBC news producer Sam McAlister famed for managing to orchestrate the explosive Prince Andrew interview which she wrote a book on (and has subsequently been turned into the hit Netflix show Scoop). Candid, sharp, engaging. Key takeout: powerful storytelling comes down to bringing fact – or in our world an ‘insight’- and emotion together. Obvious of course, but not easy to pull off when you see how much work is out there that is devoid of any emotion at all.
IN A QUOTE
“If everyone is using the same tools, the difference maker will be creativity.” – Alex Schultz, CMO and Vice-president of Analytics, META
Unlike the talk before Alex’s where senior execs from Google took the main stage for boring and unashamed sales pitch (it was really, really bad), this talk was a lot more honest and candid on what AI will bring, and the role of creativity. So yes, AI is going to be delivering spectacular and efficient output, but ultimately it will come down to how it contributes to the story you’re telling. So yes creative minds are still (very much) needed.
IN A PIECE OF WORK
The Plastic Forecast.
This is a great piece of work that again demonstrates the power of bringing fact and emotion together to tell a story. It’s from our M&C Saatchi Group AUNZ office, and it has picked up a Silver Lion so far year.
DAY FOUR
Day 4 done. One more to go. Just when you think you were inspired, then some. Here’s the M&C Saatchi Group South Africa’s Brutally Simple wrap for what inspired me yesterday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Some interesting alignment with Jacques Burger‘s perspective so go check out his post.
IN A WORD
Grounded
We started the day at the Wall Street Journal House for the best session on AI I have ever been in listening to Kathleen Hall, Head of Brand for Microsoft. And guess what… there wasn’t one single image or video telling me what it can do. The message was real, candid and clear. The team from Microsoft have been both at the Cannes Film Festival and now at Lions with one message:
“AI isn’t creative, you are.”
Smart positioning. The discussion on the issues and negativity around AI were frank and wonderfully disarming. Which is probably what I’d put their strategy down to. Right to the naming of their AI assistant: Co-pilot. There to help you run your day better.
IN A QUOTE
“Are you in love with your customer?” ~ Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo
Loved how Mauro Porcini spoke about understanding people in both ‘sharp focus’ so you know precisely what value you bring to their lives, but also in a way that ‘broaden the lens’ on their lives so you can stretch your brand into so many more areas. The work they showed on Cheetos (yes a chip brand that covers your fingers in orange dust) was a beautiful demonstration of what happens when you love your customer.
IN A PIECE OF WORK
Door Dash – The Self Love Boquet
Always proud to see fellow Africans on stage, particularly fellow South African Mariota Essery, ECD at Door Dash, who spoke about their journey at Door Dash of building the brand by always knowing who their audience is and ‘what they’ve hired you for’. Their (some would say brave) Valentine’s Day campaign took such a simple understanding of their audience, that most identified as single, and so the troupes of a typical romantic date on Valentine’s Day for two wasn’t going to connect. So they focused on a Valentine’s pleasure for one. Check out the case study.
DAY FIVE
Final day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Here’s the Brutally Simple M&C Saatchi Group South Africa snapshot for Day 5.
Neo Mashigo, Jacques Burger and I will be sharing a consolidated thought piece off our time at Cannes this year – what this space.
IN A WORD
Commitment
From hearing Ynon Kreiz (CEO, Mattel) talking about how their commitment to the Barbie brand’s purpose (“To inspire the limitless potential in every girl”) and the role of Barbie the movie (which prior to the movie was one of the top selling toys in the world, so no it wasn’t sales) to hearing from Ipsos, Burger King and Karen Nelson-Field PhD, what is clear is that we are living in the age of average.
A world where everything looks, sounds and feels the same and therefor hard to get attention. It seems the safety and comfort of the familiar outweighs the risks of standing out (the very job marketing should be doing!). Ynon commented that when they saw the concept and the script for the Barbie film it was impossible to compare it to anything, it stood out.
To achieve brand distinction takes full organisation-wide commitment, and what’s clear is that it isn’t easy.
IN A QUOTE
“Mr President, I just need an aircraft carrier.” – Jacques Séguéla to the President of France
Séguéla was awarded the Lion of St Mark honours for lifetime achievement on the last day. At 90 this advertising legend is full of insight, and still full of energy. He spoke about the commitment needed to make brave ideas happen. When he had an idea of a Citroën car racing a fighter jet off an aircraft carrier production houses around the world said it couldn’t be done. So he took it upon himself to go ask the then President Mitterrand if he could use one of France’s aircraft carries for the iconic French car brand’s ad. He said yes.
A quick search using these words should find it for you: Citroen aircraft carrier ad
IN A PIECE OF WORK
Corona – Sunset Bottles
Such ‘Brutal simplicity of thought’ in this work. Designed to run in markets with limited budgets, the team simply found low cost stock images of sunsets (they cost $100 each!) and placed their logo on them. And it works beautifully and brilliantly. But only because the brand has remained committed to its brand assets.
The most important question – are you and your teams clear on what you are committed to as a brand?
