[Pam in Cannes] First impressions

So here I am at the 55th annual festival… was I ready for the onslaught? Having not attended since 2005 (being heavily pregnant then, I even did the walk… yes, I picked up a Media Lion for the then Lobedu Leo Burnett… oh, enough about that) and having a good reason not to party then – here I am now!

So what did I see yesterday, omigosh – Jimmy Choo has a shop which I hadn’t noticed before he clearly hasn’t sampled his beautiful high heels down the croisette, damn I sound old!

Still everybody continues to promo like mad. Gettyimages has a stand on the street called Advertising activism, really interesting with frighteningly newsworthy images, asking the public to tell how they feel about them and what they represent to them, I think it’s a pretty cool idea.

I attended a few seminars. First one presented by thenetworkone, showcasing amazing work from emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. The Chinese showcase in this one was fantastic I thought, showed how the brand and (the depth of) culture need to interlink. The next seminar was Draftfcb speaking about socially responsible marketing – they showcased beautiful work but I needed more examination from this. It took us through recent work they had done for a chemical company which had been the enemy of the consumer and how they changed this perception. The other was Proximity analysing generation X, but this really became an exercise in in-depth research, a little too boring for me and VERY boring for Theo Ferreira sitting next to me.

I got a chance to view some of the Direct Shortlist; there were some fab ones for me. There was one called a “Piss Screen”: these were placed in front of urinals, so (if you are a man) you could activate the computer game on the said “piss screen” by weeing into the urinal, to see if you are capable of driving, an anti-drink and drive campaign – I loved the innovation. There was another for the New Zealand bakery of the year (yes, folks, where there is no poverty and crime, there are baking competitions); however, they made a viral movie of gingerbread men doing the HAKA (just too much!), as the timing tied into the same period as the Rugby World Cup. Needless to say, the association got in four times the normal amount of entries. Another for a wash powder – a free sample was sent to consumers wrapped in a T-shirt. Obviously the shirt looked horrific once it got to the ‘sendee’ – the challenge was one wash would make it look brand new. It seems excellent results were achieved.

So how does Cannes look this year? Le Mistral is blowing, making it less hot than normal – quite a relief, more companies are taking advantage of the beach, and so is SA, but more about that later. A media owner called JC Decaux has taken over a ‘pay’ beach with something they are calling the ‘stimuli box’ – still got to figure out what goes on there… will certainly let you know.

Until tomorrow,
Pam