Kicking off the meeting of Cannes representatives from around the world, Phil Thomas gave the welcome and began by talking about Google. In fact, in the year Eric Schmidt was “Media Person of the Year”.
At the same time, Google won 15 Lions, while Nike won 21, VW 22 and PG 28. With such an impressive performance, Google Lab won its Grand Prix. In 2011, Google’s presence was extraordinary, making it the brand with which Thomas kicked off the meeting.
In case you missed it, here is Google’s first Grand Prix at Cannes, by the way, a company that does nothing without an ROI in sight. The most successful measurement tech geeks on the planet are at Cannes, advertising at the Super Bowl and winning Lions by the dozen.
In case you missed it, here you can enjoy the Grand Prix for Google in Cyber:
In the second idea contributed, Michael Thomas extolled the fact that Cannes as ever is the world’s gathering of ideas and creativity. In fact, he included a message from Malcolm Gladwell commenting that he loves Cannes for the way it brings ideas from around the world. Thomas showed cases such as South Korea’s Grand Prix, as well as Romania winning two Grand Prix in 2011 and China winning its first Grand Prix.
Vietnam, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Lebanon, Qatar, Venezuela, Tunisia, Egypt, Taiwan, Slovenia, Hungary, Puerto Rico, Serbia, Lithuania are some of the countries that have won a Lion for the first time in the last 5 years. Thomas told the meeting the story of our Costa Rican presentation a few years ago, when we told that we have a great biodiversity in Costa Rica, but at that time without Lions. Today we have 9 and in 2012 we have more to come.
As I am publishing this note, LIVE, from the meeting in Cannes, Thomas adds some more ideas. He comments that in 2009 agencies aggressively lowered their participation. However, clients remained even more heavily involved. He makes it clear that he is not interested in turning Cannes into a marketing festival, but it is clearly a good thing that more and more clients are attending Cannes.
The Festival is a celebration of CREATIVITY, and will continue to be for many years to come. It will continue to be the event where the world’s creatives and designers gather, while clients will continue to join in for inspiration, excitement and ideas. Ideally, clients at Cannes will realize that they have been passing mediocre work, and that the standard they should be looking for has a benchmark bar: Cannes.
Clients want Lions too. They said so in video clips presented by Phil Thomas. They are very clear about the importance of being creative, although they do not yet know all that Cannes has in store for them. So the emphasis continues to be on promoting client participation and attendance at Cannes.
In the meantime, I leave you with some data in photos of the slides projected with the results of brands around the world, we have been recommended to visit and get to know www.thecaseforcreativity.com. I am sure it must be of great value, as it will be more and more when clients decide to go to Cannes and discover it.
The Community is the Cannes Lions Festival Representative in Costa Rica.
