I woke up this morning so excited and anxious for the first day of the festival. When I got to the Cannes Lions festival door it finally hit me; this is really happening. The first place I went was the young lions zone to get an iced coffee from youtube and check out all the graffiti the UGA crew had created at the hp station.
The first seminar I attended was the goviral, the long idea, with Jimmy Maymann and Martin Lindstrom. For me this was the most thought provoking seminar I heard the whole day. Martin Lindstrom is a brand expert and the author of brandwashed. He discussed his seven million dollar neuroscience experiment on brand power. His hypothesis is that brands hold power in the same way religion holds power over the human psyche. Lindstrom traveled around the world talking to different religious leaders and compiled a list of ten emotions that makes a religion appealing to humans. The two Lindstrom discussed were having a vision and a sense of belonging. He explained that when people are presented with a brand in the experiment they “felt” the brand in the same way people feel the presence of religion in their lives. He said this concept goes far beyond brand recognition and can really change the future of how advertisers connect with their target audience on a personal level.
He also discussed the power of word of mouth. We have the same belief that word of mouth advertising is very powerful and it is the driving force behind social media. He launched a word of mouth experiment where a family was put in real life totally candid experiment to see if they could change the brand buying habits of their fellows neighbors by introducing them to specific brands. The experiment showed first hand that people will listen and react to word of mouth from people they know and trust 50% more of the time than traditional advertising. The results are astounding.
The second seminar that I thoroughly enjoyed was thenetworkone which was an independent agency showcase. What I love the most about the group of people who spoke is their down to earth and raw approach to advertising. Just by looking at the group of guys I got vibe of their creativity that radiated off of them.
Rob Jack, the Co-founder and creative director of Special Group expressed his passion for his independent agency by saying, “You can beat the pay, but you can’t beat the feeling of being independent.”
He discussed his Smirnoff campaigns discussion how his company took feedback from their consumers and created three thirty minute short stories that shook up the company’s typical form of advertising.
I also loved thenetworkone’s motto of approaching advertising by these key points:
“If it looks like an ad, start again.”
“If it makes you nervous, good it should”
“Great work is driven by curiosity and failure”
“Present one idea and one believe in one idea wholeheartedly”
Julian Boulding, Ali Ali, Rob Jack, and John Matejczyk all have the same vision which leads them to their great success. The agency prides themselves on not identifying with one trend of advertising and cracking a brands code. Also, never shoot down a creative idea for fear that it won’t sell to the client.
I was so impressed by these young inspiring men. They are for sure up and comming stars in the advertising industry and people should and will take note.
Apart from being locked in the bathroom with Colson, Claire, and Suzanne for twenty minutes while Anna has to leave the (boring) imc sqared seminar to save us; today was a great day!
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