Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity day one left me with so much information and advice I feel as if I could burst. With seven days to go it's hard to know what is worth taking away from all of it other than free swag and business cards.
Today I watched four seminars. Kicking it off I saw Celebrities and the Media, a panel style discussion on celebrities maintaining their own self image online featuring Martha Stewart, Nick Cannon, and former spice girl Mel B.
After that there was a good presentation on the London 2012 Paralympics and their relatively successful attempt to present it as equal to the Olympics in the UK.
Next I learned about Makers, a movie project about great women in history who haven't gotten their time in the history books. This presentation featured Gloria Steinem, a famous women's activist and poetic speaker. I felt connected and proud of the women on the stage. However, this is an advertising convention, and the leaders of the industry are men. The room was not as full as I wish it had been. The placement of the seminar on a Monday around lunchtime was also not prime time. It may not have been purposeful, but it certainly took away from the impact.
After my favorite seminar of the day I saw my least favorite seminar so far: You Need an Enemy, put on by Arnold Worldwide and Shepard Fairey (the artist behind the Obama Hope poster). I thought the concept of making an enemy to make an ad relatable was too simple for many cases. As I discussed in the Banksy post, creating a black and white version of a situation is not effective at conveying a situation. It's insulting to the general public to boil everything down to a hero and a villain. They're smart enough to understand a more complex situation. In fact they need a better understanding to make the right choice. The Kony 2012 campaign chose a strong enemy, which did give people something to unite against and be angry at so they would donate money, but it also didn't explain the complex situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The campaign funded the army of the ruling government, which was coincidentally responsible for 90% of the deaths in Uganda due to forced displacements and dissapearings, while Kony, while a terrible criminal, was only responsible for 10%. In this situation giving people a black and white may have funded more killing.
I wrapped up my seminar attendance with Hakuhodo's presentation on Creative Alchemy -- a convincing version of think outside the box.
At only 5 p.m. I've got lots of fodder for thought and the day is not over yet.
A follow up on You Need An Enemy:
ReplyDeleteDoes Banksy feel like Shephard is a sell-out? He's a graffiti artist after all, but he occasionally works in advertising. Based on Banksy's Coca-Cola "ad" I would think he wouldn't approve of Shephard working in advertising. I think Banksy would say that Shephard's art isn't pure once it is sold, that it's just clutter. This would be forcing people to intake content they have no control over. As Banksy makes art that tries to break the mould he would probably look down on making art for profit from a large company, corporation, or cause.