“I’m not interested in your connections or the way you dress… what I’m looking for is passion.”

Cannes Lions 2016 in Bullet Points

(It’s kind of like you were there taking notes)

23 min readJun 25, 2016

Over 200 of the world’s most inspirational creative leaders took the stage at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week. I was there and created this VERY LONG list of bullet points from some of the best sessions I went to.

Making Magic: The Art of Illusion in Modern Brand Narrative — memBrain & David Copperfield

Magic isn’t about fooling people; it’s about stories and the relationship with the audience
Simplicity is one of the hardest things to achieve. To get to the simple, you often need to begin with the complex
It’s all about layers and layers of emotional resonance

Perception, Not Fact, Creates Reality — BrandOpus

You cannot un-will your beliefs
Images define perception. Not by depicting it, by creating it
Brand image cannot be seen as merely promoting the product. The image and the content are one
It’s the image — with its association — that informs our perceptions and beliefs NOT the functional, rational benefits of the products and services offered by the brand
Summary: we should focus our attention and creativity on images to create realities and shape perceptions

Digital Darwinism: From the Makers of Monty the Penguin — MPC

Often it’s the challenges that become the defining moments within an ad
Mother Nature is full of such variation and randomness and we need to find ways to emulate that

Can Good User Experience Change the World? — WPP & Tencent

The Asian market is at the forefront of creativity
Users should naturally be in touch with advertisers
Location-based context and user control central to WeChat’s advertising roadmap
WeChat taking opposite approach to Facebook; Tencent’s stated aim is to reduce number of apps on people’s phones, not add more
Wechat not just mobile first but mobile only with 762mn active users
WeChat is more than a messaging platform, it allows and aids connectivity. People in China can spend their whole day on WeChat
WeChat very clearly thinking beyond social media; see themselves as the next iteration of the internet

Three key considerations for ads on @WeChatApp via @Ogilvy

Age of Open Ideas — Another, B&O Play, LEGO Group, Ikea

Ideas should NOT be just the function of the marketing department
Perfect example: The Swedish Number set up to connect to a random Swede to talk about anything
In 1875 Calsberg distributed their yeast freely to other brewers. Most likely the first application of ‘open source’ by a brand
LEGO: more than 20k ideas are submitted to LEGO every year. LEGO ideas and LEGO Rebrick set up to welcome and bridge those ideas into the company

Ideas submitted by the community need to have 10k votes to be considered by LEGO

IKEA Creative Hub: 25 people based in Sweden. Catalogue: 250m copies in 43 countries are produced every year.

Establishing a VR Roadmap for Creative Industries — Framestore

Virtual Reality is not a passing fad — According to Deloitte Global VR will hit $700m in hardware sales in 2016, and a further $300m coming from content. Estimates that around 2.5m VR headsets and 10m game copies will be sold this year
VR says more than TV — Virtual reality is truly immersive, it blocks out the real world, you put headphones on and you are truly transported to whatever that place is inside the VR world
How to avoid bad ideas — Don’t choose VR for no reason. As with any marketing, following the crowd just to create VR for VR’s sake won’t reap you any rewards

Via TheDrum.com

Agency ßeta -The Secret of Team Prototyping — Hakuhodo

Make new failures before anyone else in the world
Hakuhodo Kettle got rid of titles to become skill neutral, there is no planner, copywriter, art director

Hakuhodo’s way of creating:

Full talk

The Me Generation: From IoT to IoMe — KT Corp & Cheil

The IoT will evolve into the Internet of Me and allow us to create one-on-one experiences again like the old market square
m-branding: allowing brands to deliver a personalized experience for each and every one of their customers, one at a time

Sex: the Final Frontier (Foresight Meets Foreplay) — Flamingo & Cindy Gallop

Advertising has a duty to consumers to normalise sex though marketing. When it comes to sex, people are “rampantly insecure” about it
We have a duty to consumers. We help our consumers when we normalise and de-embarrass this area of massive insecurity. The advertising industry has a duty to actually understand, analyse, acknowledge, and design, and market to, and communicate around, sex for all consumers globally
People have sex in cars and yet the automobile industry spectacularly fails to ever acknowledge that, or to allow that to influence product design

Adweek: Cindy Gallop Wants Everyone at Cannes to Film Themselves Having Sex This Year

The Art of Curating — Flipboard

There’s no algorithm for cool. They do not have taste
Anyone can curate content on the internet, but real storytelling is an art

Creativity and Innovation Through the Eyes of Confucius — jones knowles ritchie

Creativity has two sisters, Adapter & Innovator:

Make Some Room — Transforming Creativity Through Access — SapientNitro & PRETTYBIRD

Data guarantees your ideas are seen as being bigger than your ego

The great organizations are those that celebrate the differences. They seek harmony, not uniformity. They hire talent, not color. They strive for oneness, not sameness. — Gil Atkinson

The Madman Who Tried to Be a Clown — Conversion

Laughters give you endorphins … in other words free morphine
99% of jokes follow the same structure: introduction, development (setup) + derailment (punchline)

80% of decisions are made emotionally and today’s business winners will be those who best connect emotionally and empathetically — Kevin Roberts

SNAFU: Situation Normal, All F***** Up — The Mill

‘’Good creatives build chaos into their work.’

As a creative when you become good at solving problems you become a problem magnet
In chaos you make leaps, not steps
Make chaos your gym

Brian Chesky in conversation with Joanna Coles — Airbnb & Hearst

If you launch and no one notices… launch again
In the future we’re going to own only what we want responsibility for. We will move to living in an experience-based economy
People are moving from trust in brands to trust in people
The travel industry is one of the most challenged industry in the world
Problem with tourism is you have people doing things that even locals wouldn’t do.
Airbnb will expand to provide end-to-end solution, not just beds
5,100 in Cannes are staying in an Airbnb tonight
On Trump: people who want to put up a wall between countries or cultures will be on the wrong side of history

Men vs. Women: Exploring Marketing’s Impact on Gender Bias — Deutsch

Women are 3x more likely to lead decision making and 3x less likely to have a speaking role in film and advertising
Example videos: Happy Fathers Day Mom & Inspiring The Future — Redraw The Balance

Cracking the Code of Creativity — Razorfish and Contagious

The most awarded categories at Cannes Lions: 1- Outdoor 2- Press 3- Radio
Chance of winning Bronze 1.21%, Silver: 1.13%, Gold: 0.78%, Grand Prix: 0.07%. 96% of the work does not make the cut
70% of the world’s most creative countries are not the wealthiest
Not all creativity costs. But it doesn’t mean it comes cheap

Code of Conduct for Creativity:

1. NO MORE EXCUSES / It doesn’t matter about budget, location, company or client — great creativity is within reach of us all

2. INVEST IN RELATIONSHIPS / Great creativity may not cost money, but it does require an investment of time, bravery and trust

3. KILL THE ROCKSTARS / Creativity is a reflection of company culture — make yours open, inclusive and free from ego

4. PLAY NICELY WITH OTHERS / Modern creativity demands collaboration — internally and externally — so make sure you know your strengths and play to them

5. FACE THE FACTS / Crunch your data to discover the important truths worth acting on

Contagious: Seminar Debrief: Cracking the Code of Creativity Debrief

Anna Wintour in Conversation with Christopher Bailey — Condé Nast

I don’t see myself as a creative, but rather as a first responder to other people’s ideas
Creativity for Conde Nast means thinking of the lives of their audience & how to connect with them
You need to be flexible without loosing the vision
It would be ridiculous to ignore the speed of possibilities of the digital landscape
If you really want to build a large audience over time, you have to be unafraid to take a risk on the big, challenging stuff. It matters more than ever now when companies invest in it, effort and attention will pay off
Although we all have to stretch our budgets across so many different platforms, you can’t cut your way to creativity
Disruption is hard. Not just because it requires real originality; to try what hasn’t been done before, as opposed to what seems to have worked elsewhere, but because stepping outside of the mainstream is frightening
Being true to yourself and vision takes great confidence
Fashion, which often seems on the path to become even bigger, more branded, and more Instagram ready, can also achieve its best through sincerity, rather than through sheer size.
Personal, emotionally driven presentations can just as easily become blockbusters as high powered, corporate extravaganzas.

Wintour’s 4 keys to success:

1- Aiming Higher — invest serious time and ambition. Publish things of immediate interest and lasting importance. People make work quick and then are surprised when no one cares. Let’s make a case for grand ideas and highly fueled ambitions.

2- Dare to be different — we live in an age that prizes authenticity. Sometimes all the flashing lights can be a distraction for the lack of creativity. Stepping out of the mainstream requires great courage and confidence

3- Use all your gold — On the recent Vogue security breach: in the end, it did us more good than harm because it forced us to share something we normally would’ve kept for ourselves. In the process, built up a bigger audience for the magazine spread. You learn from what you’ve done, not in spite of it

4- Make interesting friends — bring everyone to the table. Don’t be afraid to explain your work, people care. Be as inclusive as you can. The landscape is so atomised that people are looking at supportive relationships

I find interactions with people daily makes me better. Ryan Seacrest wakes up at 5am to do his morning radio show. Because it keeps him close to his roots. He’s not sitting in a room generating abstract ideas about what consumers want, he’s interacting with them daily
When we’re young, we dream of moving up. The bigger joy I’ve come to see is moving forward and changing

Page Six: No politician is safe from Anna Wintour’s wrath /
Campaign India Cannes Lions 2016: “We live in an age that prizes authenticity”: Anna Wintour, Conde Nast

The Pursuit of Impact: Edelman in Conversation with Will Smith — Edelman

What used to happen in the 80s or 90s was you had a piece of crap movie and so you put out more trailers, and it was Wednesday before people knew your movie was shit. Now, In the first 30 seconds of a movie people are tweeting ‘it’s bad don’t go see this’
You can’t reverse engineer purpose
People > Product. If I have a deeper comprehension of people, the product will better
You don’t create for yourself, you create for others
The first step is that you say that you can
The power is now in the hand of the audience, and in the hand of the fans and as someone who wants to market material globally the only choice I have is to be in tune with their needs and not try to trick them into going to see Wild Wild West
Smoke and mirrors in marketing and media is over.
You have to spend time understanding people not just building a product. If people don’t want your product, no sales pitch or marketing idea will sell it to them
Technology has killed cheating

Hollywood Reporter: Smoke and mirrors in marketing are over /
The Drum: Lessons on marketing from Will Smith /
Page Six: Will Smith thinks Hollywood can no longer cheat people

Managing the Present and Inventing the Future— DDB Worldwide

The currency of business is speed: good, fast AND cheap is what clients want

Our ambition is simple. We will not rest till we are as diverse and inclusive as the marketplace we serve

The standard we should hold ourselves to is more for good, not just more for more

Clark’s 4 takeaways

1- Do good work, there is no substitute
2- Evolve everything, people process product
3- Find effecciencies, they are there
4- Whats & hows equally, with diversity at the core

Campaign India: Agency models are not broken’: Wendy Clark

From Roman Emperors to Roman Orgies — 180 Amsterdam

You lose control when you don’t have people you trust around you.
You don’t want your creative team to self edit, you want each person to contribute with their best

A blueprint for brand success: the roman orgy

The roman orgy: had a clear ambition, everyone knew the rules and trusted each other, experts were enlisted, everyone was expected to bring something to the table and creativity was encouraged

There isn’t creative by committee. This is group sex, not group think
3 questions to ask: Do we all know the ambition? Is everyone empowered to contribute in a positive way? Are we all prepared to push the boundaries?

The Case for Creativity — Previously Unavailable, Airbnb, Jim Stengel Company

Just one person can make a difference
Mildenhall: I always make a public commitment saying to my team & agencies this is going to be the best work of your career
Build a creative community within the organization. Introduce a creative agenda and a learning agenda
Agencies should get their more conservative client companies to hangout with the more adventurous client companies
Airbnb founders wants to build the next brand for a generation as Coke did in the past
Often the community can show you. 3 of the biggest stories for Airbnb this year has come from the community: NYC Netflix themed apartment, Igloo home after snowstorm, Van Gogh themed room

WTF Are You Guys Doing? Fostering The Ideal Creative Partnership — Burger King & DAVID The Agency

Sometimes a brief only needs to be one line
Trust uncertainty

Note to Ramos gave to his agency:

We are looking for FIRSTS here
Cause you only have one chance to do it for the first time
We don’t need to be perfect or nail it
Is it ok to piss off some people
Our aim is to do at least 1 thing we haven’t done before each day
Budget is not a limitation. Nor level of confidence and courage should be.
If it does not work, we will learn something
If it works, we will do even better next time
So let’s just do it. Make count. Fast.

10 rules: Don’t be a client / Advertising development is an acquired taste / Great advertising is never done by committee / Great advertising is 80% the idea, and 80% the crafting / Create a great brief / Let the idea grow / Do research to improve things, not to cover your ass / You don’t need to be ambitious, you just need to be aligned / The 70/30 rule / Sell it like you’ve never sold before. We’re talking about the idea

Can Your Brand Keep Up With the Speed of Culture? — Havas & Troy Carter

Corporations ‘suck’ at authenticity
Banks are dead. The next generation doesn’t have a bank account and doesn’t plan to have a mortgage
When you have multiple people running a digital department, it’s very difficult for that voice to translate throughout the organization into the community.

Billboard: Troy Carter and Havas Launch Smashd Group at Cannes Lions, Carter Says Corporations ‘Suck’ at Authenticity

An Intimate Conversation With Usher — iHeartMedia, Ryan Seacrest & Usher

Be willing to be the first person there and the last to leave
Fail fast, get up fast. Nobody remembers your failures, they remember your wins
You have to defy the ideas that were set before you, but be respectful to those who blazed the trails
Seacrest: How to you stay hungry and motivated? Usher: Stay thirsty because there’s always more.
The more uncomfortable you are the more successful you will become
New ideas start with investing in youth. The more youth, the more idealistic brands become
you are who you are, and in the end if you don’t believe it, the no one will

Billboard: Usher and Ryan Seacrest Sit Down After Cannes Lions Panel, Talk New Album and Post-’Idol’ Void: Q&A

Anderson Cooper & Anthony Bourdain — Time Warner

Cooper:

For me it’s a great privilege to get to pose questions to people of power
Telling stories is the greatest privilege on Earth

Bourdain:

It’s not good business to poison your neighbous. If there’s a queue of locals at a street vendor eat there
If they have pictures of the food and half of the patrons look like you, it’s bad. It’s very, very bad
Don’t eat airplane food no good will come of that — a couple of valium and a lot of Port and I am out
My goal isn’t to stay on TV. There are more dignified things to do in the world, like making brunch
How I stay inspired: Never compromise. Never mind how people judge it. If I’m not having fun, then there’s no reason to keep doing it. Basically I don’t give a shit
If half the people hate it, and half the people like it, I consider it a victory
TV in general wants what worked last week, I reject that model

Snackable, Unskippable Content — Twitter & Sony Pictures

4 tips from @Ghostbusters Twitter strategy:

We have to capture people’s attention ASAP — the trailer doesn’t do that, we had to reengineer for mobile
We have to create content that is mobile friendly — tailor made graphics and audio
Aways assume that sound is off — until you tell us its not. You have to be good at GIFs and subtiles
Build for the platforms — we can’t use the same thing across all the platforms

Creativity on the Stump: Communications and American Presidential Politics — Burson-Marsteller

It’s no longer the 24h news cycle, it’s more like the 3-min cycle. PR becoming ‘programmatic’
The current Trump campaign is like Jazz-improv. He wings it. Not even his campaign staff knows what he’s going to do.

This is a critical moment for Trump where his strategy will be tested.

Trump has received $3.3b in free media. He’s only spent about $20m in media spend total. He is the first candidate in history that controls the media on his terms
Presidential campaigns are always won on values. ‘I’m for this, these guys are for that’. Those values can often be communicated by biography.
Clinton has 700 on staff and Trump has 50 to 70

Predestination: Wired’s Kevin Kelly on Where We Are All Heading — PHD Worldwide

Virtuality — Over-hyped in the short term, under-hyped in the long-term
AI is already evident everywhere
In VR you don’t see first person perspective, you feel it.
So far we’ve had an internet of information. We’re moving to an internet of experiences. VR will be the most social of the social media
VR companies will know about us a lot more, because they will collect very specific information on us, our behaviour
Congnify — to make things smarter. AI is inevitable. Pilots only fly 7–8 min on transcontinental flights
Intelligence is not linear — it is like a symphony of different notes and instruments. Many kinds of minds, many kinds of thinking — thinking different while connected
The next industrial revolution: When we drive we harness the power of ‘250 horses’ / artificial power + AI (250 minds — self driving car). IQ will be available as a service. Will flow like electricity
Next 10k startups = take X, add AI
The more users of AI the smarter it gets. The smarter it gets the more people use it
Today we’re using AIs to train other AIs, this is going to go very fast
2026 Google will be an AI company. Most revenue will come from AI not advertising
Tasks where efficiency is not important — like science and innovation, art, experiences — will be reserved for humans
In the future you will be paid by how well you work with AIs. We will work with the machines, rather than against them
Through the embrace we get to steer the technology. The future is difficult to believe. We have to believe in the impossible. We are at the birth of the beginning.

Workplace: Creating the Office for the Connected Age — R/GA

Office work is beginning to bleed out of the office — it follows us wherever we go

Bob Greenberg:

The workplace itself is not connected to the internet in a significant way
We need work spaces that enable teams to work together more effectively
Projects today are far more complex that require workplaces that allow teams to work better together. It’s not just changes in the workplace, but in the work itself.
By 2020, it’s estimated that 40% of the American workforce will be freelance
R/GA was struggling in keeping a consistent experience between their 4 buildings in NYC. Move to new space. Goal was to build a space that encourages collaboration, to build a digital landscape that would interact with the physical space with technology helping connect culturally between global offices

Take smaller innovations and connected them together. Everything used in the new R/GA connected space is available off the shelf
We took things that already existed and combining them to improve them, that’s innovation

Connect The World. Create for the World — Facebook

Nunu Ntshingila — Director of Africa — Facebook

We are at the beginning of the 4th industrial revolution: global connectivity
3.2b people connected to internet, that is less than 1/2 of humanity.
We’re about to enter an era of connectivity that we’ve never seen
7b people connected globally will be radically different
Facebook’s mission: To give everyone the power to share anything with anyone

X,Y,Z companies are coming up very fast. A,B companies have to compete with each other but also the fast rising X,Y,Z companies who are experiencing hyper growth because of connectivity

We’re going to hear more voices then ever before. Ideas will come from everywhere.

Mark D’Arcy, Chief Creative Officer of Facebook

As a creative leaders we have to become more comfortable with ideas that don’t come from within… to treat them with the same passion and enthusiasm as if they were our own
We need to build value not vanity
Beware of ‘we need to something that hasn’t been done before’. So often we create the innovation for impact, so we can then put it on the shelf
We should not see our innovations as the finish line but as a new begin to be iterated and taken to scale
We need collaboration over combat
Clients if you want the ideas that are really going to drive your business you don’t need just the right talent, you need the collaboration so that you’re getting the best of them. It’s not a macro thing, it’s an every day thing

Cracking China — TBWA\Greater China

It’s the year of the monkey, where anything is possible in China… apparently.

Lesson learned from failed creative work in China: ‘we don’t want to see a reflection of ourselves, wanted to see something more aspirational’
China loves scale, feeling of grandeur. Reflective work will not work in China

Use of celebrities is everywhere in China. Thinks those days are coming to an end. Brands must find relevant ways for celebrities to be involved

‘Be the first to eat the crab’ — doing something unlike everyone else can make a huge difference

How did Gap launch in China when it was a tired brand in the US?

You have one chance to start a conversation with a country that knows absolutely nothing about you
Opportunity for Gap was to get the brand back to its former shelf (making it aspirational again)
Let’s together: How America and China can hang out together

Berlin School of Creative Leadership: The Lookinglass with Charles Day

The weapons of fearless leadership:

State your purpose: what difference do you want to make in the world?
Define your values: how do you want to be known?
Live by your values: consistency creates trust
Make decisions: momentum is the heartbeat of creativity

“I prefer passion over talent, passion over pedigree, passion over a well-tailored suit.”

Passion Trumps Talent — J. Walter Thompson

“I’m not interested in your connections, the way you dress…what I’m looking for is passion”

Passion is strongest indicator of potential
People who are more passionate about anything, are almost always passionate about everything
A passionate person knows that they won’t succeed the first 10 or 100 times.
Talent can be a trap — when things are easy enough we feel like we don’t need to try
Passion changes the dynamic of the work itself
The biggest test of your passion will come when nothing goes your way…when your decisions and fate tell you ‘give up.’
Through-line of passionate leaders: taking something and making it central in their lives
J.K. Rowling’s manuscript for Harry Potter was rejected 12 times before finally getting a yes.
If a leader leads with passion, that passion can be passed down throughout the organization.
Passion can lead to dark times…you can be extremely passionate, but not have the talent
Steve Jobs: “If you don’t love it, you’re gonna fail.”

Matt Eastwood personifies “talent” as Goliath and “passion” as David.

Will Smith: “I will not be outworked. You might have more talent than me, but you’re not outworking me”
You can’t teach passion. You can’t manage for it…It’s just there…Passion is energy; it’s fuel.

Kevin Plank and David Droga: From Underdogs to Game-Changers — Droga5 and Under Armour

Kevin Plank:

Authenticity always wins out
As you grow it’s hard to find people who are subject matter experts in… on bringing partners who can bring a bigger perspective
You’re not a brand unless you have a point of view
Our meetings run this way: this is what i heard, this is what we think, this is what we’re going to do
Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets
On people not liking his shoes: finally people care we’re part of the conversation
The worst thing in life is apathy
When you’re growing a company everything doesn’t grow at the same time (finance, sales etc)

David Droga:

We’re only as good as what the clients allow us to do
Who doesn’t want to be drawn to someone that’s on a mission
Marketers think if they have a success, they can just push replay. It’s one of the things holding us back
The most intimating thing a client they do is fully trust their opinion. ‘I like this pressure’
As soon as you start buying your own bullshit that’s when you fail

It takes the same amount of energy doing something great as it does justifying something medicore

Cannes Lions is full of fireworks, one off ideas
I’d rather build the empire state building and change the colours on the roof from time to time
It’s bloody hard, but it’s not as hard as you think
The best companies are the ones run by people who really believe what they are doing

Beyond the Big Screen: The Future of Storytelling in Hollywood — Publicis Groupe & The Weinstein Company

Google and Apple are going to be global players like Hulu and Netflix very soon. They have the pipeline
The model is going through deep changes
It used to be that you market your way out of bad movie. Now within 3 hours the world knows about it. You need to make them great or you’re not going to last
Subject matter will be everything and for a cinema, execution will have to be excellent
Today social media is so strong that when you do good things it spreads. Being generous and smart pays off
The great thing about television is that the critics can’t kill your work. The audience decides
Netflix and Hulu are great for the business. I can’t see NBC or CBC making a documentary about transgender people

Misfits and Madmen — M&C Saatchi

99% of advertising is utter shit
Problem: The worst thing for creativity is like minded people in a room
Solution: diversity of thought.
Pixar: office built by Steve Jobs to encourage collaboration. Jobs: If a building doesn’t encourage [collaboration], you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity. So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see
Brian Eno: created ‘oblique strategies’ cards. He would inject these cards in the creative process like ‘abandon regular instruments’
M&Cs experiment: got 10 ppl who have never worked in advertising to work on a Converse brief

3 main takeaways: Be open to the ideas of those who know much less than you (they may really know much more) / the future belongs to the agencies that inject diversity of thought into their people and their process / your most extraordinary ideas aren’t in you, they are all around you

How risk-taking ads helped Justin Trudeau become Prime Minister — Bensimon Byrne

Here’s a few additional resources:

There you go. Thanks for reading.