“Why did we stop thinking?” Archetype, Richard Shotton and VSCO break it down at the 2019 Cannes Lions

The dust has finally settled on the corporate beaches; the French Riviera is now battling a rosé drought; and CMOs worldwide are wondering what’s next. The 2019 Cannes Lions has been and gone.

From Burger King’s impressive use of advanced tech to wage war on McDonalds, to Unilever’s impassioned stance on purpose, and Rory Sutherland being his usual captivating self, there was much to be enjoyed and inspired by on the schedule over the course of the week. But there was one talk that rose to the top. One talk that ruled them all. Ours, of course.

Now, we know you can’t compare one very different session to another. But if there’s one we’re going to wax lyrical about it’s obviously going to be our own. If you missed it, fear not! We’ve very handily picked through the 30-minute session and pulled out the top highlights:

The theory

“Why did we stop thinking? Is it because we’re too busy? Is it that we want to take the path of least resistance when it comes to trends? Or is it because we don’t want to think at all?”

Richard Parkinson, Archetype Global Creative Director, has an observation for today’s marketers: “We need to start thinking a bit more, and we need to stop following trends. Audience and industry trends come and go, but in reality nothing has changed,” says Richard, as he reveals that the quotes on-screen — ones that would today be typically associated with millennials — were in fact published in 1967 about the baby boomer generation.

“Why are we focussing on these trends?”, says Richard. “Because they’re a momentary obsession with finding a new insight that’s going to provide differentiation. Except everyone is doing this, and everything sounds far too familiar.

“Today we’re struggling with the fear of technology and the benefits it can bring. Consumers are demanding personalised experiences, but they also don’t want to compromise their privacy. As marketers, we want the data and tools to make better, more targeted decisions. But, at the same time, consumers think we’re losing that human element.

“We’re constantly being attracted to the shiny new toy, but tech doesn’t do the thinking for us. We mustn’t lose sight of our real edge: the human brain. To evolve our marketing and drive better outcomes for everyone, we must make better decisions based on a deeper understanding of humans — their wants, needs and values, not just what they say.”

The application

A behavioural scientist by trade, Richard Shotton, author of the best-seller ‘The Choice Factory’, is a big believer in advertisers using, you guessed it, behavioural science. Shotton (we’ll go with this to avoid confusing the Richards) proclaims that 130 years of academic research will provide far better outcomes than going with your gut.

Of all the behavioural science frameworks to follow, Shotton is a big advocate of the EAST framework. That is, Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely. For the purposes of time, Shotton broke down ‘attractive’ to the Cannes audience.

“Facts leave people cold and stats don’t move us,” he says. “Emotional comms, however, are far more powerful. We may already know this, but all we really know is what the goal is, not how we get there. The EAST framework is a tangible way of getting there.

“There are many ways of achieving attractiveness; the Pratfall Effect is one of them. This is the idea that people or products exhibit a flaw, or pratfall, become more appealing. Because when you’ve admitted a flaw you’ve demonstrated honesty. After that all of your other claims become much more believable.”

Another of Shotton’s examples to achieve attractiveness is social proofing, the theory that popular things will only become more popular. We’ve seen this work with very literal examples (think Carlsberg’s “probably the best beer in the world”), but Shotton believes the best applications adopt a more lateral approach.

“Tapping into social proofing doesn’t even require facts. Your task is to create the illusion of popularity. When Apple launched the iPod, the competitors all had bland, black earphones. When the mp3 player was tucked in a listener’s pocket, passers-by had no idea which brand was being used. Their success was invisible.

“In contrast, iPod owners were easily identifiable with their striking white headphones. Their distinctiveness made Apple look like the market leader long before it was, which made the brand that much more desirable.”

Apple didn’t seem to do too bad after the launch of the iPod, did they?

How VSCO thinks human

For the talk’s closing Q&A, Richard and Richard were joined by VSCO’s CMO, Tesa Aragones, who was able to shed light on how the popular photography app engages with its users on a human level.

“I think it’s very important for any marketer to spend time with their consumers,” she says. “We’re very often in the marketplace, finding the fundamental truths and consumer needs, as well as seeing how the world is working and how VSCO fits into that world.”

“How can brands put audience-based thinking at the heart of what they do?”, questioned a member of the crowd.

“At VSCO, we give them their voice,” revealed Tesa. “Whether they come for inspiration or to discover new things, we give them a space to help them tell their story, and, in doing so, they tell the story of VSCO”.

So, cutting through the noise by thinking more human certainly isn’t rocket science. But it may well be behavioural.