Cannes Lions – Building a better world?

This is the year that advertising has grasped the challenge of making behaviour change for good, writes SapientNitro’s Trefor Thomas.

Asteroids – they killed the dinosaurs and it’s only a matter of time until they come and get us. But what does this extinction level threat have to do with the Cannes Lions? Well, it turns out that unless you know what an asteroid is made of then you don’t know how to deflect it and save humanity. But there are millions of asteroids in the Kepler Belt and elsewhere, so the task of mapping them is nigh on impossible.

Enter the unlikely hero: Adland. The agency McGarryBowen teamed up with Nasa to create a mobile game that was demoed in the Innovation Lions, which allows you or I to map asteroids as well as play. The game is about to be released in Beta and you can sign up to save the world from extinction.

This is just one example of the sort of work that has been displayed at Cannes this year; work that is leading global behaviour change, changing societal attitudes and making the world a better place.

Another great example is “Nazis Against Nazis: Germany’s Most Involuntary Charity Walk”. The campaign by GGH Lowe and Grabarz & Partner in Hamburg forced Neo-Nazis to involuntary fundraise for a Nazi opt-out program, as for each metre they walked €10 was donated to the program. The Nazis were further mocked by billboards lining the route showing how much had been raised.

Of course I was also fairly chuffed by the community at SapientNitro’s Press Grand Prix win for our work for the Buenos Aires’ public bicycle system. The work is part of the effort to change Buenos Aires into an eco-friendly city and encourage use of public transport – especially bikes rather than the cars that clog the streets daily, making commuting a misery.

Cannes is also a great opportunity to check in with the next generation and I started off my time there with a visit to the Future Lions. The shortlisted entries from our best and brightest talent included Uber First Aid, a response to the fact that in large cities the response time for the emergency services averages at seven minutes.

This is in contrast to Uber, which arrive in an average of only three minutes. The idea would provide Uber drivers with first aid training and kits and would automatically contact the nearest Uber as well as the emergency services when the first call is made. Perhaps the role out of this would comfort the furious French taxi drivers blockading Nice Airport.

As a creative, I find that many of my kin shy away at the mention of data. However, the session by our own Simon James held at the SapientNitro penthouse focused on data analytics and how we can predict human behaviour accurately through modelling.

James gave examples ranging from the likelihood of criminals re-offending over time (the likelihood of offending goes down the longer it’s been since they last committed a crime), to showing that the younger people try cocaine, the more they’ll take it when they’re older. When it comes to retail and e-commerce, James discussed the various tribes of customer a business will have.

It was found that once a person starts buying regularly from one place, they will create a habit of it, whereas the longer they leave between trips the more likely they are to fit into either the “one-off binge” category or a customer that doesn’t return, so retargeting and bringing them back with deals is a way to secure future revenues from them.

James also revealed his mission to rid the industry of using return on investment as a success metric, for the simple fact that businesses should be aiming for profits over time, rather than trying to recoup ROI for a single project that could be branding-focused.

My time in Cannes has been divided between admiring the award-winning work, soaking up inspiration in the official and unofficial sessions, and networking – much of which was done on the way to sessions, leading to me missing a few as I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for five years.

But networking at Cannes is obviously synonymous with parties and this year there were more than I’ve ever seen before. It used to be that there were four or five parties that were the crème de la crème and which you were no-one if you couldn’t get in, but this year people were in the queue to one party whilst already planning their next move.

Personally I’m not sure about this party hopping; maybe I just think parties should be like good creative ideas. Simple yet brilliant. And one venue that did live up to that billing was the Daily Mail yacht. Everyone who was anyone had their boat shoe clad feet on deck.

Whilst it may have taken me longer to get from Nice Airport to the Croisette than from the South East of England to Nice – this is before the taxi strike even kicked in – once I made it all the struggles were well worth it. Cannes is still the place to be when it comes to getting your creative fix.

Trefor Thomas is executive creative director at SapientNitro