Cannes diary: UK bags a dozen Media Lions
Digital Cinema Media’s marketing director, Zoe Jones, continues her Cannes adventure – and admires the impressive haul of awards from UK agencies.
The last couple of days have been really inspiring. So much so that its been impossible to find a minute to write! The challenge here is to strike the right balance between meetings of Cannes to catch up with people and share ideas, and to attend the huge variety of seminars and awards that showcase great creative work from around the world.
One session that stood out was PHD’s presentation at Cannes Lions, which featured visionary game designer Jane McGonigal. She revealed how we can harness the power of games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness.
She was introduced by Mark Holden, PHD’s Global Strategy and Planning Director – who was inspired by Jane’s book to add a game layer to the media agency’s own global operating system, Source.
Speaking to Campaign before the session, she said: “The more games you play, the more motivated you are to tackle tough challenges in real life.
“You become more optimistic about your skills and abilities. You are more determined in the face of setbacks, more resilient, less likely to give up.”
There certainly seems to be an atmosphere here, not just of resilience in persistently challenging economic times, but of optimism and positivity.
In previous years, some of the talk has been that the UK hasn’t won enough awards, but in the fiercely competitive Media Lions category the UK agencies came away with the biggest haul. The UK took home a dozen Media Lions, including a Gold Lion for Mindshare UK London’s “Kleenex catches colds” work for Kimberly Clark.
Apart from the activity in the Palais, it’s been a busy couple of days catching up with people at the Little Black Book Beach, on boats and on nearby islands!
It’s a slightly surreal setting to be talking to people that are often based round the corner in Soho, but it would be impossible to cover the ground and breadth of ideas and fresh perspective that coming here gives you.
Two networking events that have really stood out were the Marketing Society lunch and Campaign’s annual beach party. Both organisations are increasingly global in their reach and influence and the organisers pulled together a compelling mix of agencies, media owners and clients from around the world.
Aside from almost losing my sunglasses when slickly embarking from a scary looking dinghy, there have been no mishaps, although the next few days will definitely be a test of my stamina as it truly is a 24 hour festival!