‘You know what’s going to be Gold when you see it’

Nellie Kim loved the buzz at Cannes but her experience as a juror was all work. She describes being “chauffeured straight from the hotel to a bunker-like room” and having only a few little breaks. While the jurors debated the merits of various campaigns, she says it was easy to agree on what constituted great work.

She says she was surprised at how many campaigns were tossed out, even great ideas, because of the strict parameters for scoring. To be considered a winner in the Direct category, for instance, the campaign needed a way to track sales of the product being advertised. “So much was eliminated, including some Canadian work,” she says. “But the stuff that rose to the top was the best we had seen. You know what’s going to be Gold when you see it.”

The Direct Grand Prix winner was Burger King’s “Whopper Detour,” where people could order a one-cent Whopper on the Burger King mobile app if they were near a McDonald’s restaurant. What impressed Kim was how well it used data, targeting and technology, but also that it was so much fun and exemplified the spirit of a challenger brand.

While it was inappropriate for jurors to fight for their own campaigns in the jury room, Kim says that if you saw something Canadian in the medal round, you could certainly talk about its impact on the Canadian market.

Her personal takeaway from Cannes? Brands need to be purpose driven to be relevant in today’s market, a trend she saw everywhere.

“It’s not just a Canadian value; it’s worldwide,” she says. “It has to be authentic. The consumer knows when you’re just trying to sell razor blades and using a greater topic to draw people in.”

Nellie Kim was inspired to go into advertising by the chance to apply creativity to her everyday life. As executive creative director with Lg2 in Toronto, Kim develops and leads brands across multiple platforms. Her work has been recognized at The One Show, the Cannes Lions, D&AD, London International Awards, SXSW Interactive, the Webby Awards and Clio Awards.

As the “creative data guy” in a data-driven creative agency, Ian Mackenzie is pretty up to date on tools and trends in his space, bringing valuable technology experience to his role as a juror. As a Canadian, he understands the constraints of tight budgets better than, say, a juror from a country where money is no object, possibly making him less easily seduced by blockbuster work.

That said, he did love some of the big campaigns this year, such as Nike’s “Dream Crazy,” winner of the inaugural Grand Prix in the new Entertainment for Sport category and the Outdoor Grand Prix. He also loved a smaller-scale piece for the animal rights group Bite Back, called “Not A Boomerang,” and a piece for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) called “#MoveForEquality,” judging both to be well executed and built on smart, simple observations.

The current trend toward social activism in advertising makes perfect sense to Mackenzie, in Canada and globally. In addition to selling products and services, he says brands can also promote any number of social causes.

“As long as the causes are in keeping with the other ideas that are at the heart of the brand, it’s all upside,” he says. “There’s no such thing as all things to all people, so you might as well stand for something.”

He believes advertising has long had a huge role in establishing cultural norms, in areas such as body image, gender norms, class distinctions and musical trends.

“In terms of shifting those norms once they’ve been established, I’d guess it’s a game of inches, where every brand, client and person at every agency has a chance to move the needle a bit one way or the other,” he says. “That’s a power we all have working in this business.”

Ian Mackenzie is the executive creative director at Toronto-based FCB/Six. He helmed “Destination Pride”for LGBTQ family advocacy group PFLAG Canada, which was the most awarded Canadian campaign at the 2018 Cannes Lions, and the provocative “Go Back To Africa”tourism campaign for Black & Abroad, which won the 2019 Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Creative Data. Personal influences in his career include writer Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, and the late director Stanley Kubrick, the visionary behind 16 movie masterpieces.

Marie-Josée Gagnon was impressed to see how many public relations campaigns are having a serious impact. She cites the 2019 PR Lions Grand Prix winner, “The Tampon Book” for client The Female Co., as a great example of how a marketing campaign can be disruptive, shifting societal and cultural norms. The campaign protested against Germany’s policy of applying a “luxury goods” tax rate on menstrual products by skirting German law, packaging the tampons in a book about menstruation so they could be taxed at a lower rate.

“It really brought up an important societal issue,” she says. “The campaign will undoubtedly have a huge impact around the world in terms of tax regulations and perceptions of inequality. I’d really like to see more examples of this, and yes, this will influence our work.”

While she says PR has always been a change leader, she found it interesting that this campaign could do something “bad” – such as skirt the law – and still win.

“As PR consultants, we often help brands reassess their projects so they become more effective,” she says. “I love the impact we can have on corporations. This is even more relevant today, where everyone must adapt in order to save the planet and mankind.”

Gagnon also raved about Germanyʼs “Catapult Air,” another campaign that made the shortlist. The PR team at Philipp und Keuntje created a mockumentary illustrating the ridiculous transportation situation for Sylt Island tourism workers by suggesting the catapult as a new mode of transportation.

“It was hilarious and highly effective,” Gagnon says. “Four months after the video, the German Minister of Transport approved the railroad expansion. The island’s problem was solved with a super tiny budget in a short time, thanks in part to this great PR campaign.”

Before founding PR and communications firm Casacom in 2001, Marie-Josée Gagnon worked in politics and diplomacy as the head of communications for major organizations, including the Quebec National Assembly and the Quebec Premier’s Office. She believes communication can change almost anything.

Karine Courtemanche is not impressed by one-offs or gimmicky ideas that don’t change the way marketers think about media and the way they go to market. As a juror, she was looking for something that could live for years.

“We became very sensitive to that as a jury,” she says. “If a campaign has been done before, that doesn’t mean it can’t win again – as long as it’s brought forward. It could be the evolution of a campaign, which sometimes is more difficult than starting from new every year.”

Courtemanche says they discussed the notion of media craft – about the media strategy and the media work that went behind the ideas –in her jury room, going back to the essence of what defines great media work. She says she enjoyed judging because the jurors shared the same principles and had a common understanding of what they were looking for – a campaign that would have a long-standing impact for consumers and was a true example of media craft.

“The judges in my room all had an incredible advertising culture, in that there are a lot of common trends and a common media knowledge that made it easier. “When we talked about campaigns that truly made an impact, people had references from all over the world. It used to be that you had to explain the entire culture for people to understand the campaign. We’re at a point now where there’s a common knowledge of media. There’s a lot of similarity in the market so that when you go to Cannes, anybody could win.”

While she applauded all the winners, Nikeʼs “Air Max Graffiti Stores” campaign from AKQA Sao Paulo – which won the Media Grand Prix – ticked all her boxes with its strong cultural and consumer insights. While the campaign required consumers who wanted to buy the shoes to visit specific street art sites and unlock the purchase using geolocation, she says the technology itself wasnʼt the point. It was how it was used.

“The future is going to be the same – understanding the consumer journey,” she says. “Then technology becomes the enabler for the consumer along the path.”

Karine Courtemanche joined Touché! in 2003, becoming president of Touché! and Omnicom Media Group Montreal in 2010 by the age of 35. In 2013, she launched Touché! in Toronto. The agency’s work has won multiple awards in Cannes, Rome, New York, London, Toronto and Montreal. Courtemanche has been twice named Media Director of the Year and Media Leader of the Year 2018 by Strategy Magazine. She sits on the board of FitSpirit, an organization dedicated to helping young girls discover the benefits and fun of being physically active, as well as teaching Creative Leadership at HEC Montréal.

A first-time Cannes Lions juror, Lyranda Martin-Evans says being at Cannes was “surreal” but that she quickly became immersed in the judging process. She found it interesting that while their jury president asked them to judge all the work from their heart, she also asked them to look at the work they hate and ask themselves why.

“Maybe there’s an important cultural nuance you’re not getting or a visceral reaction that’s a personal bias,” Martin-Evans says. “I got some cool international perspectives on stuff I had sort of glossed over with a more Canadian lens. Maybe there’s something that somebody loves and you donʼt get it – so you talk about what this means in Brazil or the political climate. Everything gets translated into English so the language may be rich in Spanish or Mandarin, but loses [something] in translation. It’s amazing to be together and talk. You’ve got someone from every different part of the world.”

She says whatever campaigns made it to the jury room had to be absolutely perfect to make it to the discussion point. She thought the Radio and Audio Grand Prix winner “Westworld: The Maze,” set new boundaries for creativity in the world of audio by enabling fans to use their voice to become part of Westworld’s fictional universe through a game designed for Amazonʼs Alexa device.

“What’s next is the power of technology merged with voice and music and audio to create something new,” she says. “In audio, there’s actually a huge explosion of technology in innovation. Look at Siri, Alexa and all these amazing technologies that use voice control. Podcasting is huge right now. There’s a whole new medium of audio that we’re telling our stories in right now. Creatively, we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.”

Before her experience as a juror, Martin-Evans thought of the Cannes Lions as an advertising and marketing festival, but now sees it as a true festival of creativity.

“I was profoundly reminded of the festival’s purpose, importance and why it matters for our clients and for us as an agency,” she says. “It’s that bigger stage of creativity and seeing things that are changing the world. I thought that was so beautiful, that we can be bigger than ourselves.”

Lyranda Martin-Evans is an award-winning creative director at DentsuBos, a public speaker, podcast host, and bestselling author. She is also the host of the Google podcast Lead by Womenwill, which inspires young women to rise to the C-suite.

Alexis Bronstorph approached her judging duties “wide-eyed and excited to be exposed to all the best work from around the world.” She believes the work and creativity coming out of Canada are definitely world class.

“Canada is showing up really well on the global stage,” she says. “It’s a great time for creativity and to be able to use creativity to do good in the world. A lot of what’s driving brands today globally is kind of how we act as Canadian citizens anyway. Diversity, inclusion and the environment are all a big part of the fabric of our country, so you see a lot of great work coming out of Canada aiming to make an actual difference and change perceptions.

“Great marketing reflects and pushes culture. We’re always listening to what the world is saying and can only help amplify that with the tools we have. When done well, brands can have a big impact on societal and cultural norms.”

For Canadians to win more at festivals like Cannes Lions, Bronstorph says we need to take big risks and a stance. A lot of the work she judged wasn’t just about awareness or telling a story, but about taking action.

“We’re very Canadian sometimes,” she says. “It’s okay to push ourselves to be big and bold and not as polite as we usually are.”

Her biggest takeaway from the festival was seeing how brands are doing things that were unthinkable in the past – taking political stances, aiming to solve societal problems that are normally the responsibility of governments, and seeing inclusion and diversity as a baseline for the work.

“There are no parameters; the ability to solve a brand’s business problems in the most creative way imaginable is on the table,” she says. “It’s a very exciting time for creativity.”

Alexis Bronstorph is the executive creative director at Taxi in Toronto. She started her career in advertising at the age of 9, when she did voiceover work for a radio commercial. She’s been a creative director and copywriter across all disciplines, from broadcast to digital to social and experiential. Her work has won Cannes Lions, One Show pencils, ADC cubes, D&AD pencils and Clios.

Although Carlos Moreno has been to the Cannes Lions before, this was his first time as a judge. He was struck by the seriousness of the judgesʼ work – how important it was for them to choose the right campaigns. He realized the impact they had as judges, not only on the winners, but also on their clients and the brands, and how much it means to win a Lion.

“I was looking for originality,” he says. “Something I’d never seen before that had true cultural impact. I was really interested in rewarding brands that had great ideas for building brands and solving business issues with creativity. As we got higher and higher into judging the medals, that’s what differentiated the work.”

The Outdoor Grand Prix winner, the Nike campaign championing social justice and featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, inspired him most as a classic example of an image and a line (“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything”) telling a wonderful story.

“It was a static piece, without any bells and whistles,” he says. “There was no tweet to a billboard or a screen that turned into a sandwich. Not only did it work, it created a multicultural effect, not just in America but around the world. That was very impressive and extremely hard to do. It was also genuine to Nike and what they’ve stood up for in the past. They weren’t trying to be something else. They were just trying to be true to who they are as a brand, so it felt very genuine.

“We had a lot of debate between the Kaepernick piece and the Skittles broadway musical one. Both are hard to pull off. I can only imagine the conversations with the clients on both pieces of work. But once you really started looking at the cultural impact, the level of creativity and the simplicity of how it was done, we were all good with the final award.”

Carlos Moreno joined Cossette in 2015, where as global chief creative officer, he runs a variety of blue-chip accounts, including McDonald’s, General Mills and SickKids. A native of Guatemala, Carlos was named one the most Influential Hispanics in Canada by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. His biggest inspiration is his mom with her insight and “crazy Guatemalan beliefs.”

Mike Dubrick says being on the ground at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity was like a shot of creative adrenalin. Itʼs as if the entire global industry gathers in one place for an entire week. Every time he goes, he says he walks away feeling incredibly inspired. As a judge, he says he was really looking for transformational work, something that will inspire people for years to come.

“While there are a lot of great entries, it’s that work that actually changes the way we do things as an industry that rises to the top,” he says. “This year’s Film Grand Prix – The New York Timesʼ ‘The truth is worth it’ campaign – really impressed me. It’s flawless.”

He also gave top marks to Burger King’s “Whopper Detour,” which won both the Direct and the Titanium Grand Prix as “truly the best idea at the festival.”

“It’s tongue-in-cheek trolling at its finest, it’s engaging and it used creativity to drive a tangible business result,” he says. “Another big takeaway from the festival was work that the whole world knew, work that breaks into culture – the Colin Kaepernick ‘Dream Crazy’ work from Nike. That’s always the goal.”

He hopes that what’s next in terms of creativity is riskier, attention-grabbing work that breaks into pop culture and makes brands famous.

While he thinks it’s fantastic that Canadian work has taken home a Grand Prix two years in a row, FCB/Six’s “Go Back to Africa” this year, and Cossette’s “Follow the Arches” for McDonald’s last year, he doesn’t think we’re reaching our full potential yet at Cannes.

“The talent in this country is phenomenal – there’s no reason why our work shouldn’t consistently be up there with the best in the world.”

Mike Dubrick joined Rethink in 2011, becoming a partner in 2015. His work includes Molson Canadian’s “Beer Fridge” and “Anything for Hockey” campaigns and has been recognized at major international awards shows, including Cannes and The One Show. Prior to advertising, he worked as a government analyst.