Day 1; Word of the Day is: Inspiration

Inspiration.

Merriem-Webster's Dictionary defines Inspiration as:

a : a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation b : the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions c : the act of influencing or suggesting opinions 

 

If there was one feeling I left the first day of the Cannes Lions festival with most with today, Inspiration would most certainly be it. You know that feeling you get when you see something relevant to your life that is truly a work of art? You just start tensing up inside while the figurative butterflies start going to town in your stomach. It's a rare feeling, and we may or may not have experienced it. One of my teachers in high school said these moments in time are called aesthetic moments. He said that when you do feel these moments, you should cherish them because they don't come around often in one's life.

I was lucky enough to have one of those today.

It came to fruition when I was sitting in a seminar hosted by the agency thenetworkone. Specifically when a man from Egypt, who's name was Ali Ali (no that's not a typo) showed us a clip for an ad he came up with for Coke. The spot was called "A Tribute to the 'Like' Button". It was created after the Egyptian revolution when facebook usage skyrocketed to 8 times the previous level. It showed Egyptian citizens professing their love for facebook, and specifically the "Like" button. They claimed that people liking anything other people posted on facebook greatly improved people's moods, health, sleep, sexual performance, and just about anything in between. The spot was edited beautifully to show an amount of positive emotion that I thought would have been impossible to see after what the country of Egypt has been through. 

Seeing that spot really spoke to me. It reinforced that creative marketing is something I truly want to be a part of. It truly Inspired me.

Most of the other seminars I went to were amazing as well. 

 

I started the day off with a seminar hosted by goviral. Their topic was "The Long Idea". They taught us about the differences between the "long" idea and the big idea. They put in some amazing research and discovered that 37% of all conversation between people is about one brand or another. One of the more controversial experiments they conducted was that of comparing the best best brands to the longest lasting religions of the world. The speaker concluded that the best brands share the 10 pillars of religion. The more pillars that a brand can encompass, the longer lasting it will be. He used Apple as an example which encompassed all of that and subsequently is one of the most recognizable brands in today's market.  They also emphasized the importance of word-of-mouth advertising and offline to online promotion. They used research to back the claim up that it was much more effective on consumers impressions of brands.  I completely agreed with this. I believe that word-of-mouth advertising is underused and is one of the most effective ways to gain consumers' trust of your product or service.

The next seminar I attended was hosted by UM, L'Oréal, and BMW. This seminar was hyped up beyond all belief because of the big named brands participating it but honestly fell short of my expectations. It basically consisted of 5 professionals sitting as a panel debating very dry aspects of the marketing world. There was little to no audience engagement and in my mind a very poorly orchestrated seminar. 

One of the most talked about seminars was the  one hosted by imc^2. Along with some various other reasons, this was because Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers was a guest panel speaker. It was hosted by Bob Garfield, who previously wrote for AdAge as a critic and  in the advertising world is known for being very harsh and critical of certain ads. This definitely showed as he took the reigns for this heated debate over social media. It seemed as though he shut down all the speakers except for Nick. The described facebook "Likes" as a source of currency for a product, or in Nick's case, for his band. I didn't fully agree on this concept but I can see where they are coming from. I've always believed in more solid form of ROI and "Likes" just don't measure a campaigns success the way cost per impression or other ways of measurement do it for me. But I do understand that this is the era of social media and success for campaigns will be measured in different ways. 

Anyway, I've been rambling a little too long I think. Tomorrow we start at 10:00 am. I'll try and keep you updated with pictures and posts throughout the day.

Be easy, Guys.