Uncategorized

The Good The Bad and The Ugly from Cannes 2016!

Manesh

06 Jul 2016 12:47 IST

New Update

The Good The Bad and The Ugly from Cannes 2016!

Cannes was trending for the entire last few weeks, Although I was not present there physically but thanks to all the million updates on all the social platform I was virtually present at the Palais!

The regular scam work ruled the conversations, some traditionalists claiming Cannes has become more of a tech fest with the Facebook’s and google’s of the world stealing their thunder, another interesting conversation on my feed where a senior guy was ranting about how it was about simple ideas years back and now it is about how complex the tech idea is the discussions at drinks. In my previous post, I had listed down the probable winners this year and most of the ones on the list actually won big medals.

Going through the Cyber winner list, I stumbled upon some good ones, some kind of OK ones (not sure how they won) and some really ugly ones.

The Good

So let’s start with the best of the show, " target="_blank">JWT’s the next Rembrandt as predicted by all the biggies won the well deserved grand prix. What i loved about the campaign was how Big data, Tech, and Art came together to create something outstanding and unimaginable. (I really want to touch and feel the Artwork) And all this powered by a Bank! #ING wow!!

" target="_blank">Justino was another masterpiece it looked nothing short of a Disney-Pixar masterpiece, what moved my heart was the story telling and the cute rendition. Everything was just perfect for this Christmas film, would love to see this character move on to a full-fledged feature film.

The other hands down winner was the " target="_blank">Manboobs / Free the Nipple Campaign. I am not really a fan of social ideas because they sit on borderline scam territory and very easy to pass off as real work. But this is the idea is so cleverly executed and it almost makes a fool of Facebook and Instagram by finding loopholes in their system. Drives home an important issue like breast cancer in a not so serious way.

The other decent social film is the "Hello" film done for NZ Transport Agency by Clemenger BBDO, I liked the humour in the idea and loved the actors reactions. Maybe I could relate to the situation cause even I’m tempted to peep into my phone while driving.

VR is the flavour of the season but "The field trip to Mars" is one of my Favourite activation this year. I have got inspired from this idea and I would love to recreate another similar story. Completely blown away by the execution of this idea, full marks for the Art and Tech job. Though it looks fabulous in the showcase video i would love to experience the quality of the visuals from close proximity, it looks like a micro tile type of screens. This is like the best of Group VR of the season.

How can a crowd-sourced/UGC idea not part of this list. One brand that is on my Wishlist is Beats by Dr.Dre, I always in awe with the kind of stuff they create, " target="_blank">The Game before the Game Campaign done by beats is one my favourite from 2014

and they up’d their game with this year’s straight-outta campaign. Anyone with an Internet connection can represent where they are “Straight Outta” The Straight Outta Somewhere meme generator made sure social media went wild with the hashtag #" target="_blank">StraightOutta. The idea is so simple that from a commoner to celebrities everybody could relate to their respective neighbourhood and it worked wonders for the campaign.

This social media campaign is an awesome mix of platforms and I just loved the case film, in fact, I am a fan of everything that comes out of R/GA.

The UGLY

Every big award are incomplete without its own share of controversies, but this year it was really ugly. Lead by scummy campaigns like the Bayer’s proactive work and the i-see App which was insensitive in all aspects. There are panel discussions on equal rights for women in the industry and here comes a sexist ad “Don’t Worry Babe, I'm not filming this.Mov”. Atlas BBDO had the courtesy to withdraw the entry after it received flak across the festival.

On the other hand To win an award off the back of refugees is a new low by grey Singapore. Even after so much criticism they haven’t withdrawn their entry and the worst part is the reasons like it was a test app, it didn’t have any approval from the charity it was created for, It was not even a working version which was submitted. I am shocked how it even reached to the metal level. The entire film smells rot how did the juries didn’t found out this.

I found this open letter to grey Singapore which summarises everything that’s wrong.

Even Sir Martin Sorell had his doubts over the standard of event going down, You can read the article here.

There was one more entry which my colleague shared with me it's called the " target="_blank">Traffic Gaaye (cow in Hindi), one look at the case film you know something is not right. it claims they attached a transmitter to 100 cows and they turned moving cows into live GPS of sort which updates you on traffic, they attached solar enabled collar phones to the cows.

In a country where the drainage lids are also stolen, I don’t know how safe phones attached to cows were? they claim they reduced the pollution of the city in peak hours because of this, Are you kidding me? have you even see Delhi in peak hours? how did no jury contested this it’s beyond me? And i don’t how they managed to sell it to videocon phones? and I’m looking forward to this innovative tech coming to Mumbai and other cities.

It proves that sometimes for winning the Lion agencies can go to any extent! Sigh!

Let me know your thoughts on these Good, Bad and the UGLY campaigns, or you if have found any good or ugly work in the Cannes showcase share it here.

au revoir!

Social media Indian Social Media Instagram Facebook bayer Cannes Lion Cannes Grey Singapore beats beats by dre cannes 2016 cannes lion 2016 dr dre rembrandt