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This week we’ve been on the ground at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity flying the flag for Britain’s creative industries on behalf of UK advertising to drive export sales of our world-class advertising and marketing services. All of this has been made possible thanks to the great support from our partners across UK advertising, including Channel 4, Clear Channel, Framestore, London & Partners, M&C Saatchi, and Newsworks. Together, they helped us deliver on a unique partnership for our industry with the Department for International Trade.
We’ve hosted a series of different Creativity Is GREAT events throughout the week, promoted the involvement of British jurors were judging more than 25 categories and 80+ event speakers sharing their expertise with the world’s advertising community. We’ve been celebrating our Lions winners and supporting our talented UK Young Lions who have competed with peers from across the globe.
It’s been a fantastic week full of creative inspiration, plus a little bit of British rain, so this edition of your favourite Friday read is dedicated to Cannes Lions. For more, read this excellent round-up of the festival by Gideon Spanier in the Evening Standard.
First things first – did we mention that we brought British rain to the Riviera? Yep, you heard right…
In a festival-first we created a special rain photo booth where delegates could have their picture taken in the rain, sheltered by a red, white and blue umbrella dressed in UK-themed props. They then received an instant memento of the occasion – a printed photo card and a downloadable set of their photo-shoot.
The photo booth was a central part of our #CreativityIsGREAT campaign – we wanted to to engage with international delegates from around the world in a way that was quintessentially British.
Safe to say, our Cannes Lions delegates loved the rain! We had hundreds of international advertising peers posing for us beneath our Union Jack umbrella – check out the photo galleries on our hub here .
Leading figures from UK media and advertising came together at a packed-out Little Black Book & Friends Beach for a panel session titled: ‘How do you lead world class creativity?’ The panel was chaired by Tracey De Groose of Newsworks and included Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon; Framestore CCO Mike McGee; David Pemsel, CEO of The Guardian Media Group; and Kate Bosomworth, CMO of M&C Saatchi. The session looked at what it takes to lead a team that can perform at the highest creative levels. We asked what are the dos and don’ts of running a business that strives to produce creativity at the highest levels.
The main themes of the session were that business relies on talent to drive its creativity and that risk-taking and rising to the challenge of constraints are key to achieve success. Reflecting on the week, Mike McGee said that: ‘The value of Cannes Lions is in winning the awards, the platform it provides, the inspiration and the networking’ it provides for UK and international creatives.
The #timeTo campaign to end sexual harassment in advertising was the focus of a talk at Le Jardin de Clear Channel, where Katie Lee, CEO of Lucky Generals; Alice Archer, Head of Communications, EMEA, IPG Mediabrands; and Oliver Easthope of RAPP joined Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive of the Advertising Association to look at how industry is meeting the challenge of sexual harassment in the industry.
Advertising’s think tank Credos conducted research that showed 26% of respondents working in the industry had been sexually harassed. Since then a series of creative executions designed by Lucky Generals have brought the issue into industry’s consciousness.
A new film has been created specially for Cannes and you can view this here . You can read more on the event in this piece written by Hannah Ohm Thomas of Newsworks.
In addition, we organised the first UK – Korea creativity exchange which brought together leading figures from across the industry in the UK and South Korea (pictured above); hosted a session looking at the growing importance of the UK Createch industry; hosted our friends from the China Advertising Association at a UK – China networking lunch, and ran another session on the importance of rebuilding public trust in advertising. To read about these events, and more, head over to our dedicated Creativity Is GREAT hub here.
Gideon Spanier has written a fantastic piece for the Evening Standard on our activities at Cannes Lions this week and our Creativity Is GREAT campaign. You can read it here.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Liam Fox, the UK’s International Trade Secretary, talked about the importance of protecting and building our advertising industry – a true vote of confidence in our export capabilities. You can read it here.
Business Reporter Liam Kelly spoke to Advertising Exports Champion, James Murphy, at Cannes Lions this week to hear his thoughts on how British advertising can continue to thrive for the future. You can read it here.
On Tuesday Clear Channel UK hosted a special Q&A session with Cephas Williams, founder of the 56 Black Men movement, which is challenging the perceptions of black men in the media. You can read it here.
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