Judging is finally over, thank God. Overall, a great experience, and one I wouldn’t have missed for the world, but I somehow doubt if I will ever volunteer again for any jury duty that promises to last more than two days.
The weather continues to be out of this world, more Indian delegates have started trickling in, and today and tomorrow should be good fun. Enterprising young Raj Kurupp of Creativeland Asia has taken up a flat for himself, and has promised me a home-cooked Indian meal. Drool, drool, can’t wait — is there anything sadder than a Tam-Bram who has finally taken to chicken starving in this culinary paradise of all things that go splash?
Anyway, back to talking shop. Yesterday was discussion day — deciding the Golds, Silvers and Bronzes — and the Grand Prix, always assuming there was one. Of course, there were differences. Some of my favourites fell by the wayside, plummeting in 60 seconds of voting into the cold world of what-almost-was. But then, some also found other enthusiastic admirers and advocates, and rose to take their place in the glorious Cannes sun. But overall, I am more than comfortable with the decisions we took as a group, and the honesty with which we arrived at them.
Some truly interesting debates were, to me, the highpoint of this entire four-day experience. Because one thing is very clear — gone are the days when Outdoors is where you enter your unreleased press ads.
For example, one entry was the Melody Road, an entry from Dunlop Falken tyres. To bring alive the rewards of not speeding, a small borough no one has heard of collaborated with the company to create a stretch of road bearing precision-cut grooves that became potholes with a purpose: drive at an exact 40 miles per hour, and your tyres will sing out the opening bars of Scarborough Fair — the instrumental version, of course. How cool is that? And is it, in fact, too cool to be considered an Outdoor entry, and does it actually belong in Titanium, that wonderful catch-all category for ideas that defy classification?
Or take the case of the launch of Oasis’ new album. Flying squarely in the face of the prevailing copyright paranoia, the rock band actually gave out the sheet music of their forthcoming album to hundreds of street musicians in New York several weeks before the launch — talk about product sampling with a difference. Is that Outdoor? Even if Cannes has a new sub-category called Live and Stunts? And if it is, then should O&M’s mind-blowing campaign for Pulse Polio — where they had volunteers, who were themselves victims of the cruel disease, going house to house to persuade parents to take their children to the free camps — actually be entered in Outdoor, and walk away with the Grand Prix? Questions, questions.
In conclusion, the best part of this whole trip for me has been the intense interaction with some of the finest minds in the business. Different backgrounds, different cultures, different personal beliefs about advertising — and yet, by day four, it was party time among friends. No bones broken, no egos bruised too badly, no new enemies made — just relief it was over, and pride in the results we were going to present to the world as our collective judgement.
And now, one last effort to keep smiling through the press conference, then — Gutter Bar, here I come.
(The author, popularly known as Chax, is the national creative director at Draft FCB Ulka)
