The fifth day at Cannes was a bit light. I will come to that in a minute, but let me first dive into the awards declared on the fourth day. In design, Out of the Box picked up a gold for its client Mother's Pride. My congratulations to the team for their effort.
In press, there were a few more silvers for Mudra and McCann. In all, India took home nine trophies. Not bad.
But the Cyber Lions showed just how far we are from making any significant impact on the world stage as far as digital advertising goes. The jury chairman for the Cyber Lions spoke about how advertising in this category was essentially a coming together of New York's Madison Avenue (a popular address for America's advertising agencies) and Silicon Valley. In my view therein lies the problem as far as India goes. There is no such marriage here yet, which showed at the Cannes this year. No short lists in the category. Not good at all.
Cut to Thursday morning. The must show at Cannes remains the Saatchi & Saatchi's New Directors Showreel, a competition aimed at finding new talent in the field of film-making.
To get into the hall you need to be in really early. I am glad I made it on time.
The theme of the show was Hello, Future. There were a lot of films with awe-inspiring special effects. Distorted faces, incomprehensible lyrics and unusual stories were part of the package, too. It was a visual delight nonetheless.
After devouring a slice of salmon, I attended the Ogilvy & Inspire lecture, which coincides with the centennial of David Ogilvy's birth. The host was Ogilvy's Worldwide Creative Director Tham Khai Meng who introduced the speaker for the evening, Sir Ken Robinson, a best-selling author, education reformer and creative thinker.
Robinson charmed the audience with his humour and inspiring speech on culture, innovation and evolution. He defined creativity "as a process of developing original ideas to create value". "Great creative work is inter-disciplinary," he said. "Create the conditions where creativity flourishes. It is more painful to contain creative energy than to release it."
Tonight the award shows take a break. But I have engagements, nevertheless.
I will end this piece with what Khai said, "There is only one thing you can say with certainty about the future. No one has a clue about it."
(The author is National Creative Director, Publicis Capital)
