Cannes Diary - Day One

Varun Arora, ECD, Cheil Worldwide Asia, reporting from Cannes

June 18, 2012

We arrived late. Courtesy Air France.

However, our welcome to the Palais de Festival couldn't have been more exciting. We're not attendees, we're nominees. It's a great feeling. Minus One, a submitted work of ours, has been shortlisted in the Direct Corporate Image category.

Awesome.

Celebrated by eating lunch at a restaurant called New York. Oh the irony.

But it isn't that the very essence of Cannes? A melting pot. Or in our case, a melting pizza.

This was apparent in the two seminars we caught. One was conducted by and for independent agencies. The other, by a funky new outfit based out of Tokyo and New York called 'Party'.

Won't bore you with details. You can check out both seminars on the Cannes Lions site in any case. Will however give you the headline. If you are a client, SACK YOUR AD AGENCY. If you're an ad agency, START BEING AND DOING MORE.

The best ideas presented by speakers from China, Sweden, Japan, Spain and the UK were not ads.

At a "gyaan" level there's a lot to draw on from both the talks. Stuff like how clients need to evolve from building brands to taking stands.

Well, check out the talks, especially the work samples.

Mori from PARTY was very engaging. As was Carlos Holemans from El Laboratorio.

I guess tomorrow the winners for Direct will be announced. And if Minus One does win, my next entry will be written in an inebriated state.

Cheers. Or rather a votre sante.

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