Day #1

I want to start off by saying that the decision to attend this unbelievable study abroad program has been one of the best I’ve ever made. The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity is one of the most prestigious festivals in the advertising, marketing, and PR world. Today, June 15, 2014 was the official start of the weeklong festival. 

The first seminar I attended today was Twitter: Storytelling Live. There were several main takeaways I had from the presentation.  Twitter’s main goal is to connect people to events instantly. In this day in age, everyone is creative in their own way. Advertisers are now working with consumers to create creative content. One great example of this was “Ryan Gosling wont eat his cereal”, a viral video created by a consumer that took twitter by storm. One reoccurring theme in this presentation is that sometimes 10 or 20 crazy ideas can be better than one major campaign.  Another theme was creating a campaign from something that currently happening. At one point, thousands of people were tweeting about first world problems.  Water is life turned this phenomenon into a campaign and called in “first world problems”.  The campaign can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyhfiCO_XQ

Twitter brought in Sir Patrick Stewart as a guest speaker. He spoke of how twitter is continuously changing his life and opening new doors for him in his acting career. He said, “ If something entertains and amuses you, chances are that it will entertain someone else as well”. Sir Patrick Stewart quickly found that Twitter opened the door to his comedic career and fostered a direct connection between himself and his fans.  

The second seminar I attended was Visa: Sports As a Source For Global Creative Inspiration. They brought in David Wise (Olympic Gold Medalist; Freestyle Skier) and Marcel Desailly (World Cup Winner; Footballer) to speak on the fit between a brand and athletes. The theme was that there must be a cohesive fit between brands and the athletes that endorse them, in order for consumers to see the value in the product. It is important for companies like Visa to sit down with the athletes and understand what they are looking for in a brand before creating a product.  The 3 main points made in this presentation were:

1. The Human Truth: “the more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning”

2. Unexpectedly Delightful: "if my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it then I can achieve it."

3. Inherently Social: "Find the good. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing it."

 

These are the main two seminars that resonated with me from day one of the festival. The line-up of seminars, workshops, tech talks, master classes and forums looks very promising for the upcoming week. Stay tuned…