Cannes 2005 Commentary: It's about the Idea, stupid!

Communication is all about the Idea – not about media, creative, direct- marketing, or interactive. And idea has to come first, and can come from anywhere! This was the key thought that reverberated on day 2.

Consumers don’t see the silos that the industry sees, and even Cannes Lions does. For consumers everything is media. And everything communicates – whether it is mass media, new media, or a hitherto non-existent media. If this is the way consumers think, so should the industry. Is there a need for putting the media cap, or a creative cap?

Approaching the communication industry this way makes a lot of sense, and can also radically change the shape of future. Impermeable silos will become porous, and may even evaporate – a return of sorts to the original integrated adverting agency model.

“It’s about ideas, and not silos. All good ideas are equal and they can come from anywhere. We like to get all our agencies together in a room to ideate, and then take the most relevant ideas forward. No longer is idea a territory of any one department,” said P&G global media and communication manager Bernhard Glock talking to excahnge4media.

The annoyance over what is a media idea and what is a direct marketing idea was clear when the Media Lions jury and the Direct marketing jury faced press while announcing the winners.

Most Media Lions winners created or, at the least, reinterpreted the convention media. For instance, the Media Grand Prix 2005 winner ‘Clothing Donation’ campaign by MediaCom Tel Aviv for P&G’s detergent brand understood that one way to involve a large section of the TG that didn’t consume mass media, was to draw them into a “good deed” – Charity – and ask for their clothes as donations. And as people donated their old clothes, they were washed by mobile washing machines – of course using P&G detergent! A similar example of Ideas, as opposed to great media analysis and planning skills, was the adidas ‘Impossible Sprint’ campaign which also won a Lion. The media team at TBWA Japan converted a huge building into a horizontal race-track where enthusiasts ran an ‘impossible sprint’ to reach the top. The buzz and the PR coverage were worth millions of dollars. Many other wining examples showcased the supremacy of idea, and not so much who created them.

“The shackles of 30-second are certainly broken. We are about ideas, not media. We would like to call ourselves communication specialists and not media specialists,” said Mark Stewart, MD, OMD, Eastern Region, and the head of the Media Lions jury. Similar thoughts came through when the Direct Lions jury President was delivering his keynote speech at the Awards ceremony tonight. Said Dr Koblinger, “Direct marketing isn’t about a particular medium, but about changing the consumer behavior by reaching an idea. It could be a TV spot, a mail, an ad or anything that we can use to reach out.”

This brings us to an interesting question – if the whole communication business is all about generating great consumer ideas, does it make sense to have a dozen-odd specialist agencies. Or are they better off with integration – a physical integration, or at least a virtual integration. Well, while physical integration like in the case of agencies in the 80s may not happen, virtual integration will certainly be a reality. P&G, for one, said that the big issue facing productivity is that media and creative aren’t talking enough. And thus P&G is actively driving the integration process by “getting all of them into the same room.”

So the writing is on the wall – at the end of the day it’s the Idea that matters, and the silos of media, creative, DM, interactive and the rest should give way to generating and implementing powerful consumer ideas. The 2015 edition of Cannes Lions may well not recognize any ‘categories’ – but only great ideas that moved the consumer. And that may be a reflection of the industry.

To end this piece, coming to the Indian performance at Cannes Day 2, there was nothing much to cheer about. No wins at Media and Direct, but a few nominations for the Cyber categories. Tomorrow will be interesting when awards for the big category -- Press and Outdoor -- where India has a handful of nominations, is announced. You, as always, will read the results here first.