A brief run into Craig Davis, Steve Gatfield & Donald Gunn
Perhaps the best thing about Cannes Lions is the opportunity to meet some of the biggest names of the global advertising industry, and know a little some of what’s going on. The brief pleasant encounters of day five were with Craig Davis who is now with Publicis Mojo, IPG’s Steve Gatfield and Donald Gunn of The Gunn Report.
Day five of the festival turned to be an interesting day from a meeting point of view. The first dash-in of the day was Craig Davis, former Chief Creative Officer of JWT Worldwide. Davis has now moved base to Australia and is working with Publicis Mojo as the company’s Co-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Publicis Mojo Australia and New Zealand. Davis will partner Graeme Wills, Chairman, Publicis Mojo Group, Australia and New Zealand and the appointment is effective immediately.
In effect that meant exchange4media met Davis on the second day of his new job, and ahead of him meeting the Publicis Mojo team. Davis only smiled at the mention of this. He informed that he would be at Cannes Lions till the end of the festival now. On the new job, he said, “I had decided to move to Australia for family reasons, but my ambition was to live in Australia and work in the world. The role with Mojo is a magic combination of ingredients for me, and I’m looking forward to helping the agency build and even stronger creative reputation.”
If his past record at JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi is anything to go by, building a creative reputation is second nature to Davis.
The second interesting encounter of the day was IPG’s Executive Vice President Steve Gatfield, who was then was on his way to a meeting at the Majestic Barrier. Gatfield had attended the India party on June 24, 2009 very briefly too. He spoke to exchange4media on the Cannes Lions in general and some of the sessions that he had attended. While he said that he had enjoyed some of the sessions, at an overall level, there weren’t too many new things that he had seen at the festival yet.
However, to be fair to the festival, when you are of the experience and stature of a Steve Gatfield, there are very few things that are new or not heard of.
Another fun interaction of the day was with The Gunn Report’s Donald Gunn. As vibrant as ever, Gunn was already listing his favourites from India for Film Lions, and the Times of India film had topped the list. Little surprise that that was two of the three entries from India that made it to the Film Lions shortlist. There was more work that Gunn had liked that included Arjuna the Archerer from JWT India for Sulekha.com and Publicis’s film on Himani pain relief.
Overall Gunn was enjoying the festival. The Gunn Report would be out in another five months again, and the company had also issued a report for Asia Pacific at the AdFest in March 2009. Gunn said that the group was all charged for the forthcoming reports.
