Lessons from the Cannes Lions PR Jury by MSLGROUP

Yes we Cannes!
Or we could: Lessons from the
Cannes Lions PR Jury
Pascal Beucler
SVP and Chief Strategy Officer, MSLGROUP
Juror, Cannes Lions 2013 PR Jury

PR doesn’t only belong to
PR agencies.
+The Grand Prix for the PR Lions was
awarded to Dumb Ways to Die
canneslions.com/work/2013

PR doesn’t only belong to PR agencies.
It could be perceived as paradoxical, if not provocative, to
celebrate empowered PR when only a half-dozen PR agencies
were awarded PR Lions at the 60th Cannes Lions Festival.
The remaining 150 awards and mentions went to advertising,
digital or media agencies. PR agencies made less than 5% of
the awards.

As expected, I could hear some of my colleagues in the industry arguing that,
once again, our category had been hijacked. This is not my view. I believe that
we have what we deserve. Should we present more and better projects, we
would easily make the difference.
In Cannes like in everyday business, our future is in our hands and
nobody else’s. So let’s celebrate empowered PR in Cannes, whoever
has led them!
And most importantly, let’s do better next year!

The new powers of PR.
The most awarded projects are:
+ built on a great idea, grounded in relevant research and
insights,
+ turned into a strong story, and a well told one,
+ create strong engagement through an emotional
connection with the audience.

Whatever the topic, the sector, the category, the discipline, it’s all about
creatively engaging with people and communities through a well told
story, one which matters and moves consciences and hearts, and sometimes
changes attitudes and even behaviours.
Beyond what is now the obvious, I felt impressed by what I personally
consider a genuine evolution of PR from a secondary discipline to a
central piece of the communication equation in the Conversation
Age.
On the next slides, I will cover the new powers of PR.

The power of
empowering people.

The power of empowering people.
Part of our business is - and will remain - to influence influencers
on behalf of our clients. Silently, softly, behind the scenes.
But in PR like everywhere, disintermediation is rapidly and
profoundly changing the rules of the game. Gatekeepers and
barriers are vanishing, while people use the boundless power of
social media to raise their voice and be heard by decision-
makers, whether politicians or business executives.
Photo from untitlism on Flickr

Several case studies showed how the CEO of a company or a
government are directly put under people’s heavy pressure
and, within days, sometimes hours, cancel an initiative, abandon
a controversial project or, on the contrary, set up a new public
policy to answer citizens’ demands.
The more it goes, the more the power of the many can
challenge many of the established powers, and Public Affairs
become People’s Affairs.
Photo from untitlism on Flickr

No Means No, Amnesty International Norway
canneslions.com/work/2013/pr/entry.cfm?entryid=12665&award=2
Metropole Tweetphony,
Metropole Orkest, NL
Same Sex Marriage, Google France
Make the Politicians Work,
URA.RU City, Russia

The power of leveraging
innovation.

The power of leveraging innovation.
Big ideas, when inspired by great insights and research, are
much more powerful than déjà-vu copy-strategy angles.
Many of them are tech-based, utilizing the unlimited power of
PR’s favourite battlefield: earned media.
By amplifying the immense resonance of Twitter, Facebook and
other social media, they become massive weapons.
Photo from grafixer on Flickr

Developing apps is also a mandatory PR ability today, whether
for bringing a powerful crowdfunding component to the
campaign or exploiting the great resources of social gaming for
instance.
Sometimes, the innovation is more modest: just an ordinary
object, which quickly becomes a star, and a must-have.
Photo from grafixer on Flickr

Toastie Knife, Warburtons UK
canneslions.com/work/2013/pr/entry.cfm?entryid=25968
My Mattress Savings Bank, DES’S
Mattress Manufacturer, Spain
Axe Morning After Pillow, Axe Puerto Rico
Mobilizing The 12th Man,
C.S. Hammam-Lif, Tunisia Football Club
youtube.com/watch?v=7I19UQP-26Q

The power of
crowdsourcing content.

The power of crowdsourcing content.
A fair amount of the best projects were based on people’s
insights, ideas and self-generated content: words, stories,
pictures, videos, recipes and much more.
It’s a people’s world, after all. Whether fans or just engaged
folks, people are co-generating the story, spreading it widely
through their networks. In actuality, they are the story.
Photo from ngmmemuda on Flickr

A “People Inside” story, developed on social media, creates
deeper emotional connections than anything else: firstly with
many other people, and ultimately between people and
corporations or brands.
Photo from ngmmemuda on Flickr

We are David Bailey, Samsung UK
8 million protagonists,
Village Voice Newspaper
USA
8millionprotagonists.com
The Beauty Inside, Intel/Toshiba
youtube.com/watch?v=qyMQIMeSCVY
The Enemies of Despair, The
Swedish Social Insurance
Company
canneslions.com/work/2013/pr/entry.cfm?entr
yid=26108
FOLLOW2UNFOLLOW,
Correctional & Rehab Dept.,
Puerto Rico Government
yid=25920

The power of integrating
disciplines.

The power of integrating disciplines.
The use of social media is central, massive, dominant,
cornerstone to most if not all great projects. It’s not about
eventually cascading a big idea on social media, beyond
classical ads or PR techniques. It’s about developing the big
idea from, for and in social media.
Social media is ultimately the medium, but originally the amniotic
liquid where the idea is born and raised: the very source of the
idea.
Photo from stuck in customs on Flickr

In other words, the ecosystem and the chronology are very
different from what they used to be couple of years ago:
now it’s the online source first, then the online flow and lastly the
delta: once the magic has worked, mainstream media then pick
up the baton and share the story further.
Photo from stuck in customs on Flickr

Real Beauty Sketches,
Dove USA
yid=26507
Tundra Space Shuttle,
Toyota USA
yid=26445
Adopt A Pothole Project,
Apollo Tyres India
yid=12636

The power of moving people.
Events and experiential PR were king this year.
The real and the virtual come along: the “physical” event
comes first, bringing people together: people who are
emotionally united by something, somewhere, now. What they
see, what they hear, what they feel is immediately shared with
the people around them, and with many more people around the
globe.
Photo from pochacco20 on Flickr

In many ways, PR creates the conditions for a perfect balance
between the power of a live experience here and now, and its
social amplification.
This is rich content: the story you tell about something you just
experienced “live” is a good and lively one, enriched by images,
sounds…and one day scents. It’s a powerful snowball effect.
This is viral content: within minutes, it reaches hundreds and
thousands of people.
Photo from pochacco20 on Flickr

Tree Concert, Friends of the Earth
Germany
Free the Forced!, United Nations
Association of Germany

The power of engaging
millennials.

The power of engaging millennials.
The art and science of conversation is what makes the
difference when it comes to engaging with a generation of social
savvy, skilled, scrutinizing and demanding young people.
Campaigns that were awarded in various area – for recruitment,
issue management, safety transport, cause marketing – were
sharp, true, creative, larger than life, relevant to millennials’
expectations, and meaningful.
Photo from camdiluv on Flickr.

It’s a purpose-led world: more and more big corporations and
brands are embracing a ‘bigger-than’ USP and even old style
social responsibility. For engaging Gen Y, and soon Gen Z, this
is no longer an option.
Photo from camdiluv on Flickr.

The Candidate,
Heineken
youtube.com/watch?v=FBNbT-OogN4
The Human YouTube
Player
yid=26315
Dumb Ways to Die,
Metro Trains Australia
youtube.com/watch?v=FceKlVbL2wY

The power of creating
conversations that
matter.

The power of creating conversations that matter.
What’s the story? Whatever the content, the topic, the culture,
having a good story to tell, and telling it well, is what makes the
difference.
For all categories, disciplines and practices – consumer goods,
technology, leisure, travel, public affairs, cause campaigns – a
strong narrative architecture is needed.

The power of creating conversations that matter.
Dumb Ways to Die, Metro Trains Australia
youtube.com/watch?v=FceKlVbL2wY
Tundra Space Shuttle, Toyota USA

Celebrating Empowered
PR (People Relations).
Or, as The Holmes Report puts it:
“The Rise of People Relations”
holmesreport.com/opinion-info/13562/Cannes-2013-The-
Rise-Of-People-Relations.aspx

What will Cannes Lions look like in five years from now, for its 65th
anniversary?
All the frontiers are blurring, not only between PR and other
communications disciplines, but also between PR practices and
specialties. A new ecosystem is emerging, which will be people and
brand-centric, not discipline-centric.
There’s a true need for reinvention. The future is bright, the
future is PR, but still uncertain… It’s in our hands, actually.

Lessons from the Cannes Lions PR Jury by MSLGROUP

Lessons from the Cannes Lions PR Jury by MSLGROUP

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Lessons from the Cannes Lions PR Jury by MSLGROUP