Cannes Lions 2016 Unwrapped

3CANNES UNWRAPPED
Hello,
Every year at the end of June, over 15,000 representatives from the marketing industry
descend on a small seaside town in the South of France to spend seven days celebrating
creativity within the industry and beyond.
At the heart of the festival are awards. Adapting every year to reflect the dynamic nature
of our industry, agencies and advertisers collectively submit over 40,000 entries, hoping
to win some ‘metal’ by the end of the week. Winning work is often ground-breaking,
playing a role in society (more on that later) but also in isolated cases, challenged on its
legitimacy.
But the awards are just one part of an inspiring (and often overwhelming) festival. It is a
chance to witness industry leaders share their stories, meet like-minded people from the
other side of the world and maybe even meet prospective future clients.
I was fortunate enough to attend Cannes for the first time this year. My first observation
was the dominant presence of media giants Facebook and Google as well as multiple ad-
tech and digital first businesses reflecting the landscape our brands operate in.
Beyond the inevitable glasses of rosé and bewilderment at celebrities on stage, the one
thing Cannes does is renew your appetite to create great work. It also gives you a sense of
the direction our industry is heading and the opportunities in the near (and distant) future
for our clients.
This is why we have produced this book.
We aim to give you a flavour of what the team and I observed at our week in Cannes and
arm you with ideas to activate in your role to maintain competitive advantage.
The book has been a team effort, so thanks go to Ashley Earnshaw, Adriana Colaneri and
our 2016 Carat Scholarship winners for their contribution to this book. Thanks also go to
Tess Murphy and Breanna Foster for support behind the scenes.
Regards,
Sam Hegg
Chief Strategy Officer - Carat Australia

The Cannes Festival is no longer a single
minded celebration of creativity, but an
event dedicated to the collision of data,
technology and creativity.
Converging industry disciplines come
together and those that walk away with the
most valuable experience are those that
immerse themselves in all three.
Finally, this year, we seem to be evolving
as an industry from ‘creativity vs. data’ to
‘creativity supercharged by data’. Work
awarded reflected this but only campaigns
that retained simplicity of thought, so often
a critical aspect lost in a data driven world.
And the contribution of technology to the
conversation in Cannes was one of the
ability marketers now have to redefine
how stories are told and experienced. This
stretched from pragmatic conversations
around the merging worlds of television
and online video to the horizon where VR
will again reset the audience landscape.
Another theme evidenced in the winning
work to the conversations on stage was
the power of brand purpose, but only
if it is activated authentically. Leaders
of organisations like P&G and Unilever
promoted the impact brands can have on
societal issues and the goodwill that comes
with this. The naysayers questioned the
lack of evidence that this is driving business
results for brands or was just high levels of
engagement in powerful human stories.
This theme extended into the awards as
well. Every year, we see cause related work
capture most of the glory. Judges admit
these entries conjure more emotional
connections than those that represent big
complex brands looking to solve a business
problem. There will no doubt be renewed
calls for charity or charity-like entries to sit
in separate categories next year.
And finally, with so much focus on the
ability of data to unlock previously unseen
insights and technology that can engage
audiences like never before, again,
conversation pivoted to the make-up of
our own industry. Many rightly questioned
diversity in our industry and that we just
don’t represent the people we target. For
this reason, we have dedicated a section of
this book to the topic. Hopefully we will be
talking about it in a more positive tone this
time next year.
As you can tell, Cannes covers so many
broad aspects of our industry. We drew out
the most relevant trends that surfaced this
year. We hope you find them both inspiring
and actionable.
"WE NOW OPERATE AT THE INTERSECTION
OF DATA, TECHNOLOGY AND CREATIVITY.
THE INNOVATION FOR BRAND GROWTH
REQUIRES NOT JUST GREAT CAPABILITY IN
ALL THREE, BUT THE MASTERY OF THEIR
INTERRELATION AND BALANCE."
Media Lions Jury President: Nick Waters
CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network APAC
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OUR CONTRIBUTORS
ASHLEY EARNSHAW
NAMITA SOPALMADELIN LARSEN BEN THOMAS
SAM HEGGADRIANA COLANERI
Chief Marketing Officer
Digital Manager - Brisbane
Chief Strategy Officer
Strategy Manager - Melbourne
Chief Investment Officer
Strategy Director - Sydney
LOCATION
06.
MILLENNIALS
08.
SCREENS
VIRTUAL REALITY
04.
SIMPLICITYDIVERSITY
01.
PURPOSE
03.02.
05.
ADBLOCKING
07.

Also in the firing line were VaynerMedia
and Thrillist for their now infamous
‘attractive females and models only’ party
invite, as well as AlmapBBDO for their ill-
considered Bayer campaign. The blatantly
sexist work disappointingly won them a
Bronze Lion, which was promptly returned
after both the decision and the work were
widely condemned.
It wasn’t all bad however. The ‘See It, Be It’
movement received an enormous amount
of attention at the festival.
As part of ‘Lions Innovation’, Reshma
Saujani, the founder of ‘Girls Who Code’
– a non-profit that introduces girls to
computer science, coding and robotics
– emphasised the importance of shifting
perceptions and changing mindsets at a
young age.
While one eye was clearly on the future,
one was also firmly on the ‘now’, with a
new dialogue begun around the negative
portrayal of women in advertising.
You cannot be what you cannot see –
girls need role models. We socialise
girls to be ‘perfect’ and boys to be
‘brave’. So when we teach girls to
code, we have to teach them how to
be imperfect (mistakes are ok), then
they can become badass girls who
can take on anything.
Gender was firmly on the agenda at
Cannes, and it certainly wasn’t all sunshine
and rosé.
The lack of diversity in the industry is well
documented; even with the progress made
over recent years, women are clearly under-
represented in senior leadership. Cannes
was no different, with women accounting
for only 26% of jury presidents and 40% of
judges overall.
There is obviously still work to be done,
and how best to go about that was a clear
focus of the festival. The question was not
only what brands and agencies could do to
combat the lack of diversity in our industry,
but also what power (and therefore
responsibility) we had to impact these
issues in broader society.
Equality crusader and ex BBH New York
chairman, Cindy Gallop, led the charge at
this year’s festival, taking no prisoners on
her mission to start the hard conversations
required to ‘change the ratio’.
Among those to be called out was creative
strategist, James Hurman, for his book,
‘The Case for Creativity’ (distributed to
every Cannes delegate) which did not seek
the expert opinion of a single female from
the creative industry amongst its countless
contributors.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
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Diversity
“THE FUTURE BELONGS TO AGENCIES THAT INJECT DIVERSITY
OF THOUGHT INTO THEIR PEOPLE AND PROCESSES.”
SAM BALL, M&C SAATCHI
01.

Pictured (clockwise from top left): SK-II’s Marriage Market Takeover Print Ad; Madonna Badger; The Girls’ Lounge; Cindy Gallop.
One female creative who is certainly
making her mark on this issue is Madonna
Badger, co-founder of creative shop Badger
& Winters. Badger shared a moving and
brutally personal story of how the loss of
her three young daughters and parents
in a house fire motivated her to make a
difference in the world and fight to put
a stop to the objectification of women in
advertising.
Out of that was born the
#WomenNotObjects campaign.
“We googled objectification of women and
what came up? Advertising. This is when I
knew I had the power to make a difference
when I found a purpose and the agency’s
purpose.”
#WomenNotObjects calls advertisers
and agencies to task, putting pressure on
them to take responsibility for the way they
portray women and the female form in
their ads. Specifically, it impresses upon the
industry the importance of not devaluing
women by using them as merely props.
Instead, Badger emphasises the importance
of employing empathy in all work, not
only from a moral standpoint, but also a
business perspective.
According to Badger, the objectification
of women can be quantified: “It had a
negative effect on every KPI across every
consumer group. It is disastrous to your
brand reputation and extremely damaging
to purchase intent.”
When ads portray women as ‘whole,
human and strong’, purchase intent rises
35 points and brand reputation rises 83
points.
Studies conducted by Millward Brown
appear to support Badger’s research,
revealing that progressive advertising
generates stronger engagement, talkability
and delivers better branded impact.
The industry is clearly starting to pay
attention, with Unilever using the festival
as a platform to launch their new
#unstereotype initiative – a global ambition
for all of its brands around the world to
break gender biases and step away from
stereotypical representations of gender in
their marketing.
Unilever CMO Keith Weed:
80% of women do not identify the
stereotypes that we as an industry
are putting out there. The time
is right for us as an industry to
challenge and change how we
portray gender in our advertising.
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WHERE IS IT IN THE WORK?
Following on from the success of the
‘Like a Girl’ campaign, Unilever’s direct
competitor, P&G, again had some
exceptional work on show, winning 21
Lions for work addressing gender inequality
& stereotypes, including #ShareTheLoad
for the Ariel Brand in India, Pantene’s
#DadDo, and SK II China’s ‘Marriage
Market Takeover’.
The ‘Marriage Market Takeover’ campaign
was particularly compelling, as it dealt with
China’s stigma against single women over
the age of 25, known locally as ‘Leftover
Women’, who are desperately pitched to
potential suitors by their parents in online
‘marriage markets’. The documentary-
style TVC was designed to empower the
country’s unmarried women to find pride
in their careers and devotion to finding real
love.
Locally, ANZ highlighted the gender pay
gap in their campaign, ‘Equal Pocket
Money’, which filmed children’s reaction
to being paid differently for basic chores
based on gender. Spoiler alert – they were
not impressed.
UNILEVER ‘MARRIAGE MARKET
TAKEOVER’
ANZ ‘EQUAL POCKET MONEY’
Pictured: Unilever’s ‘#unstereotype’ panel, featuring (L-R)
Juliana Chugg (Mattel), Rosie Arnold (BBH), actor Alison Reiner,
Aline Santos (Unilever), R Balki (Lowe India) and BBC presenter
Lucy Hockings
WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU:
• The drive for diversity must be placed
firmly on top of companies’ agendas as a
business imperative. Companies that have
a diverse team and work with agencies that
possess a diversity of thought are more
likely to drive innovation and disruption in
their business.
• Diversity – gender, race, age – is a
business imperative, not just a moral one,
so make sure it’s at the top of your agenda,
not in the ‘nice to have’ basket. Those slow
off the mark may well find themselves on
the wrong side of history.
• Demand diversity from your partner
agencies: a greater diversity of thought
means better ideas that resonate more
strongly with the breadth of your customer
base.

Purpose
“SMOKE AND MIRRORS IN MARKETING IS OVER. PEOPLE
ARE GOING TO KNOW REALLY QUICKLY AND GLOBALLY
WHETHER A PRODUCT KEEPS ITS PROMISES.”
WILL SMITH
02. Similarly, Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand
Officer of Procter & Gamble took to the
stage to discuss ‘Raising the Creative Bar’,
questioning whether in a time of limited
consumer attention and overwhelming
inventory, is the ad industry just adding to
the noise?
He spoke of the need to “embrace
creativity as a uniquely human endeavour”,
utilising the power of an idea that can
make us truly feel – whether that is laugh,
smile, cry or act.
All of the speakers cautioned against
inauthentic alignments; finding the right
cause that both resonates with your
consumers and is relevant to your brand
is essential, as is then creating a truly
meaningful role for yourself within the
conversation. And it doesn’t necessarily
need to be a charitable cause; wellbeing
and sustainability were key themes from
much of the winning work, so get creative.
Infact brands that demonstrate social and
environmental purpose outperform those
that don’t, with 66% of consumers willing to
pay more for sustainable brands (up from
55% in 2014).
Too much of our advertising is
unwanted, uninteresting, uninspiring,
and therefore ineffective.
‘Purpose’ was the buzzword of the festival
and the central theme in much of the
winning work, with creativity and innovation
joining forces to solve problems and
address tensions in ways that had a positive
impact on the lives of others.
The importance of brand purpose might
not be new, but purpose in the ‘Cannes
context’ went well beyond product features
and brand ideals, instead looking to what
purpose means to consumers.
Blake Mycoskie, Founder of Toms, summed
this up when he said that people want to
“be part of something that represents their
ideals, what they believe in the world”.
Brands are being pushed to broaden their
narrative and actually stand for something
– a shared mission or common values –
with their consumers to create positive
change and ultimately start conversations
that truly matter.
During his keynote ‘The Future of Brands’,
Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever, called the
industry to task on the issue:
“Our industry spends billions of dollars
annually shaping perceptions and we
have a responsibility to use this power in a
positive manner.”
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
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American outdoor retailer, REI, won the
Titanium Grand Prix for their campaign
#OptOutside. The company took a stand
against commercialisation, giving their staff
a day off on one of the biggest sales day
of the year, Black Friday. By acting on their
core principles of enjoying the outdoors,
REI demonstrated their commitment to
bettering the lives of their consumers over
the desire to sell products.
The campaign certainly got people talking,
with social media impressions up 7,000%.
An additional 150 businesses followed
REI’s lead and shut their doors for the
day, encouraging over 1.4 million people
to spend the day outdoors rather than in
shopping centres.
REI ‘#OPTOUTSIDE’
DB Export beer also took home a Cannes
Lion for tackling an environmental issue
with their campaign ‘Brewtroleum’.
Partnering with a biofuel provider, DB
Export turned their leftover brewing yeast
into biofuel which was made available at
60 petrol stations across New Zealand.
Playfully recruiting DB Export drinkers to
‘Drink beer. Save the world!’, the campaign
cleverly combined their business purpose
to reduce environmental impact via an
activity their consumers clearly love doing –
drinking beer.
DB EXPORT ‘BREWTROLEUM’
• Always be true to your brand and what
it is based on. Authenticity is crucial in
this space and cannot be shoe horned.
Understand your consumers and having
constant, two-way conversations is key.
• ‘Be daring, courageous and different’- It
takes a team of people who care, believe
and have the drive to create change.
• This type of activity can’t always be
measured using standard metrics. Clarify
what the real purpose of the activity is and
what success would look like.

Simplicity
“MARKETERS: JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN’T MEAN
YOU SHOULD.”
MARC PRITCHARD, P&G
03. With so much great work on show at
Cannes, it’s easy to get caught up in
wanting to use everything you see as
inspiration for your own work; new tech,
data, innovative media, the list goes on.
And as inspiring as all this is, there is a
danger that we’re too quick to jump on
board ‘the next big thing’ before really
interrogating whether it’s right for a brand,
product or audience. There may be a role
for new technology but it can often lead
to an overwhelming and complicated
experience for the consumer. But what
if the solution is much simpler? What if,
rather than designing for complexity, we
design for simplicity that is so brilliant it
can’t be ignored?
This idea of simplicity was summed up
perfectly by Simon Lowden, President
of PepsiCo’s Global Snacks Group and
Global Insights when he said of the ad
industry that “everyone is trying to ignore
what we’re doing for a living. If we make
marketing communications more complex,
it only makes them easier to ignore for
consumers who are already predisposed to
doing so”.
The philosophy of simplicity also shouldn’t
be restricted to the way we communicate
ideas, but how we sell them in. Adam
Grant, author of the book Originals shared
how simplicity should extend to how we
communicate our ideas by connecting
them to something your audience already
understands. As an example, Grant told
the story of how producers sold the story
of Lion King to the studio as ‘Hamlet with
lions’; distilling the entire narrative into
three words that the execs could connect
with.
Simplicity should be about simplifying
rather than being simple. In the Cannes
Media Lions ‘Inside the Jury Room’
discussion, the judging panel talked about
how the best campaigns were not about
taking the same idea and using it in various
channels, but playing to the individual
power of the channels to tell the story of
the core idea and empower people to talk
about the idea in cultural conversations.
The judging panels’ preference for brilliant
simplicity could be seen in shortlisted and
winning work, demonstrating the power of
a simple idea, grounded in a human truth
and beautifully executed.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
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The McDonalds and Burger King hybrid
burger, the McWhopper, instigated by
Burger King on World Peace Day was
one of the biggest campaign winners
of the festival, beginning with a simple
open letter in a print ad which sparked a
global conversation. It showed the simple
effectiveness of the right message in the
right environment.
ARSF ‘LIFESAVING STICKERS’
GPY&R’s ‘Life Saving Stickers’ campaign
for the Australian Road Safety Foundation
also took out a Gold Lion for their idea
to combat speeding on suburban streets
by skinning garbage bins with stickers of
children playing. In doing so, they bought
themselves a network of over 850,000 un-
used panels and delivered drivers a simple
reminder to watch out when the bins were
wheeled out.
BURGER KING ‘THE McWHOPPER’
Let’s not forget Beats by Dre’s hugely
successful social campaign – ‘Straight
Outta somewhere’. The socially-driven
idea lent users a platform to proclaim
where they were ‘Straight Outta’ via a
simple meme generator, and resulted in
an explosion of user-generated content, as
well as massive hype for the upcoming film
release of ‘Straight Outta Compton’. It was
a simple but effective execution born out
of the basic human truth that people are
proud of where they come from.
BEATS BY DRE ‘STRAIGHT OUTTA
SOMEWHERE’
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• Design for the audience, not the industry,
through a deep understanding of what
consumers want and how they want to
engage with brands.
• Get out of your own way – don’t try and
say and do everything that is possible.
Instead, say one thing but say it in a new
and interesting way.
Pictured: Burger King’s ‘McWhopper Proposal; Australian Road
Safety Foundation’s ‘Lifesaving Stickers’
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Virtual Reality
“THE DEEPER THE FEELING OF IMMERSION, THE GREATER
THE EMOTIONAL CONNECTION AND EXPERIENCE.”
CHRIS MILK, NY TIMES
04. Once poised as a ‘technology of the
future’, VR has officially landed. There
wasn’t a corner of the Cannes Lions
Festival that was void of VR presence, with
all the big names demonstrating a range of
applications of the tech; from roller-coaster
experiences to paint performances, there
was something for everyone.
VR is a method of storytelling that has the
ability to span categories; a technology
that is on track to have its first billion-dollar
year, and a huge contender to indefinitely
change the way we view experiences.
The most compelling thing about VR is
that its role is bigger than technology or
media, according to Chris Milk, renowned
music video producer and founder of VR
company ‘Within’.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Google hosted a keynote centred on the
topic of VR, ‘Adventures in Virtual Reality’,
that supported the concept of VR tech not
only impacting the way we communicate
and create, but also the way in which
humans think and remember.
Clay Bavor, Vice President of VR at Google,
explained that VR manipulates the ‘theory
of presence’, which is that “feeling when
your brain says, yup I’m somewhere else.
It’s a feeling of consciousness.”
This is the basis of VR, being transported
into a world to experience firsthand, an
immersion of all your senses.
When you witness it, you are
experiencing it first hand – we’ve
never told stories like that before.
Pictured: Samsung Gear VR experience
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To date, brand experiences have been
predominately eyes to screen; whether its
movies, adverts or AV content, the medium
is restricted by a frame by frame format.
Jessica Brillhart, a videographer at Google,
labelled VR as the driving force behind the
‘loss of the frame’, whilst Samsung and
VICE talked looking ‘beyond the frame’.
As encapsulated by Brillhart, we have “lost
a frame but created a whole world”; one
where the viewer has the power to choose
what they look at.
There was an overwhelming feeling across
the sessions that VR has virtually boundless
applications, but what was consistently
reiterated was the importance of creativity.
Sir John Hegarty, founder of BBH, stated,
We’ve got to remember that
technology enables opportunity but
it’s creativity that enables value.
The use of VR has to begin with the
audience and the idea, not purely the
technology.
Pictured: NY Times’ ‘The Displaced’ print ad
The New York Times won two Grand Prix’s
for their work using VR for ‘The Displaced’,
which allowed people to experience the
lives of refugee children in a visceral way.
The idea not only propelled a traditional
publishing brand to the forefront of
technology, it also created a level of
empathy not possible via other linear
mediums.
Chris Milk summed it up nicely: “VR will
talk to us in our own language – the
experience of consciousness”; the deeper
the feeling of immersion, the greater the
emotional connection and experience.
GSK ‘THE MIGRAINE EXPERIENCE’
Experiences that were once foreign and un-
relatable now have the potential not only to
be relatable but truly felt. The healthcare
category have already utilised this, with
GSK Consumer Health winning three Lions
for their ‘Migraine Experience’, which used
VR to stimulate the visual symptoms that
are often felt when a migraine starts.
NY TIMES ‘THE DISPLACED’
Also awarded was Lockheed Martin’s ‘Bus
Ride to Mars’, a masterpiece in VR created
by McCann New York. It inspired the next
generation through VR by turning a school
bus into a spaceship and taking passengers
on a ‘trip to Mars’. The stunt was a great
insight into what the future of VR could
look like for those brands with the courage,
creativity (and resources) to give VR a go.
LOCKHEED MARTIN ‘BUS RIDE TO
MARS’
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• Is the medium ready for the mainstream?
Cannes certainly put VR front and centre,
however the same challenges of any new
technology still stand: scale, cost and the
user experience.
• Use of the technology needs to be idea-
led with focus placed on the story you want
to tell. The best executions lent themselves
seamlessly to the immersive possibilities
that no other media could achieve. Don’t
use VR for the sake of it.
• VR has the ability to elevate experiences
across all categories and build trust
for brands, although it takes time and
commitment. Brands may not be able to
measure using the same metrics as other
mediums or see an immediate ROI.
Pictured: View from inside Lockheed Martin’s ‘Bus Ride to Mars’;
vision from GSK’s ‘Migraine Experience’
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We are all looking for different ways
to measure success. Every single
agency group, even clients within
agency groups are doing it differently.
It is very difficult to transact when
you don’t have a common currency.
The future of the television industry (and
the video landscape more broadly) was a
hot topic of many a panel discussion at
Cannes this year. So much of the amazing
work that is celebrated here was given
life on a screen of some sort, yet it still
has legacy challenges that hold back its
opportunity for both media owners and
advertisers.
There was much talk about the future of
television in terms of data driven insights
and targeting across platforms yet it
was the fundamentals that got the most
airtime on panels. For a long time, media
agencies and marketers have been calling
out for a more consistent and unified
approach from the industry around trading
(including currencies) and measurement.
NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino was clear from
her perspective of the situation: “If we don’t
force the evolution of measurement, then
that would be the worst thing that could
happen (to TV).”
Technology and television consumption
habits are evolving; rich data insights driven
via set top boxes, connected televisions,
and other data sources, means that we
have an unprecedented level of precision in
the way that we trade and target pockets of
our television buying. So it was great to see
that Australia was keeping pace with the
rest of the world. The television networks
led by MCN, in combination with digital
publishers and media agencies, are leading
the charge in the Australian market into
cross platform targeting opportunities as
television meets the programmatic age.
However, the presenters in Cannes
identified this as a double-edged sword.
The caution for TV was for it to not lose
sight of what has made it such a successful
channel to date, namely having one metric,
consistency in the way it is traded, and
accountability.
Here in Australia, MCN is working across
Multiview and AOL with their programmatic
offering, Seven is working on their screens
approach with ‘7Screens’, and Nine are
building their automated trading platform
– all independently. As TV clearly steps into
the programmatic age and faces a different
competitive set, station owners cannot
succeed without a unified trading platform
and currency.
Yet we all play a role in cleaning this up as
Eric Johnston, Executive VP of Global Sales
for ESPN pointed out:
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
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Screens
“THE CURRENCY HAS TO CHANGE INTO SOMETHING THAT
IS ADOPTED BY EVERYBODY.”
ERIC JOHNSTON, ESPN
05.

On the bright side though, there were
green shoots of optimism from the
presenters of Cannes around collaboration
across the television industry. Mark Frain,
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for
MCN was clear that, “alignment across
the industry will be key for us next year”
to ensure that television is moving forward
with a common trading architecture.
Scalability for programmatic television
should be achieved outside of
commoditisation of the offering and trading
purely based on price across a long tail
– another historical pitfall that the digital
industry made.
“We need to move away from the metric
of price and more strategic ways of buying
television,” said Frain.
• Better targeting across platforms and
publishers balanced with effective scale
will ultimately lead to a better outcomes
for clients, but only if it can be traded
and measured consistently across all
touchpoints.
• Agencies and advertisers must continue
to put pressure on the TV industry to evolve
as one, for the benefit of all.
• Be prepared for a period of adjustment
as the TV industry evolves in the face of
consumer and technology trends.
Pictured (top to bottom): Panel discussing ‘The Art of Buying: What Digital Video has to learn from TV’
featuring AOL, Carat, ESPN and MCN; NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino; Facebook’s video booth
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‘Maps and Locations’ was a theme
identified in our annual media trends
prediction for 2016. As the world continues
to become more mobile, location and
maps have become increasingly important
to brands.
Yet they are still seen as a utility service
first and marketers gravitate towards
proximity tactics that create a transactional
opportunity. In Cannes this year, winning
work showed that the possibilities of
location based data stretch way beyond
moments to target someone geographically
to that of deeper understanding and
creating unique experiences.
One of the biggest benefits of location data
that emerged up in the Lions shortlisted
entries was micro-targeting – the ability to
know people better based on their location
to create more interesting and meaningful
interactions.
Hyper-localised and relevant location-
based messaging is a given when it comes
to location targeting, but the evolution of
this tech is providing utility to people in the
moment. If we know where they are, and
what type of person they are based on how
they move about in the world, we have the
opportunity to provide them with real value
to influence their behaviour.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Pictured: Cornetto’s ‘Commitment Rings’
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Location
“LOCATION IS THE MOST RELEVANT DATA POINT TO
IDENTIFY INTENT IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD.”
ANDRE FERRAZ, LOCO MEDIA
06.

A winning example of this was the Cornetto
‘commitment rings’, created in response to
people ‘cheating’ on partners by skipping
ahead on watching their favourite TV
shows on SVOD services without their
significant other. The rings used NFC
technology linked to an app, which meant
that a couple could only watch their
favourite show if both rings were in the
same location at the same time. While
potentially limited in scale, the idea tapped
into a cultural truth for a lot of SVOD
viewers (ask any GoT fan #spoileralert),
creating talkability and thus reach beyond
the ring wearers.
CORNETTO ‘COMMITMENT RINGS’
Another example, this time closer to
home was the bronze Lion winner from
the Sydney Opera House, #comeonin.
While the Opera House is the most
Instagrammed building in Australia,
only 1% of visitors actually go inside to
experience all it has to offer. To change
this, they monitored the Instagram posts of
people that had tagged the Opera House
location, and via a production and talent
team, they instantly created personal
video messages back to those users on
Instagram, giving them a compelling
reason to ‘come on in’. In a matter of
minutes, the user was rewarded with an
experience that brought them into the
Opera House based on their location, and
gave other Instagram users a glimpse of
the types of things that go on beneath
Sydney’s most famous sails.
SYDNEY OPEA HOUSE ‘#COMEONIN’
• Get your data in order. What are people
doing, where, when? These are all things
that can tell you a lot about actual, not
claimed, behaviour to better understand
people.
• Use location data to offer value to
people in the moment, not after the
fact. If the data tells you a person is in a
specific location at a certain time, use that
information to give them a hyper-relevant
reward or message.
• Explore all the possibilities. The Cornetto
campaign shows how proximity based
technology can bring to life the most
obvious insights but in a truly unique way.
Pictured: Sydney Opera House’s ‘#comeonin’ campaign

Much has been written about adblocking
in the past year, so it’s no surprise the
conversation (and occasionally, debate)
continued at Cannes. Widely considered
one of advertising’s greatest obstacles
to date, adblocking was the subject of a
number of panels over the course of the
festival.
One of the most popular was ‘Block You:
Why World Class Creativity Will Obliterate
Ad Blocking’, hosted by the president and
CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau,
Randall Rothenberg, which provided an
intriguing insight into the leading views on
the topic, particularly when it came to the
unique challenges faced by mobile.
We already know mobile as a medium has
progressed by leaps and bound to claim its
position as the first screen for the majority,
however what is becoming increasingly
apparent is the fact mobile advertising
hasn’t quite kept pace.
In fact, while the likes of Instagram and
Snapchat were referenced as the exception
to the rule, the consensus was that it was
easy to see the appeal in adblocking when
the experience on mobile was consistently
sub-standard and unnecessarily intrusive.
According to the IAB, 66% of mobile
users find banner ads useless or annoying,
and some 60% of all clicks on them are
apparently mistakes. Add to that the
irritation of auto play videos,
often-irrelevant targeting, and generally
a more intrusive ad-presence, and, as the
panel contended, we must own that ad
avoidance has been a problem of our own
creation.
Randall Rothenberg proffered his solution,
suggesting we as an industry must get back
to serving people, rather than impressions.
We need to place increased emphasis
on truly great creative that walks the line
between utility and engagement; the
kind of creative good enough to justify
becoming part of a consumer’s day instead
of merely a disruption to it.
The onus is not just on creative agencies
though – creativity across all aspects of
the user experience must improve; this
means improvements from brands from
a product perspective, publishers from a
format perspective, and media agencies
from a targeting perspective. We must all
do better.
Mark Thompson, president and CEO
of The New York Times, built on this by
sharing the significant work The Times had
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
The next generation of advertising
must entertain and it must inform.
The next generation of advertising
must make people feel that blocking
advertising is blocking a valuable
part of their daily experience.
41CANNES UNWRAPPED
Adblocking
“WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE WAY WE ENGAGE WITH
CONSUMERS TO ACTUALLY PRODUCE STUFF THEY WANT
TO SEE.”
BRAD JAKEMAN, PEPSICO
07.

“When advertisers trust us and agencies
and work together, we’re able to do
unbelievable work,” McAvoy said. “The
minute there’s a heavy hand into content
creation…you start publishing things that
don’t really fit with your brand...You can’t
help but get yourself back into creating a
commercial.”
R/GA’s Greenwood summed up the
challenge perfectly: “The biggest challenge
of native is shifting the mindset of
advertisers – that you can you can buy your
way into the minds of consumers.”
undertaken to ‘reimagine the way it
serves ads’– changes driven largely
through consultation with their readers.
This included redesigning their ad units
and ramping up their native offering, but
also touched on appealing to readers to
‘whitelist’ the site or void their ad blocker in
return for continuing to enjoy high quality
content.
R/GA’s vice president of content, Jess
Greenwood, was quick to shut down the
viability of this goodwill strategy long term,
however.
“Given the right choice and the free thing,
consumers will always do the free thing.
That’s the logic of the market,” Greenwood
said. “Begging people to turn their ad
blockers off… that strategy is running out
of road.”
So what is the alternative?
Branded and native content emerge as
the most likely contenders, however Mike
McAvoy, CEO of satirical news website ‘The
Onion’, warned advertisers (and publishers)
entering this arena never to underestimate
their audience; to be authentic and always
show respect for what is a smart consumer.
He also emphasised the role trust plays in
bringing the best branded content to life,
specifically trust in your publisher of choice
to know best what will resonate with their
audience.
To mark ‘World Day against Cyber
Censorship’, Amnesty International – in
partnership with AdBlock – replaced
blocked banners with powerful messages
from the censored, namely Edward
Snowden (USA), Ai WeiWei (China),
and Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova
(Russia). Clicking through took viewers
to their full uncensored articles, allowing
them to bypass censors and talk directly
to AdBlock’s 50 million users globally. The
Silver Lion-winning campaign reached
330 million people in 24 hours, with a
click through rate 1000% higher than the
industry standard; the biggest numbers
coming in from Russia, USA and China.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ‘AD
BLOCKER’
The Brady Campaign, America’s leading
organisation against gun violence, created
a simple Chrome plugin designed to
be used in the wake of mass shootings
to eradicate the killer’s name from the
headlines, instead bringing the focus back
to the victims and discouraging copycat
crimes. The plugin completely removes any
reference to the killer’s name, effectively
ensuring their crimes earn them ‘zero
minutes of fame’, while inviting viewers
to sign a petition urging mass media to
behave in kind. The idea earned them
a shortlist in both the Direct and PR
categories.
THE BRADY CAMPAIGN ‘ZERO
MINUTES OF FAME’

• Creativity of content AND format is the
cure for adblocking. Brands and their
partners need to focus on making ads
consumers want to engage with, and
serving them in a format that does the idea
justice; disruption is no longer the objective.
• Choose your partners wisely, trust
them fully and make peace with not
having complete control over output or
interpretation when it comes to branded
content. Anything less and you risk erring
on the side on the wrong side of authentic.
Pictured: The Brady Campaign’s ‘Zero Minutes of Fame’ Chrome plugin in action
Pictured: Examples of Amnesty International’s ‘Ad Blocker’ banners
44 CANNES UNWRAPPED

This year in Cannes, the calls to cease
categorising a huge proportion of the
population – namely, young adults – into a
neat bucket called ‘millennials’ grew louder
with every passing day.
Parking that debate for a minute though,
no-one was disputing the fact that in recent
times, the demands this generation have
placed on advertisers to adapt have been
significant:
• ‘Let me tell you (and my many friends)
what I think’: A brand is no longer what the
organisation says it is – it a crowd sourced
perception; it belongs to the audience,
not the organisation. Thanks in large to
millennials, brands have been a set a whole
new benchmark for relevance, authenticity
and useability. More is expected of them,
and they must be more accountable than
ever before.
• ‘Help me express who I am’: With
consumers focused on promoting their
social identity more than ever, they are
looking for brands as an extension of
themselves. This might be the relevance
of that brand to a specific culture such as
music or sports, or could go as deep as
their contribution to social responsibility.
One publisher currently getting a great
deal of traction with this generation, global
media channel VICE, reflected on how they
have connected with this ‘hard-to-please’
audience.
VICE CEO Shane Smith shared some of
their simple strategies such as employing
writers and producers that come from the
very group they’re trying to talk to, as
well as respecting their audiences’ thirst
for unique untold stories from around the
world.
At the same time though, many voices were
challenging the ‘lazy’ grouping of such a
large, diverse group of people. There were
more than a few murmurs about dropping
the term ‘millennial marketing’ and calling
it for what it is: just plain marketing – the
way we will build brands from here on out.
One of the most animated and out-spoken
advocates to drop the term was AOL’s
digital prophet, David Shing, who urged the
industry to stop its relentless focus on age-
related audience segments at the expense
of behaviours, attitudes and psychographics
that span generations.
Realising Shing’s vision depends on the
ability to identify, understand and connect
with audiences defined by interests and
behaviours, rather than an age bracket.
That’s where data and technology giants
like Facebook and Google are making
great strides in partnership with media
agencies.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Millennials don’t all act the same,
they don’t all stand on a hoverboard
with headphones in while looking at
their devices all the time,” he adds.
“You are 18 to 34, therefore you are
‘…’’? It’s not true!
47CANNES UNWRAPPED
Millennials
“MILLENNIALS HATE BEING CALLED MILLENNIALS. LET’S
NOT LABEL THEM; LET’S CALL THEM WHAT THEY ARE –
THEY’RE HUMAN.”
DAVID SHING, AOL DIGITAL PROPHET
08.

When moving away from targeting an
18-29yr old ‘millennial’ audience toward
segmenting audiences by their interests
relevant to your brand, be that sporting
codes or a favourite cuisine, your two most
important tools of trade will be carefully-
chosen context and specially-created
content.
Ask yourself: what is more powerful, trying
to understand what Australian ‘millennials’
care about (and how your brand can
leverage it), or identifying an audience
group defined by a relevant behaviour or
interest, regardless of what year they were
born?
• Be careful when placing age barriers
around your audience opportunity;
chronological age means very little –
people don’t stop caring about how they
look when they turn 50.
• Appeal to your audience based on their
interests: think back to when you were a
young 20-something – was everyone your
age the same? Probably not. Think about
the type of person your brand can attract
rather than the implications of their age.
• Consider the content implications of
playing to multiple interests, rather than
searching for the Holy Grail – a ‘catch all’
piece of content.
48 CANNES UNWRAPPED
Pictured: (top to bottom) AOL Digital Prophet David Shing;
VICE’s Shane Smith and Spike Jonze speaking on the ‘Making
Content We Care About’ panel

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IN THE WORLD OF MARKETING, COMMUNICATIONS
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Cannes Lions 2016 Unwrapped

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