An underwhelming Cannes 2014?

It’s one of those years where two exciting things in my life come together – the FIFA World Cup and the Cannes Lions. Both generally build my exhilaration and energy to fever pitch.

But just as the World Cup opening yesterday was less than satisfactory, the Cannes entries so far are strangely dispiriting, with good ones being exceptions rather than the rule. Last year, almost every shared video or magazine list made you go “I wish I’d done that”. There were so many new ideas, so much creative fearlessness that it was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, made you proud to belong to the industry and fired a fierce determination to do something like that at least once in your career. Usually they fall into four categories:
1. Pure creative genius, the joyous insanity of a good idea.
2. Fantastic brand or consumer insight wielded with consummate prowess.
3. Pure brand building, the celebration of a glorious brand.
4. Social change effected using 1 or 2.

But 2014 seems overwhelmingly to be the year of the Awards Entry Video – and these seem to be sticking doggedly to a formula that was great four years ago. Now, the music, typography, animations, transitions, cuts, pans and zooms, the very structure and script are all dully familiar. In the digital entries, there seems to me to be too many cases of technology for its own sake threatening to overtake idea, insight, even brand. This should not be the arena, surely, for apps or games in and of themselves? Just because it has a brand name attached to it, doesn't mean it's a communications tool. This is what the entry rules have to say about the Mobile category: "The definition of Mobile for the purpose of Cannes Lions is creative work which lives on or is activated by a mobile device, app or mobile web." Cannes Lions is first and foremost - should be only - about the advertising idea. That's the immutable core of our business. How the idea is expressed changes according to where the relevant consumers can be best reached. And it's that magical combination of idea and delivery that builds brands, sells products, earns loyalty... and wins awards. Ideally.

Of course, I've hardly seen everything that’s out there, so maybe I’ll be proved wrong next week. I sincerely hope so. Until then, thank God for automobiles, alcohol and New Zealand. They never disappoint.