Cannes Lions Festival 2019: Time to make the big leap

The Cannes Lions Festival is nearing its end. And as I write this piece, the penultimate day awards will be announced. There is a good chance that we will convert some of the shortlists, in the race on Day Four, into metals, improving our current tally of 12 lions. The latter may seem like an abysmal number to many outside the advertising world, but to ones who are part of the industry, it is not.
 
Let me put this way: We’ve already converted nearly a quarter of the 50 shortlisted entries (after Day 3) into metals (12). Additional shortlists over Day Four have been close to 20. If we can convert even a few of these into metals, which I’m hoping will be the case, we should be closer to the 20-metal-mark at the end of the five-day festival. This is not a bad number to have given that the competition has been tough.

At Cannes, there are many factors at play - the work of other nations, the views of jurors within categories, how the agency in question has presented its work. It is difficult, therefore, to predict which way your work will go. On a good day, you could win gold.
 

On a bad day, nothing could come your way.
 
Having said that, I do find that there are not enough cutting-edge pieces of work at Cannes this year from Indian agencies. Advertising today is a marriage of creativity and technology. The current generation of creative heads worldwide are tech-savvy, who are looking for ad campaigns that can solve human problems. They are also believers in the universality of a creative idea.

 
Indians, on the other hand, are rooted in their cultural ethos and our advertising reflects this mindset. There is nothing wrong with being proud of one’s cultural identity. It sets us apart and brings a unique flavour to our advertising. But the audience worldwide is changing. Work that appealed to an earlier generation of creative heads, who were jurors at Cannes, may not move the current lot at all.
 
What the current generation of creative directors at global agencies, who are judging at Cannes want is sophistication and creative use of data to solve problems, whereas our agencies still depend on conventional tools — great copy, art and film — to convey a point. Creative juries are not buying into this anymore. Hence the lack of buzz.

 
Our digital work is also poor when compared with some of the other countries around. Yes, a few local agencies are trying — such as Webchutney — which has won metals at Cannes this year. But there is need for more. It is time we make the big leap.
 
The author is founder and chief creative officer of HyperCollective