Members of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) and the Marketing Society gathered in the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin to hear Irish marketers and an agency creative director talk about their experiences at this year’s International Festival of Creativity in Cannes. The speakers spoke about how much of the work they saw and the talks they attended at the festival left them feeling inspired and re-energised.
Laura Lynch (above), chief marketing officer, Bank of Ireland, said the use of tech in creating empathetic campaigns showed how humanity and heart were returning to adland. Dutch telco KPN helped change the law in the Netherlands with its powerful message highlighting the spread of online shaming. Orange matched TV footage from three years of men’s and women’s football to show the high standards that have evolved in the women’s game.
Lynch’s third choice was a campaign by Renault entitled ‘Mobility Deserts’. The ads showed how a high proportion of people in France live in remote places where they find it hard to buy a car to get to work. Renault made changes to allow people get finance to buy a car and get to work. Lynch said the stand-out speakers were John Legend and Elon Musk. The festival was “a bit like Vegas, didn’t know if it was day or night” – it was a privilege to be there.
Iconology
Ger Roe, board creative director at Publicis Dublin, was a judge on the festival’s print and publishing jury. The judges made an effort to avoid biases. While brand owners revered causes in ads, the standard of work must match the cause. The big difference at this year’s Cannes was that big brands were back. Coke was rewarded for its campaign, where they played with the brand’s iconology to produce a squirmed-up logo to encourage recycling.
Roe mentioned Unilever’s campaign for Magnum ice cream. ‘Find Your Summer’ featured a series of beautifully-photographed monochrome ads which ran in the darkest days of winter – a brave act. The growth in artificial intelligence was shown in a campaign where the first president of a country, Lebanon, was created entirely by AI. Ikea’s idea worked because it showed how DIY furniture isn’t the panacea for the ‘perfect home’.
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Roe said it was remarkable that only three per cent of entries at Cannes are awarded Lions. Eilis Fitzgerald, head of marketing communications, Three Ireland, said that she had heard all about how the festival was “like Disneyland, but for work”. She pointed to the Specsavers award-winning campaign where British pop star Rick Astley was hired to record a track showing how people with hearing difficulties had their own takes on song lyrics.
Rachael Crawley, head of marketing communications, Heineken Ireland, spoke about how its award-winning Irish Pub Museum campaign came about. There had been 152 pub closures in Ireland since 2019 and many pubs steeped in history were under threat. Crawley said the pubs are living museums. There were three steps to hosting a museum – a collection of historical items, a curator and the creation of a visitor experience.
