Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity: Day Three

By Sachin Ambekar, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett Solutions Inc. in Cannes

The third day at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world’s largest advertising festival was one of the most memorable ones to date!  It was the best day for Leo Burnett Sri Lanka as we came to know that we won the first ever metal for Sri Lanka here at Cannes Lions! Now the expectations are high from us and the competition is getting tougher, Chrishani, Rameez, Dhanushka and I were all ecstatic!

So far Sri Lankan advertising agencies have been awarded 2 finalists and a bronze at Cannes. This is just the beginning, as we know there will be more creativity and award winning pieces coming from    Sri Lanka in these global award shows. Another bit of good news for the Sri Lankan ad industry is that Grant McCann Erickson was also announced as a finalist in the design category. Congratulations Grants on being placed as a finalist!! Their fate will be decided tonight when they announce the winners for design, press, radio and cyber.

Yesterday there were two of the most sought after seminars which I attained. One from Facebook and another from YouTube on the changing face and pace of digital advertising and social networking. The Facebook seminar on ‘The Psychology and Creativity of Sharing’ was led by the company’s Global Head of Brand Design, Paul Adams. He spoke about why and how we are seeing the greatest creative opportunity of our generation by debunking the myth of the “influencer” and understanding that all of us are influential in different contexts! The YouTube seminar on ‘How Online Video Powers Creative Innovation’ was an inspiring seminar. With a great line up of influential speakers, we got to directly hear from YouTube on how the world’s video platform is seeing a wave of creative innovation from thousands of creators from all over the world!

Following the seminars we had Mark Tutssel, World Creative Director of Leo Burnett talking about Leo Burnett’s ‘HumanKind’ which is about people and how creativity transforms the way people think, feel and behave. He also shared some work with us and spoke about how we can use data and transform it into an idea!  

For the first time India took center stage at Cannes. R. Balki and Shekhar Kapoor spoke about India, the culture, economy and creativity. India has made their presence felt at major award ceremonies and it was interesting to listen to their discussions on their views on the impact of the nation around the world.

At the end of an eventful day there was the awards show for media, outdoor and effectiveness. Once again the big players took home the major awards but there were some more surprises by countries that have never been up on that stage before picking up gold and grand prix! Following on there was the opening gala party which went on till late, and I myself had a ball of a time with Chrishani, Rameez and Dhanushka, the Sri Lanka Leo Burnett team celebrating our win!

Sri Lanka has definitely made its mark in the world of advertising and I will keep you posted daily with our experiences at Cannes including the announcements of the other finalists and winners! Tomorrow there will be more finalists announced along with a great evening!