A jury of top creatives like Wim Wenders, Simon Waterfall, Lars Bastholm and Jonathan Meese selected the best 25 videos people uploaded at their invitation and the YouTube public vote the winner. The prize was a trip to Cannes Lions and the opportunity to learn from the giants of creativity.
The seminar was a projection of movies presented by the funny lady in the picture above and we can call it “Journey to the universe of creativity”. I’m trying to upload a video with the show because words are not enough to say everything we’ve seen. Hope the internet will be fast enough.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

Legendary creative directors Chuck Porter and David Droga showed their work and talked about how to start and build a successful agency and, hopefully, become famous and rich. Chuck Porter presented his agency, how it started and what to look for if you want to be successful. He was joking that the best time to start an agency was in 1998, but if you’ve missed that, probably today. David Droga’s opinion about the subject of the seminar was similar. His advice is to start an agency and focus about doing good stuff and not think about the money involved. If you do great job for your clients, they’ll keep coming. The industry should focus on reinventing not revigorating.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

Adobe’s presentation wasn’t a WOW as I expected. In the begining we’ve seen some interactivity made with it’s tools for the iPad and some words about the new Flash 10.1 and it’s succes. In the future will be more and more present on the mobile devices. One interesting thing presented was the digital museum, that Adobe wants to make and host exhibitions from various artists. You can see it on adobemuseum.com, register and be one of the first in the world to visit it.
Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

The opening of the show started with the “surprise” they announced as a guest. In the auditorium was dark, and on the scene appeared Paul Arden, former creative director for Saatchi and Saatchi, which passed away in 2008. What they did was a hologram I supose. Next followed a series of videos created by people from Saatchi. One that impresed me was one with T-Shirts. There were used 222 t-shirts to make a stopmotion animation on two people. Pretty nice and inspiring. In the end they presented the Aniboom contest and it’s winner. The event was closed also by Paul Arden by thanking to the people in the audience for coming and hoping that we’ll see eachother somewhere in another world. Then he suddenly dissapeared in a splash of smoke.
Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

I’m a tad upset with the Microsoft Lounge at the Palais de Festivals, because i wrote a long an interesting post about what happened today and I didn’t get to publish it because of some errors over there. Mr Gates, I’m very upset!

Anyway, I’m going to repeat some of it now. I’m sure you’ve seen the work my colleagues already posted today, so I’m just going to summarize the list of stars we’ve seen today, together with a short impression about each:

In the morning we went to the Mofilm seminar, where we saw special guest Jon Landau, the producer of both Avatar and Titanic. We were a bit starstruck while listening to this powerful man who had to deal with those huge budgets and numbers we can’t even think about. It was interesting to imagine the possibilities of a technology similar to the one applied in Avatar being transported into commercials. We’ll surely be able to interact with products on a more complex level soon.

Then the Kraft Foods seminar took it’s turn, with special guest Spike Jonze, who is a phenomenal film, commercial and music video director and stands behind many things I’m sure you’re familiar with. He spoke about the importance of connecting with the people independently of the form of motion picture you are in charge of. Sometimes us advertisers take ourselves a little bit too seriously and forget that, in the end, commercials have to also speak to people who are not in the industry. He pointed out the importance of saying NO sometimes and doing what you like, because it is only so that you can put passion in every project and be sure it turns out right. As to the decision making – leave it on your gut – Spike suggested.

The highlight of the seminars was, of course, Mark Zuckerberg. I’m not going to post another photo because all my other colleagues did and I can confirm he was there in person. As I am a huge Facebook enthusiast, it’s natural that i wanted to see and listen to the young CEO of this great company and product. Although i was charmed by the fact that Mark spoke very spontaneously and professionally in the interview, i must say i lacked maybe a little sense of humour and interaction with the audience. I think he was afraid of taking any kind of chances so he stuck to the things he knew best. All in all, at the end of the seminar, I understood what it is that makes this young man what he is today – he is in fact very bright and has a great sense of business flowing through his blood.

The last but definitely not the least favourite activity today was the workshop with David Droga and Craig Davis, along with their guests. Altough I could end this post here because having said these names must be enough for everyone, I promised a summary so here it goes:

C. Davis  showed us his latest project called Brandkarma, an interactive platform where consumers can vote, rate and discuss brands they use in order to establish which brands on the market are good and which are bad, and ultimately make a shift in the brand behavior so that they can all turn to the good side. Very poetically, he asked us to do this for our future children in order to leave them in a world full of corporately responsible brands.

D. Droga did not prepare an actual presentation but I really enjoyed listening to him talk anyway. He also insisted on brands that give something back to society so I’m leaning to think this is now beginning to be really important . Most of all, I admire his passion that lasts still after many (and i mean many) years of advertising, and I really believed him when he told us “We can change the world people!”.

That’s it from us today, I thank you for reading and wish you a good evening.

Catalina & Simona, Young Lions Media, empowered by Impression.

Some of the best agencies from the world came and presented their work. One that remained in my mind is the IQ font campaign, made for Toyota IQ. They’ve made the first font made with a car to demonstrate it’s agility. Nice idea and nice implementation with zero media budget.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

This was entertaining. They mounted on the scene a box ring to dispute the future of the advertising. Was the best mis-en-scene show. They invited an actor from Hollywood, Common, and talked about integrating advertsing in movies. Another guest was the maker of Zombieland, the movie. In the end of the movie, if you’ve watched it, the main character is crazy about a cookie, called Twinky. They tried to find a brand that wanted to put their product instead of this cookie but no succes.
In the 4th round Nick Cannon appeared and also said his opinion about advertising and other stuff. Nice show overall. I,ve recorded some rounds from the match and maybe i’ll upload them somehow, but the internet at the auditorium was down. Everybody was using it, and maybe their wifi routers melted.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

This seminar was really funny. Lots of pranks that made milions of views on youtube and generated a real impact all over the world. They were so good that they were repeated in other countries. One of them that is very popular is with the train station in which aproximately 200 people freeze for some minutes and create curiosity among the passengers. Another one was with people dancing in the windows of a big store. The manager of the shop freaked out and didn’t know what to do with all that people dressed in black. Take a look on YouTube. It’s really entertaining! The idea as the speaker said is to attract attention and to make people talk about.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

Initiative presented the findings from its new global study into how consumers are embracing mobile technology and what their changing behaviour means for brands.
People in all over the world use mobile phones for different purposes. For example mobile phones are used generally for social media and gaming but are countries like China where they are used mainly for gaming. On the other hand in India the most used are the utilities like the computer, calendar and other apps to organize. Mobile screens have become the number two for internet surfing after PCs. Laptops are no longer in the spot.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

Digitas challenged today 3 guests from movie Industry to a cage fight upon the Interruption vs. Integration Advertising issue. The 3 guests were: Common (both actor and singer), Gavin Polone and Monty Miranda.
Both bad and good examples for the two advertising types were presented, which means that they both can be used in the future, with a suitable strategy. What makes the difference between the two is that integration type of advertising can be more consumer-friendly, more subtle, non-intrusive and can create a god context. After 5 rounds of debates integration won, but a certain thing is that interruption will continue to be used, if it will create proper content.
Our opinion is that integrated campaigns work better, but offers more advantage for brands with high awareness.

Andreea&Ionut, OOH Team of The Year, empowered by Impression

During the 5 rounds of the battle, Mark Beeching, chief creative Officer at Digitas – moderated and tempered the strong arguments of the speakers concerning brand interruption vs brand integration.
Key factors: invisible advertising, product placement, the 30 second interrupter TV spot
Speakers:Gavin Polone, Monty Miranda, Nick Cannon
Basically the fight was between Tv spots and brand integration
They all agreed that brand integration should mean: you don’t really see how the product is pushed on you. Ultimately you are trying to serve the story.
So, brand integration is buying invisible advertising, in-show integration and when you do it right the audience is a good collaborator.
But why interruption tends to be held back? “If you are not making it fun or draw too much attention to it – audience feel insulted.”
Conclusions: Open your minds to new ways of advertising, to be authentic, organic. Interruption has to work harder to integrate, to content.

Corina &Iulia, Young Marketer empowered by Impression.

So we’ve just returned home for a few minutes and we want to take a minute to congratulate our competitors who won the Young Lions Media competition – the boys from Denmark really did a good job. So these guys are taking home the Gold, Sweden was awarded with Silver and the USA team received the Bronze medal.
Still, that doesn’t mean that we’re not a little bitter, we are all humans after all! But we’re actually really proud of our work and maybe we can tell you all about soon .

Speaking of awards, we had a little moment where we counted all the award winners (Silver, Gold and the Grand Prix) from different countries to see who is sweeping the scene this year. So far, the top of the tops are Australia with no less than 16 Lions. Next in line are Sweden and USA with 14 Lions each. Germany follows with 10 Lions and the UK with 8 shiny roarers. The counting goes on tonight, because we’re heading to the Media, Radio and Outdoor awards in a few minutes.

If you are in the mood check out one of the best and most awarded campaigns so far – Gatorade’s REPLAY, which is making everyone hands’ clap like crazy every time they appear on screen.

We’re off for today, keeping our fingers crossed for Iulia & Corina, the Young Marketers Team who will surely impress the juries on Friday.

Catalina & Simona, Young Lions Media, empowered by Impression.

Product placement was the focus of Digitas’ debate. Brand integration should be narrative: the product should be part of the story and of the characters’ lives. The placement should be organic and natural, the product shouldn’t be pushed at the audience.
Integration is a mindset, not just a format.
The audience should be respected. If you try and hide if from the audience, people will notice and will feel like being manipulated.
“Integration done badly is the worst part of interruption”
Sabina Ionescu, PR team of the year empowered by The Practice

The well-known-well-apreciated-often immitated-fun and hilarious Improv Everywhere moments were remembered today in Charlie Todd’s showcase for the 11 o’clock seminar. People in the audience who already knew the fun pranks organised in public places joined the ones who saw them for the first time in a big laughter. Towards the end, questions sent via twitter were answered by Charlie Todd, who was asked to improvise something on stage. Though he said it wouldn’t be so interesting since the spontaneous factor was lost, he did invite everyone to a secret place later on tonight to participate on a live group action on the streets of Cannes. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the guys from Improv Everywhere prepared for later.

Iulia & Corina, Young Marketers empowered by Impression

It is all about numbers – Draftfcb studied the art of reducing the brief to work, which finally means numbers. Putting the reduced brief together with the consumer insight will lead to the 6.5 seconds that matters, the average engagement time between consumer and brand across segment channels and categories. After this time period the consumer will decide whether the message matters or not.
All has to be summed up in this maximum amount of time that the consumer gives before making the decision, that is why things have to be made as simple as possible (but not simpler than that).

Andreea si Ionut, OOH Team of the Year, empowered by Impression

The study found out that when it comes to the smartphone industry, voice is secondary to data.
Two halves of mobile users spend an average of 35 minutes per da on mobile internet. In the US the percentage is huge: 85% of people spend 50 minutes per day.
Mobile consumers are always on and mobile internet is used constantly throughout the day, from morning until night
Mobile is becoming the second screen and the internet device at home.
Context and location are now the number one potential in mobile marketing.
If asked to choose, one in three people would prefer mobile internet over PC access.
The use of mobiles triggers other media. Mobile internet boosts the media landscape and internet access is going up grace to mobiles.
Sabina Ionescu, PR team of the year powered by HP

Alan Rosenpan began his worksohp stating that this year, everything is about content and mobile platforms. His expertise is based on direct marketing and his presentation was a quick guide about writing for thne www.
One of the tactics for good web copywriting is making it all short. The shorter you are, the more effective you’re gonna get.
Alan made up a list of rules for copywriting that apply to all types of advertising. Number one rule is to get the auddience’s attention. To do this, you should bring news, solve their problem or be relevant. Next, you should have something important or interesting to say (tell something they didn’t know, they never thought of, or give some help they can use). You should always package the message in a story about the reader because people are much more interested in themselves than in everything else. Writing should be done in a fresh and unusual way and never leave out the emotional touch. When you write, do it with an objective in mind. Use command words and write what you want them to do. Use short simple words and an active language. Write like you talk. The best way to evaluate copy is to read it out loud. Last but not least, make use of design: write vissualy.
Sabina Ionescu, PR team of the year, empowered by The Practice

Mobile phone never leaves somebody’s side. It is not just a physical presence, but it is constantly used. 30% of people start the day with mobile, 50% close their day with it. Smart phones got from the level of improving one’s life to managing one’s daily activity. That is why mobile becomes a really important media that holds the consumer attention and builds target affinity, as long as the creative execution is properly implemented.

Andreea si Ionut, OOH Team of the Year, empowered by Impression

So we just finished our presentation for the Young Lions Media Competition and are now finally able to catch one small breath before tomorrow’s big presentation.

The brief we had to work on was written by the great team from Peace One Day, a non profit organization that stands behind The International Day of Peace, adopted by all 192 members of the UN. We were truly left speechless yesterday when the client himself – Jeremy Gilley – entered the room and spoke to us about the marvelous things his organization does for man kind. We were inspired by this man who traveled the world, helped the poor, organized manifests, concerts and football championships, all of this to promote and ensure sustainability for The International Day of Peace.

So he asked us to come up with a compelling media strategy in order to promote The International Day of Peace to a number of 50 million young people from around the world. We think it is a challenge that rose to the occasion. We hope we did too!

The thing is, just by being here we already felt like winners and wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all the people who made these things possible and stood behind us all the way.

We’re off to the first award gala now, keep your fingers crossed for us tomorrow!

Catalina & Simona, Young Lions Media, empowered by Impression.

There  were 230 entries from 12 countries, people who were eager to put their hands on the prize and nomination “greatest sales person in the world”. After they all tried to sell a brick, this morning each one of the three finalists came up with very innovative ideas and tactics of selling the new Motorola phone, the Milestone.

The British Jury analyzed each of the performances and fully occupied auditorium was asked to vote for the most convincing sales person.

With more than 50% of the votes, Todd Herman was declared the winner and the title got him a 3 months placement at OgilvyOne.

“Finally the brick got me a trip to Cannes” said the winner.

Rory Shutherland, executive creative director at OgilvyOne :”it is not enough to have a great idea if you do not have the correspondent talent to get people to act on that idea-the thing doesn’t work”.

Corina &Iulia,  Young Marketer empowered by Impression

The JWT seminar included a showcase of campaigns that submited to the main concept of creating ideas that people want to spend time with. Giving out incomplete stories leaves space for anyone to come up with their own addition, transforming each story into a unique, personal one.

The NY Macy Believe campaign reached the audience not through and ad, but by using an animtaed movie based on a real story of a girl called Virginia who sent a letter to The Sun asking if Santa Claus was real. The last in the JWT showcase was a rather innovative approach to the celebration of Valentine’s Day. The Heineken Beer Gloss was sold out 2 weeks after it was launched as the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for her, that he can enjoy as well.

Iulia & Corina Young Marketer powered by Impression

Old versus new consumer segmentation: market segmentation is still based on demographic data than on consumers’ behavior which is much more authentic market segmentation.

Where are we now vs where to go:

2010 is defined by confused overwhelmed

2011 divided consumer

2012 the triumph of beauty/ functional and breathtaking

Consumers have raised the bar of creativity because of their high level of being creative. Creative design shall walk hand in hand through all the process of developing a product, not only at the beginning or at the end.

And finally but not less important, the brief is something to design, is about background and shall induce a 360 experience.

Corina & Iulia – Young Marketer empowered by Impression

Jimmy Maiman, chairman of GoViral, talked about three typologies of online videos: The Sponsored Model (sponsor premium content), The Branded Content Model (produce narrative stories around brand values) and The Product Model (produce narrative stories around product values), all discussed in terms of approach, format, content and activation

Excellent video examples for the last two categories can be seen here:

Google Chrome Speed Test – a branded content model

What is iPad – a product model

Andreea&Ionut, OOH Team of the Year, empowered by Impression

This session examined how interactive entertainment is evolving as a game-changing medium with a particular focus on technology shifts and impacts on behaviour, multi-platform insights – connecting console, PC, mobile and social gaming, interactive entertainment’s surprisingly expansive demographic footprint, and actionable strategies to leverage the breadth of the medium.

The seminar started with a short presentation of how interactive entertainment looks today and how surclases today the movie industry and books industry also. Mobile industry has become a more robust platform lately.

Now the focus is put on the family and the way they share the experience of gaming . The graphics in the latest Fifa videogame is amazing. They’ve made a new sistem called Head Star in which the amount of detail is bigger than ever.

EA made a partnership with Coca Cola and created a championship “The impossible is possible” in which everyone can play in the Fifa World Cup online and “change” the course of the real championchip. Next was a short list of partnerships between EA and different brands, where they offered old retro games for example. Patrick Fourniol from Renault presented their campaign in partnership with EA. They’ve made some ads made with The Sims 3 game engine where characters from the game were presenting the new electric cars launched by the french carmaker.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

OgilvyOne wants to find out and, at the same time, reinvigorate the noble art of selling. So the agency launched a competition on YouTube to find the World’s Greatest Salesperson. We assisted at the last stage of the contest where three of the best salespersons from around the world had to convince the audience to buy the new Motorola phone. We could vote by phone and in the end, collecting all the votes and the jury’s opinion the winner was Todd Herman. Not the one we wanted, but that’s it.

Diana & Vlad, Design Team of the Year empowered by HP

…she would:

have something others want.

be approachable.

listen and make everyone feel special.

make them want to invite theit friends.

have no strings attached.

Sabina Ionescu, PR Team of the Year, empowered by The Practice

Direct Mailing is the ugly sister of Advertising, but it can become Cindarella if done creatively.

Patrick Collister from Directory came up with plenty of examples to demonstrate it: letters raising funds for homeless people that are left outside, in the rain, before being mailed – with a simple message “this is how it feels when you’re left out all night”; stamps with Haagen-Dazs ice-cream taste that wait to be licked and tasted before being glued on the envelope; or lingerie direct mailings with a perfect body pictured on the envelope, having the face covered by a stamp, because lingerie is all that matters…

Andreea, OOH team of the year, empowered by Impression

Social media. How they do it?

DDB presented a series of good and bad examples of social media practice. They spoke about Monopoly City Streets and how in 2 months they become the 12 most popular online game, about how Bud TV as a solution for making controversial ads available. Among the bad social experiences, they mentioned Kingsmill bread that asked people to post confessions and got to personal. Their advice is that if you don’t have something to say, just don’t say anything at all.

Alex, Roger Hatchuel Academy student, empowered by BCR

The community isn’t dead, it just changed rules!

DDB spoke about how brands need to become more human and friendly. They strongly believe that the traditional community didn’t die it just changed and brands need to adapt. They need to listen and become social.

Nico, Roger Hatchuel Academy student, empowered by me.alchemy

Bienvenu a Cannes!

Today was introduction day at Roger Hatchuel Academy. We got to met one another and talk about the thing that brought us here: Advertising. Overachievers, awarded and competition seeker students presented their perception on advertising, each in a more creative way then the other.

I got to speak to Clive Challis and meet Rick Boyko. Clive told us about the transition of graphic design into Art Director and that all the work should focuses on the concept more then on the execution. To be creative means to inflame somebody’s imagination and make them pick your product. They also defined creativity using

Nico, Roger Hatchuel Academy student, empowered by me.alchemy

Hello from Cannes!

The selected design, marketing, and advertising students for Roger Hatchuel Academy got to meet today Howard Draft and he emphasized upon the importance of the advertising campaign actually having a specific result. According to him every campaign should have a perfect balance between the strategy, the insight and great media coverage. Clive and Rick ended up today’s class telling us never to let anyone tell us that we are not creative no matter in what department we work in, advertising is first of all a creative process of selling products.

Alex, Roger Hatchuel Academy student, empowered by BCR

The BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India &China) have indeed many differences but also a handful of similarities, when it comes to the dimension, population number, and strong peculiar culture.
Therefore each factor contributes to coming up with new ways of managing a business, but also new approaches in design.
With over 400 design schools in China and 336 in Brazil the BRIC countries create good examples of design solutions and marketing ideas. Luciano Deos, the speaker of the seminar further presented examples of creative diversities from Brazil-Melissa shoes, India – TATA water purifier,China – electric cars.

Iulia&Corina Young Marketers empowered by Impression.

The LBI seminar started with what is announced to be Cannes Lions’ hot topic: the social turn of advertising.
Starting from technology being the biggest driver of social interaction, brands should encourage people to be  empathetic and social, use their creativity and skills, be knowledgeable and discerning.
Because they are looking for people’s commitment, the only way to succeed is for brands to be genuine, stand for value and quality. CSR is no longer a side issue of the brand strategy but must become a key of the communication tactics.
A possible philosophy for today’s reality is: if we all work for eachother, than we will live like kings.
“We are all journalists, writers and editors now.’  We live in a time of unprecedented innovations when kids are leading the way with digital technology. This opens the door to a wide range of social consequence witch we cannot fully predict.

Sabina Ionescu, PR Team of the Year

SSL stands for Stuffed, Stamped and Licked. We were really looking forward to this seminar firstly because of the interesting title. When we got there, we actually found out that Patrick Collister, the Editor of Directory magazine in UK, puts a lot of value on to interesting and catchy phrases. But that was not exactly the object of his seminar, in fact, he was there to talk us through a lot of interesting forms of Direct Mails.

Although most of the advertising people consider Direct Mailing to be the ugly sister of all other forms of communication, Patrick showed us that with a little imagination and willingness to step outside the box, one can create an exciting experience simply by using an envelope differently. In this direction, he showed us a dozen of ideas on how to use envelopes, letters and text. Of course, the beauty of an ideas comes from adapting it to each client’s individual needs and thus using direct mail as the immediate sollution to the client brief.

To give you a few examples of what i’m talking about, i’m going to name some of the letters he talked about”

• An insurance company sent a burnt envelope with an intact letter inside, to show how safe things are when insured by them.
• An awareness campaign for donations to the homeless left envelopes outside in the rain for an entire night, dried them, and sent them to people. The copy wrote “This is how it feels like to spend a night in the rain.
• A health and fitness center sent letters to the wrong adress, forcing people to deliver the letters themselves. This was their form of pushing people to exercise more. If people opened the letter anyway, the message scolded them for being lazy
• The text on a letter sent by Schwarzkopf was initially grey and became more and more black as the reader kept going trough the brief. The brand promissed to do the same thing with your hair.
• An agency raised awareness about children not being baptised by sending a letter with only a single sentance: “Put this under tap water”. When the people did this, the text appeared and talked about the importance of baptism. Obviously, the campaign had tremendous success.

So these are just a few of the great ideas that we saw today. I have to leave you now since the next seminar is about to start. Up next is TribalDDB with their story about the power of social media.

Thank you for reading!

Catalina & Simona, Young Lions Media, empowered by Impression.

As usual, Romania’s young delegation at Cannes is a bright and consistent one with both – students and young creatives. They will delight us during the full week with the best reports, following the juiciest categories of the festival.

Fingers crossed for Catalina&Simona – the Young Lions media team, that in only few hours will enter the competition and also for Iulia&Corina – the Young Marketer team that will face the jury on Friday.

Have a great Cannes 2010

 Jorg Riommi is an Italo-German creative working successfully in Romania for Saatchi & Saatchi Bucharest. Invited by Radu Florescu – the leader of the agency to revitalize the creative department of Saatchi, Jorg succeeded in only few years to activate the local latent resources and to give a fantastic boost of creative energy to the team. The clients applauded  and the international festivals reacted accordingly. Thanks to his performances, he was proposed to represent Romania at Eurobest, being finally selected as juror for Dubai Lynx 2010 in the “Direct, Sales, Promo and Interactive” panel. Below you can find some of Jorg opinions about this world class event for the advertising community.

Jorg, you represented Romania in a cosmopolite Jury Panel at Dubai Lynx 2010.

Share with us your thoughts about this special professional experience.

There were few things I really like, in different categories: I think the grand prix outdoor idea for the Dubai metro is just awesome, great and simple – please visit www.dubailynx.com to see the awarded work. Such a smart use of alternative media! I think also the direct grand prix, the dustvertising idea for O&M, is brilliant, a perfect example of efficiency in direct/guerrilla. In tv, there was a brilliant spot from Egypt that won gold, about redoing in an Arabic way Hollywood legends such as Rocky or Seven – very well directed and edited, just hilarious in the acting. Also in print, the work from Elephant Cairo, I found it extremely smart and well done – especially the work that won gold for the chewing gum, that for me is easily a silver in Cannes (i accept bets!

How was the judging experience?

In our jury (Direct & Sales promotion, interactive) the judging process was simple, as we all felt surprisingly aligned on the work to shortlist – and then to award. Little discussion took place in the interactive section (which was a little poorer than the rest, to be frank), so we had to set a slightly different standard, in order to send a positive message and encourage the industry to keep going and improve.

Did you have some time for the seminars? Which were the best?

I went to almost all the seminars except for Monday morning when we were still judging… I loved the speech of John Hunt about the “Art of the idea”, fantastic in his simplicity and style. Also Chuck Porter was great (excellent work and irony!), and Amir Kassaei (brilliant drive towards future ideas)…but I think best speech and more relevant for our times was the one from my president of the jury, David Nobay. It’s all about story telling and ideas, in the end, no matter the media. Everything has changed, nothing has changed.
A final taste about Dubai – the event & the place?
The whole event was great: very well organized, professional and high end – as advertising should be.World class. Also, Dubai is a place where ideas are growing at a fantastic speed rate. Everything is sparkling and happening now, people are there with the feeling of literally being building the place, and this is very cool. Lots of energy, as the whole world is there. with 75% of expat population, you don’t really feel so secluded.
Still, anyway, the Arabic culture is present, and shows in several different ways – from drinking restrictions to cultural influence in social and media behavior. but i think everything is done with cleverness in Dubai – the rulers understand they have to be liberal to attract the world. This applies also for adverts.

US and THEM

“Nationalism is the feeling that your way of life, country, or ethnic group are superior to others” – George Orwell

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” -  Dr. Samuel Johnson

We all have traditions, moral values, habits from our national country that we take with us when we travel around the world.The same thing is happening with brands they promote themselves with the help of their national identity.You can promote your brand through national identity but you can’t denigrate other countries in your ad`s. You should check this ad’s:

- Smart: No Americans wanted (outdoor)

- chevrolet the accessible american dream (ad)

- Seat: Ein, Zwel, Auto Emocion – is a fusion between audi and seat (ad) …..and some rules to REMEMBER:

- it’s not where you are FROM, it’s what it says ABOUT YOU…..so be true to yourself

- POSITIVE about YOURSELF, not negative about others

- AVOID crude STEREOTYPES, cliché , and CHEAP JOKES

- THINK of a DREAM-STATE RATHER then a NATION-STAT

Ioana Popescu

Young Creative is the most wanted position for students thet want to gain recognition in te fields of advertising. Toay we had seen the best students all over Europe that had to come witha solution in 48 hours for a brief given only 2 days ago. the had to fullfill heir asigment at their full poential in order to win the competition. We’ve saw te creative solutions as the students performed on a stage. The soltions they came up with were very good, one better than another. From our opinion, the romanian team (Mihaela Mihai & Ruxandra Mateiu) had the most coherent speech and we wish hem the best of luck and have fun at the after party.

Popescu Ioana. Loriana Marchetanu. Evelin Bundur

Before I went to AMSTERDAM I googled up “amsterdam gaffiti” and I randomly selected a picture.

It didn’t have any address or anything useful that would help me find it. This is the link from the picture.

My ideea was to find that house during the four days I stayed in Amsterdam, and guess what? I FOUND IT! (while I was looking for the hostel we all stayed in)

Or I could as well say that THE HOUSE FOUND ME!(Very happy times for my general mood)

Evelin Bundur.

Hi there!

Today there was a series of workshops and seminars that were absolutely delicious.

Our top favourites were:

1. Leo Burnett and the Brand Union(Tutssel $ Tutssel)

2. The networkone (Zero Budget Campaigns)

3. BETC Eur RSC6 (Creative Artificial Inteligence)

4. AQVA

But w ill share the experience provided by BONGO Advertising (king Kong vs. Godzilla). Ina time limit of 5 minutes we had to interact with people who were standing behind us and more important people who we never talked to before.

The interaction concept was based on doing things that you like with people you like. It is very important to find your “match”, that person that connects with you in a natural way. We consider that a profesional relationship function in the same way as it does in any kind of human relationship.

” If you do things that you like you’re probably good at it … and if you do it with the people that you like it’s ever much funnier and much easier in hard times”

INTERACTION is the key!

Evelin Bundur. Loriana Marchetanu.

Here are some photos with the general atmosphere at Eurobest, AS SEEN FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE and also photos with US – The Alternative School of Creative Thinking TEAM.

Networking after Dark Party!(Thursday 26 November)

After a day full of seminars and workshops, mindblowing each and avery one of them, Eurobest organised a party for all of us at the Bureau Pindakaas. It was a great party with great music, eaven grater people and a fantastic atmosphere.

We also enjoyed the invitation which was at the same time A MENIU entitled

” A HEADY COCKTAIL SERVED UP IN THE HEART OF EUROPE’S CREATIVE CAPITAL”.

Here are some of teh cocktails on the list ( entitled after the workshops and seminars):

- TAXI ON THE ROCKS

- BOOZE LEE

- 1-2-3 ACHTUNG!

- BONKERS BLOODY

- DIRTY 180

- TRUTH WELL TOLD

- SLAMSTERDAM WORLDWIDE and many others

We had a lot of fun dancing, drinking and networking with creative people from all over Europe.

At the end they gave us a special drink made for the morning after the party. It’s named G-TOX and it really works!!!)

Evelin Bundur. Ioana Popescu. Loriana Marchetanu

Good vs. Bad

180 is about:

Having the idea

Making sure it’s the right type of idea

Having the idea ice

Believing in the idea

Being relentless with the idea

Being right with the idea

It’s about analyzing a situation from many angles.

A good idea sustained by a good execution it’s ideal but sometimes you don’t have the resources, so the idea will lose it’s value.

So it’s better wait, rather than to rush thins and do a bad execution. Everybody at one point in their lives made a few mistakes, but it’s important to learn from them and not to be ashamed because al the things from the past made you who you are today.

Popescu Ioana

Last day at Eurobest…

15 of the best young creative teams presented their solution to the brief they received only 48 hour ago.  It was extraordinary to see how the jury evaluated every single presentation. We got an insight scoop of how to deliver a successful campaign in a very short time. Also interesting was to see how one problem got almost 15 different approaches.

The brief asked the young creatives to design a campaign for joinTheTap.org that would help persuade LOGOC that tap water should be the official drink of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

We liked the Swedish team for their clean cut campaign proposal.  The winners are yet to be nominated, we keep our fingers crossed for our team!

Greetings from some ad-addicts

Nicoleta Ivascu

Robert Surpateanu

Stefan Condurachi

2^nd day of Eurobest was as hectic as the first. A lot of famous campaigns, ads and people I never thought I’d got to meet. Even if we hardly have the time to eat or sleep everything is way to interesting to feel it J. Imagine the feeling you had when you were little and you finally got the toy you craved for… this is exactly how it feels only that the toy gets to be much better then you thought it would be….

If I had to make a top of today’s workshops and seminars, it would look like this :

1.    Leo Burnett

They were absolutely  outstanding.

2. Zero-Budget Campaigns

The key phrase of the seminar was: MAKING SENCE.  It was about campaigns that have the same impact as big budget campaign but with 0 costs. I found it very interesting as we were showed a few projects that managed to achieve the same impact a traditional high-cost campaign would. I got to see : 
Julian Boulding, Founder – thenetworkone
 Willem van der Schoot, MD – Lemz, Amsterdam
 Alex Baixas, Head of Digital – Shackleton. They emphasized the importance of “ having a little bit eye for the world not the money”. They proved their point by showing us some of their 0 bdget campaigns: “ The Neighbor Day”- Doweur Egberts Coffe and Omo’s- “ Outside play”. Also something I caught from all of them “ viral is the consequence of a very well done  campaign not a campaign itself”

3.Naked Communications had a very interesting presentation to, they focused on the importance of storytelling and how creative talent is borne from popular culture. Another issue was “ Mysterious coincidences in advertising”. They were talking about campaigns that were inspired by user generated portals done with no commercial perspective.

4.Cai program was a very exciting program that proved the importance of human thought by creating a machine that was able to make a print just by introducing the brief’s main points. I found it very interesting because it emphasized how important interpretation and human contact are.

All in all, I had a blast! No other place I’d rather be right now. We also went to a party and made some friends from Miami Ad School. They insisted to come to a club but some of us decided to take a rain-check because in we were eager to see the young creative’s presentations in the morning.

All the best from Eurobest

Nico ( Nicoleta Ivascu)

The two Leo Burnett Big Brothers
Showed us in a great manner of style, how important is the story telling, and the way we should think and act before we create an Ad, a TV spot, a logo, or if you are in love with crafting let’s say packaging as well..
One of the important things, The Brothers highlighted, screams like this : “Don’t think about selling the product! Think about connecting to people, and your product will be sold out!”

What I’ve learned?
People don’t buy things because they need them, people buy things because they want them…In order to have success, you have to make the people want your product…

How?
Give them the story!
Robert Surpateanu

Stephane Xiberras, the president and executive creative Director – BETC Euro RSCG Paris came up with this crazy, but not that crazy idea – to invent a machine that generates ads only by entering in a kind of search engine some key words.

The result of the experiment was weird, funny and useful in the same time.

It proved both that machines can have a weird kind of black humor, but also proved that genuine, human creatures are somehow better. The only difference between the man and the machine, from that point further ?

the necessary time.

 The Stephane’s demonstration ? Le me use his words: creativity too often resembles a mediocre recombination of already existing things.

Our machine demonstrated only one thing – we should never become like it.

ps: we just loved the Stephane’s kind of Louis IVX outfit.

Meet The Talents

http://www.hyperisland.se/

The goals of the Hyper Island school:

- students to become cutting edge

- we support our students to learn and develop skills, not just software.

- to manage CHANGE, because in a company or project, CHANGE is a constant.

- we give students tasks they don’t know how to resolve.

- they need to increase the entrepreneur skills and attitude in team work.

- we encourage to embrace failure and then to take that experience into the next projects.

- we encourage to leave the daily ruttiness and to challenge their own way of thinking and doing things.

Amsterdam, a little rain, 11 hours  of workshops and seminars with some of the biggest advertising names in Europe, 10 minute brakes, running between classes, half an hour  for a fast meal = the perfect environment for a little ad-addict like me !

If  I had to pick, I’d say my favorite two were : Decoding Email Marketing and The Hardest-Working Swedes in the Business give You a Peek behind the Scenes.

Leave me alone Harry and hold my hand Larry!

The first focused upon the importance of creating a proper direct marketing content and concept for the online environment. Besides the well known advice that any direct marketer gives : NO SPAM, Michael Leander ( FEDMA’s CEO) showed us solutions to avoid it. He started by talking  about “one to one marketing” and proved how the best 2% marketers ( “ motor people”) manage to stay on top. According to him, the three main considerations a successful direct marketer should always remember are : Create an experience for the consumer, Engage your target and Tell the target exactly what you want him to do. At the last one , he told us about his own philosophy regarding consumer’s behavior:  Leave me alone Harry and hold my hand Larry- Harry is the consumer that takes his own decisions and prefers to explore on his own the platform or content, and Larry is the one that needs to be given exact directions. Michael Lander also emphasized upon the importance of using multiple tools for the online direct communication like newsletters, offers and promotions , and alerts. The idea is that even if you lose one, you still have two left. An other interesting part of the workshop was a case study he showed us about an opera that made a little experiment to analyse the target’s behavior : they made two Stage Passes, the first had four types of discounts and was called ( Stage Pass) and the other one had 5 extra discounts and was called Stage Pass +. After six months, they realized that even if, both were free, to everyone’s surprise, 60% chose the pass with less options. Another tip we got, was to include the preview sample at a newsletter subscription in order to give the target the opportunity to “touch” the product before “buying” it.

5 Ad-Gurus in one small room!

This was a dream came true! In this workshop I met 5 people that I have read about , admired and never thought I would get to know or see so close. Sweden has some of the best advertising people in Europe.

The first were the B-Reel guys : Oscar Tillman and Lars Bjurman- you might remember them as the ones who did Hotel 626, the first advertgame built on the concept of interactive film. ( Doritos Campaign). They proved one again that creativity and innovation have no limits with three of their newest campaigns

Axe

Talk Talk Brightdancing

Asylum 626

Then came  ACNE Digital : with Klas Jonsson and Max Ahlban. They had a very interesting way of structuring their presentation, they chose to explain us the rules of interactive storytelling using their campaigns as an argument.

1. Let the user be part of the story  : Change perspectives at Saab Campaign
2. Let the user be the story : The Lynx Roar
3. Let the user create the story : BBC Blast Get Creative

Also, a quote that stick to me was what they said regarding to the future of storytelling and advertising : “ The next step forward is to take a step back and understand the past and presenting order to create the future.

The last was world known North’s Kingdom CEO: David Erikson who presented his last campaign for Germany’s National football team : A graphic novel game – Adidas

All in all, I got to run to take some pictures with Amsterdam’s  ginger bread  like .

buildings that seem to be sinking in the water.

The ad-addict always on a hurry: Nico  (Nicoleta Ivascu)

HEARTBEATS INTERNATIONAL AND MASSIVE MUSIC

Shortly,  we’ve been perfectly  explained, nice professional and clear, how great music  can help, support, or even be the key of success in to some advertising campaigns, a perfect example, it’s the old Pepsi commercial around the 80’s, which was a great success just because of the great  king of pop Michael Jackson, and his famous song Billie Jean…

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd15YVb2M6M

Robert Surpateanu

8:30 am – coffe || 9:30 – first seminar || 13:00 -second coffe and yet another one until 15:40 (size:small|| price:2 euro each).

From  this point of the day TWO seminars took place at Eurobest, Amsterdam

and I will now be sharing some insights,mainly the ones that interested me most.

FIRST Seminar – GLUE (Being Irresistible)

The first project that really cought my attention was Bacardi’s campaign B-LIVE BEATOLOGY

a very interactive website with a GREAT ideea behind it. Check it out for yourselves!

They also developed a campaign for a drink named OASIS which practically

began as a story of a real life love affair between a gril and a cactus boy

(the headline of the campaign being “for people who don’t like water”).

Unlike the usual campaign strategy which implies a 20% buget investment

to get the campaign ready, this one took a risk and raised the buget limit with 30 %.

AND THEY SUCCEEDED!

SECOND Seminar – THE BERLIN SCHOOL OF CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

The seminar consisted of three leading European creatives who presented their latest work in understanding the world of advretising.

Every one of them were great but one did catch my full attention. Gideon Amichay’s speach is the moment I’m talking about.

SUBJECT—-The CREATIVE Consumer: GREAT or THREAT?

He had a great point of view about the digital tsunami which is approaching.The main ideea is wether a creative consumer is becoming as important or

more important than the agency’s creatives.

There are two threats to this sittuation: 1. Abssolute control is over( an age of dialog instead of monologue) and 2. the BIG denial and one solution so far

TO AMBRACE THE UNKOWN AND TRY TO WALK TOGHETER DOWN THE SAME ROAD!

I AM still in amSTERDAM and write you some more of Eurobest tomorrow night (before I go OUT with my classmates:p).

Evelin Bundur

Stefan Iordache and Claudiu Dobrita are judjing now, together with few of the most influential creative minds of today’s advertising at Eurobest. Miki (Mihai) and Ruxi (Mateiu) are solving the brief they received yesterday, we are sure they will do their best and to challenge their fellow competitors.

In the rainy Amsterdam bicicles are huge and almost threatening:-). But who cares, after all ? The rest of the big team from The Alternative School is exploring the seminars together with the rest of the senior romanian delegates, few of them teachers at The Alternative. We will join them right now and we promise to keep you posted with pictures both cool and hot,the latest news and the vibe of the North.

they go to Eurobest.

definitely.

and what they actually do is this: “Each team has two days to create a winning campaign that fulfills the brief using at least three different media. The brief for the campaign is set by a charity client appointed by Eurobest. Teams of young creatives work to create a unique, eye-catching integrated campaign in only 48 hours.”

do you find it challenging enough?

read more.

Photo taken in Cannes. Where else?

Speaking of Eurobest, as you already know, Razvan was the Romanian juror in 2008 and made a fabulous impression behind the scene.

The Eurobest festival is close.

The deadline to apply for the Alternative School is also getting closer.

It is simple. If you want to prove how much of a creative are you and get into the Young Creatives competition at Eurobest, you should apply faster, think wiser, work harder.

It is worth it. To be the best at Eurobest is not something to ignore.

Really.

We recently received congratulations for the Alternative School campaign.

It is not, although, our merit, but our students’.

And if you want to know the story behind it, here it is:

Every year we organise a competition on a School-related campaign brief. We truly think that the visual and the copy should not only reflect what we want to transmit about this challenging educational project, but also should reflect the taste and vibes of  the generation we work with. After all, it is dedicated to them, not to us.

Our 2009 winners are Cristi (Costea) and Carmen (Dobrescu) from Publicis. They attended the school in 2008-2009 period.  They won the competition for Dubai Lynx and explored the event as delegates, they were on the second best place at our young creatives competition for Cannes, attending it again as delegates and they finally made it as our heart winners with this year Alternative School print &web campaign.

We loved the warmth, the idea, the funny approach and the attention dedicated to the details of the execution.

…so, big thanks to this team and also to their creative director – Razvan Capanescu from Publicis. We always say that behind great young creatives teams is always a great creative director.

I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to learn, compete and enjoy Amsterdam. Would you ?

In the end, we are not only the school that is offering a huge learning opportunity to young people, but also the school that opens them the door to high quality international events, such as eurobest.com.

Work hard, be a fair competitor, be intelligent and use your gifts wisely; you could join the Romanian young creatives team in the most vibrant European festival and enjoy it.

Dear candidates to Eurobest semester,

Please use the email gradinita@canneslions.ro in order to ask any details you might want to know. We can assure in that way that we receive all your messages and we can provide a full and complete set of info.

In order to be accepted at the school you need to solve a brief (ask for it using the above address). Send along with it a cv and a portfolio of works that you are proud of.

Remember, we encourage you to apply as a team, able to generate ideas and to implement them.The advice is addressed especially to those who have as a goal to compete in the international contexts of Eurobest, Dubai Lynx or Cannes.

We remind you that on every semester we offer scholarships for remarkable applications. The selected persons for the scholarship will not need to pay the fee, instead they will work with some of our partner agencies in a internship system.

In order to be completely motivated, see what a great experience is ahead at Eurobest-www.eurobest.com.

Get ready for a new challenging year at the Alternative School for Creative Thinking.

First stop – Eurobest, Amsterdam.

Subscriptions are open till october 24.  If you want to know more about the application steps, contact us at gradinita[at]canneslions[dot]ro

Successful creative work includes:

Chemistry

Respect

Ambition

Fear

Trust

Stupidity

Emotions

Revisions

Vanity

Insanity

Complementarty

EGOLESS

Malina Neagu – Empowered by TEMPO

Once again, attending to Cannes Lions Advertising festival was a mind blowing experience, a free connection to an abundance of useful information.

From advertising and design trends that placed outdoor, happening and digital to a higher level as before this year we had a strong call to action from Act Responsible with Kofi Annan. During a 45 minutes seminar Kofi Annan Nobel prize winner and President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, David Jones Global CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide and Global CEO of Havas Worldwide and Bob Geldof, Humanitarian, Pop Star, Broadcaster and Businessman talked about climate justice and appealed to the creative community to take a stand in this crucial matter.

A powerful message was send out through the Tck Tck Tck campaign presented during the seminar : we have to act now without hesitation.The solid proof came from placing a block of ice with the campaigns name Tck Tck Tck near the Palais de Festival that melted in less than an hour.

Some other interesting feeds came this year from Sawa seminar that showed new ways on  how brands can interact with the audience through smell, touch, sound, taste and sight with 3D commercials,  the smell of the product and the taste, interactive games and relevant sound selection.

Dentsu seminar presented this year by three female creative directors showed a interesting  perspective not only on the Asian advertisements but also on the social trends of the region.

Cows in Jackets  workshop presented by Daniela Krautsack and Marco Bevolo had an interesting view on how modern culture,  urban art and design will influence the way that advertisers will communicate to the audience.  The cities become a landscape for a new way of  interacting with the brand and outdoor becomes the only relevant way of communicating.

So these are a few of the greatest seminars and workshops for 2009 at Cannes Lions festival enjoy the feeds!:)

Alexandra Anghelache empowered by Tempo

We were more than 20, as I recall, this year at Cannes Lions. And I believe it was great for each of us. Besides the common motivation and the eager to learn and find out new things about advertising, we had a great time together. Great people make for great fun!

Here, we were improvising and taking loads of pictures!

Ana Maria Vasilache. Empowered by Impression.

The Leo Burnett guy, Mark Tutssel, Global Chief Creative Officer, told us a little bit about how to creats acts that engage people, insted of general ads, that don’t involve anyone.

He told us to focus on  the next thing: “Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything”. As to do anything, one needs a purpose. A strong one. He set the best example he could give, as far as I’m concerned, the Cadbury Gorilla, which is indeed an act of joy! That means, that in such an act, people get involved, get active, they participate, therefore they are entertained.

This is what a people brand does: entertains people: engages, touches, involves people. Another good example was Museo Efemero, made in Lisbon. It was something that created value. It created a bond, a relationship with the people. See it also on youtube.

One of best things Mark Tutssel suggested, was to be always a sponge of life. So, don’t forget to bring back stories and use them. Especially in your work.

Ana Maria Vasilache & Adina Stanescu. Empowered by Impression.

cannes lions 2009 closed its doors. palais de festivals is actually host to another festival these days. but the great atmosphere is still on and the advertising festival scent has not left us. we had the best time at cannes lions, although we didn’t get any award at the Young Lions Media. I’ll talk about that experience in another post. but as for the rest, I, for example, had a favourite seminar or master class each day, and that is something enriching and worth spending your free time indoor the palais, although the weather was good for the beach. I had nice chats with my colleagues and people I met in cannes, and that was another good thing.

the last day was actually about a mix between novelty, storytelling, networking, conversation, stories, all of them related to efficient creativity. as funny as it was, the lean mean fighting machine seminar, as insightful it was the POKE seminar. on one side i heard about having fun -at the office, at any kind of work, in your daily tasks, in your free time-, about inspirational policies that some companies have, about incentives that break creativity loose, depending on the moment, the job and the agency. for more details the speakers indicated their blog: leanmeanfightingmachine.blogspot.com.

On the other hand, at the POKE workshop, i heard some good pieces of advice:

Create things worh talking about – in order for people to start a conversation

Great stories never end – so create stories!

Success comes from: Simple / Unexpected / Concrete / Credible / Emotion / Stories. So keep these in mind!

Novelty is good – look for new twists in conversations

Read this book: “Made to stick”

More to come, from the seminars I haven’t talked about, but loved very much, these next days. Never too late.

Ana Maria Vasilache &  Adina Stanescu. Empowered by Impression.

We all know advertising it’s about life itself. All the brilliant ads that we love have a piece of their maker(s) soul. In the Y&R seminar, Roger Daltrey and Harvey Goldsmith tried to talk about the bounds between advertising and music and how The Who build their brand. They even succeded but this seminar was more than how The Who managed their brand over the years. Rock bands such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd inspired hundred millions of people not only with their music but with their messages, their art and energy. They inspired many other bands that came along the way, many directors that made brilliant movies, many fashion designers and artists. They inspired life and also advertising.

For who doesn’t know, Roger Daltrey is the lead vocal of The Who, the legendary britain rock band. He is also one the greatest voices in the history of rock.

For those of you who know about Roger Daltrey I can tell you that he is more than fine! After the dialog with Harvey Goldsmith he sang 2 songs though only one was in plan! He played guitar as well on Who are you and Ring of fire. What a performance! We all sang with him as backing vocals at Who are you and it was a dream.

Alexandru Hariga
This article is brought to you by the curtesy of Impression, our Cannes Lion Cyber Sponsor

I am not going to tell you what Cannes Lions Festival can be for you if you didn’t experienced it until now. What i am going to do is to tell you how it is for me. I’ve been at many seminars, award ceremonies and screenings and though I didn’t like all of them, they all went somewhere in my head. All the ideas that I’ve heard, linked each other in my head without even me knowing. I saw people that won many awards and deserve it, people that lead gigantic companies, modest people from whom I’ve learned much. Above all it’s the few ideas that will arise from this experience! Want to know what this are?

Can’t tell you!

Come and experience it next year, your ideas will be different but as well positive!

Alexandru Hariga,
This article is brought to you by the curtesy of Impression, our Cannes Lion Cyber Sponsor

This was a light and fresh seminar, presenting the mechanisms of the eureka moments. These were known even before, but the scientific base of them was less famous. As it turns out from different research, there is a part of the brain that helps us making connections between different elements, thus resulting in creativity. When the mind is relaxed, the results are better.

So, the suggestion was to take into account the innovation time off from Google. That means getting 20% from your daily job and do something different, thus enhancing creativity.

Cristina and Coanda, empowered by Tempo

Said Eric Schmidt, the Googke CEO in the Publicis Seminar directed by Maurice Levy. There were a few other interesting things that he said, like:

Google is still giving all the three meals for free to it’s employees (Google yum yum) It’s better to keep your employees satisfied  than to hire new ones.

Google hires only people who have already done a mistake and learned something out of it. I think that it’s great that a company understands that people aren’t perfect, but the important thing is that they try to become.

People work in companies to make a difference not absolutely for the money. The company has to stand for something greater and so will its employees.

The internet is a great resource to start with if you are not a popular brand and Obama’s campaign did that.

The mobile phone is the future. Many of the speakers here, in Cannes, this week also said this. The mobile phone is very personal, it’s interactive, it’s the portable internet, it’s also a camera. So, get prepared for the mobile era. I have been also to some screenings and I have seen how “Editores online” implemented a campaign using the QR codes and the phone. Check it!

Diana Ichim

empowered by Tempo

Try to keep your ideas as simple as possible.

Be coherent.

Use the right channels and don’t choose the channels before you find your  idea.

A good campaign continues even when the actual campaign is over.

There are a few interesting campaigns that you should take a look at:

Pampers’ village, Garron’s DaRes, GO Miniman, GO!

Diana Ichim,

empowered by TEMPO

What’s there to remember of the speach of Kofi Anan, Nobel prize winner and fighter for climate change? First, clinate change should be actually called climate justice. Cause nations are changing the way they live because of the climate changes. And this is, more than over before, a grown up political issue. Presenting the tck tck tck campaign, we learn that there is no room for pessimism or fatalism. That we can take this open source campaign, for free – and try to make Copenhagen the new Kyoto.

TCK TCK TCK!

Cristina, empowered by Tempo

Key learnings from a seminar whose introduction was that not only designers know designer, but also common people.

- design is the hope of the world, and when it’s bad, it’s terrible (the Corbusier inspired buildibgs, awful to live in, are actually designers’ fault)

- we are not just ad men, we are all designers

- design follows a universal language, beyond all borders and languages

- real people really care about design, because they understand it

- design is a very very public affair

- design is participative and engaging

- it’s the handmaiden of innovation

- our children live by it and they understand it critically (just think about Lego)

- it’s the bedrock of modern businesses

Coanda, empowered by Tempo

Your mood and interest… even if  the first impulse is to look for arguments or facts refering to what had happened.

Who is the speaker ? How he presented What he said? Was the public involved? Was an interactive presentation? Was an interesting subject (for you)? Did you like it?

But, stay a moment to reflect …

It’s very easy to put an etiquette. Especially, when you dislike something. Sometimes you even get disappointed. But, have you ever thought to look inside you?

What you were thinking before the presentation? What expectation did you had? Did really wanted to be there? Were you present or your thoughts were flying somewhere else?

Were you engaged to be receive value?

Before attending to a seminar or workshop, take some time to think WHAT IS IN FOR YOU? Be focused on your objectives and in the same time keep your mind opened to see WHAT ELSE A THING COULD MEAN…

Enjoy!

Malina Neagu – Empowered by TEMPO

The workshop held by LBI about the future of brands was really interactive. In the speaker part, we streamed into a few tips for creating belivable brands. First of all, you shouldn’t decide beforehand the platform, but be flexible and open to what works with the idea. You have to be conscious about the fast pace in which things change and try to join the online and the offline worlds in your campaigns. You have to set up a conversation, not just send your messages to the audiences. Also you need to know your audience, where they hang up, what gets them excited etc. Thirdly and most importantly you have to live up to your brand promise.

In the interactive part of the workshop we had to work on a brief for the imaginary Frizzeles, an organic sweet with three different flavours, which merge when you chew it. We created the whole identity of the product in an integrated campaign, by using as many relevant channels for the audience, as possible.

Anca Muscalu, empowered by TEMPO

1. Compare

2. Tragedy

3. Overcoming the conster

4. Voyage and Return

5. Quest

6. Rags to riches

7. Rebirth

Malina Neagu – Empowerd by TEMPO

1. Socially active

Being socially active may increase feelings of self-worth and emotional validation.

Communication and relationships are indispensable.

2. Entertaiment driven

3. Need for personalisation.

Being different is a way to express tates and personality.

Pay attention to details that define cultural diferences.

Spot consumers heart.

Malina Neagu – Empower by TEMPO

Well I can see how diversity is an attribute of the spots presented.I like to see different creative ways by using different digital platforms to promote a brand! The spot made for Adidas had a funny way of combining comic,ironic situations from reality. It is effective because everyone can find himself in that kind of situations,so it’s a good way of getting consumer attention. Animation and different characters are used in spots and digital image has a key role in this process.  A good example are the spots made for Scrabble, the project called”Pain without borders”,the works of Aaron Duffy and Antonio Balseir.

Ionut Radulescu empowered by Tempo

What i liked about this workshop was the interactive spot for mtv.It was intersesting to see how an motion graphic concept made in black and white,can have such a strong way of communicating a message.I liked the good syncronization betwen the artistic copncept and the atributes of the brand.That’s a creative way of promoting a brand uisng this kind of digital black-and white piece of art.Fanta had also a funny and catchy artistic concept with their animation spot and their character design.That’s a good way to achieve succes,selling a product because is’t about having  fun and enjoy life!Now that’s a good way to start a campaign like this and you will be sure that consumers will be attracted. 

Ionut Radulescu empowered by Tempo

The projectionism is an art.

The projectionism is more then a trend.

The projectionism is the new face of the urban places.

The phenomenon of projectionism must be interpreted as a form of expression, not only as the technology of projection.

Even if we can find projectionism everywhere, the city which is most exposed to this culture is Vienna, unofficially considered the world’s capital of projectionism.

Talking about trends and changing, we can discuss about emotional cities and cities who will live the message – Life’s for sharing.

The future will be of that urban areas which are personalized and technological.

Adriana Burlacu, empowered by TEMPO

Anca Ghinea, empowered by TEMPO

Let’s Play

‘Put your brand in the game” was the main message of the MICROSOFT workshop.  The gaming space is relevant for companies because involves a win-win situation: the comfort of the costumers and the benefits of the brands. This is the reason why advertising games is a huge industry which attracts more people everyday. If you wondering why it has that dimension, a simple answer will be something like that: because it is cool to put your brand in the games, because has the power to reach more people than others think and because opens creative opportunities.

Adriana Burlacu, empowered by TEMPO.

Anca Ghinea, empowered by TEMPO.

Key learnings from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, in short:

- digital was the DNA of the political campaign

- they did not accept the electorate as it was, they always tried to add up to what they had initially

- Obama was a truly spectacular candidate, but finally it was “people talking to people” that won the elections

- they took people as adults, stating problems as they trully were

- they believed and implemented alignment: if Obama was giving a speach about energy, then the supporters coming to your door and the TV ads of that day were also speaking about energy

- media are now diffused, so people trust human contact more and more

- all in all, the winning equation consisted of a sound candidate, a sound strategy and a sound message.

Cristina & Coanda, empowered by Tempo

The Microsoft Masterclass showed us a little part of what the new technologies have in store for us. We were told about the new developments of the Xbox, such as silver light, about windows 7, which will be available this fall, as well as the digital canvas, a great tool for creating ideas. It is a screen, which responds to multi touch commands, it has the ability to recognize who you are and has a great rate of response. Soon I will post the pictures.

Anca Muscalu, empowered by TEMPO

Today i’ve attended a really great workshop, held by Accenture Marketing Sciences. Apart from the WORK part of the workshop, which was the most interactive and usefull so far, we actually learned about some now cool tools, not only for advertisers. 

Kluster costs but, I think it’s worth it. Anyone can register, no matter if they are accounts, strategists, art directors and no matter their experience and position. Only ideas are evaluated and not people. It works like this you post a brief and people offer ideas on it solving. This ideas are evaluated, offering a great way of testing and improving your work. More details can be found on www.kluster.com

Google Wave  hasn”t been launched yet, but it will be a great collaboration tool, which can be used especially for team work, since you can get your feedback in real time.  http://wave.google.com/.

Sentiment Analysis Manager is a tool turning sentiment into metrics and it analyzes digital content live from consumer reviews on sites like Amazon and social media sites such as blogs and Twitter. It captures the overall opinion of the combined assessments. The results are captured in graph form so that a company can gauge positive/neutral/negative feedback, but also tabulate the results about specific features in a product. http://www.teragram.com/solutions/sentiment-analysis.html

Anca Muscalu, empowered by TEMPO

Was a Herman Vaske seminar wich illustrated through examples what user experience, engaging and a good understanding of your target is. The campaigns you should check out (if you don’t know them already) are: The Mini Dominatrix, the Heidies, the Wooper Facebook capaign and others.

Diana Ichim,

empowered by TEMPO

The Schematic seminar on Sunday got me very worried about the future of technology and implicitly the human race.

The seminar was partly about the fragmentation of media and partly about the latest development in user interface technologies. First of all, we have changed or TV consumption habits in such a great way that we’re now in a phase where we mix TV content with, internet trailers and infos about our favourite shows and actors. Basically, we consume a dynamic assemblage of various info, but not on the same screen.

In not a very distant future, with the overlapping Internet and TV – Internet connected televison sets have been around for some time now – each of us will have a personal channel. It will definetely be broader than televison, including internet based information, branded content, promotions, etc. The content will be chosen by us, but based on our choices, producers will have a better profile of us, thus targgeting their products more precisely.

What really got me worried was the way we’re going to interact with the above mentioned channel – gestural controls. We’ll be able to sit on the couch and navigate the controls by waving our hand one way or another – no more buttons, no more clicking, no more multiple remote controls – ultra intuitive technology.

I’ll always be a great fan of buttons and clicking. Gestural controls means losing touch with technology and making it available for absolutely everyone. There won’t be such thing as computer illiteracy. So will have the edge then? Are we bound to become supersized hand waving couch potatoes? The most frightening thing for me is that gestural controls and motion detection cameras are already here and it’s just a matter of time until it’ll be mass produced.

So, what do you think? Are gestural controls the future? Will technology fans retaliate and boycot this new user interface?

Costin Marcu, empowered by Tempo

The ancient war between men and women has most recently been taken to another level – the internet. With the advance in internet advertising we have to understand that men and women consume the internet in completelly different way because – obviously – we’re very different.

The latest studies by BBDO worldwide have shown that the internet could be more efficient for women, because studies have shown that the blogosphere has reduced dramatically the time women spend reading magazines. Internet advertising for women should be about making friends, socialising and the message should come second. On the other hand, men are interested on the direct benefits of the product.

For a successful internet campaign we must understand that the internet for men is more about consequences, while women enjoy the journey.

Costin Marcu, empowered by Tempo

The mobile phone has penetrated almost every market while gaining more and more functions each year. However there is a great gap between acceptance and availability. We have phones packed with all kind of applications, yet we mostly use it for voice calls and messaging.

For people around the world, the mobile has different meenings and they have developed different behaviors regarding the phone – mobile codes. For the success of a mobile campaign one must know the mobile code of the audience.

In Korea, people are very fond of their mobiles. They have turned them in a medium for expressing their personity and a medium wich keeps them in touch with their friends. They even have mock funerals for their broken phones. Thus for the Koreans the code is mobile blood.

From another perspective, in India, the fastest growing mobile market, the mobile has the unique advantage of being a social equaliser. Keep in mind that India is a very stratified society, even though it’s a democracy. The mobile has allowed women and people from the lower classes to begin chasing their destiny. There are some simillarities with the Romanian society too, like the missed call culture – the missed call or the ”beep” have various meenings depending on the context.

So, for a successful mobile campaign we should research mobile behaviour in the target society. And keep in mind that technology is not that interesting, people make it.

Costin Marcu, empowered by Tempo

When your client calls you and tells you ”take that advertisment down, i can’t produce anymore,, that’s effective advertising. If your not there you should work harder.

Costin Marcu, empowered by Tempo

It’s been said again and again, but only because it’s true: the society is shifting to digital. That’s the reason why every competitive company should integrate digital in their DNA and use innovation as their lifeblood. As media is shifting from traditional to new channels, there’s a big opportunity for brands to shift from campaigns to owned platforms of communication.

This is where clouds step in. Anyone who has ever uploaded a picture to Flickr, posted a video on YouTube, put up a personal profile on a social networking site like Facebook or LinkedIn is living in the cloud. In cloud computing, digital assets like pictures, videos and songs are no longer tethered to the technology hardware that is personally owned. Instead, these assest live in the “cloud”, the vast network of servers that make up the internet.

Michael Mendenhall from Hewlett-Packard and Bob Greenberg, CEO of digital agency R/GA, have shared with us their vision for how brands can embrace the cloud, transform their relationship with consumers and build susitanable platforms for cutting edge marketing programmes, like Nike+ or the excelent Nokia ViNe.

Toni Gherca – empowered by Tempo

Today’s first master class, “Branding with Youtube and Google” generated applause, gazing moments and some interesting questions (with or without answers) in the end.

Andy Berndt, Managing Director at Google Creative Lab, introduced as into the world of creative applications and fun to watch campaigns using mainly Youtube. Talking about the webbys, about sprint, lauren luke make up sessions, boone oakley website, t-mobile dance, YouTube symphony, inBflat, karaoketube, the Chrome experiements and so on, he actually made us optimistic about the future. which by the way, he named it “a glorious mess”. the future, i mean.:)

the interesting presentation, with links and everything can be found here: bit.ly/ytcannes

it’s worth more than one look.

Ana Maria Vasilache &  Adina Stanescu. Empowered by Impression

Fernando Vega Olmos in his “Mother of crisis” seminar shares an optimistic view about the world wide economic crisis ans feels that it’s a great time for exploring new ways of expression and for coming up with bold, new and refreshing ideas.

Coming from a country like Argentina that went through a strong economic crisis along the years Fernando showed that successful campaigns can be done. So with case studies  from China, India, Latin America, JWT San Paolo  Fernado  closed up what was yet  anther a tonic presentation at Cannes Lions festival.

Alexandra Anghelache empowerd by Tempo