Will we see the emergence of FCB India 2.0 at Cannes this year?

It was Piyush Pandey’s first visit to Cannes after assuming his new role of Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Worldwide in December, 2018. A Cannes regular, Pandey has always been a familiar figure at the Palais des festivals and the award ceremonies. However, it was a different story this year with international media attention, and a meeting schedule that left the veteran adman with very little time. He even missed award ceremonies which he otherwise wouldn’t miss.

Pandey spoke to Srabana Lahiri on the sidelines of the festival, candid as ever, and helped sum up the festival as has traditionally done for us.

Excerpts

What stands out for you, what are the trends that you observe at Cannes Lions 2019?

A few things that can be easily seen- No. 1 is that there is a greater diversity in terms of more countries being represented, which is wonderful for creativity on the whole, we learn from each other. I saw several new countries showing up, and that excites me always, since the days we started appearing for the first time. I saw some shortlists from Bangladesh; I had never seen those earlier. It’s nice to see advertising booming, though culture needs a little more understanding. Countries where the culture is different have been recognised but hip-hop type stuff is coming from small countries. The intrinsic culture of small countries, that’s not been seen. It could have been seen a little more - greater diversity beyond the US and UK, where the trends and patterns are the same.

No. 2 is that human feelings are still not dead. Look at the work from Nike, look at the work from New York Times, they are not technology-led. They are very human insight-led. You see a lot of work which is being done, the digital media which is nice. What I miss is the fantastic humour that I used to see at Cannes. May be it will be back, but I think it’s a cycle. Laughter never goes out of your life. It will return at Cannes too. So, overall a healthy experience, newer people from newer places, and very interesting conversations.

Beyond that, we will analyse the little bits and pieces in the days ahead. It’s too early to do that.

This is your first visit to Cannes after assuming the global role. So, how has it been? Has it been different than other years?

I have received a lot of attention by a whole lot of media from around the world in terms of how John (Seifert) and I are looking at this. How do I see my role? So, this is a kind of visiting card in the new role. Getting to know one another more than anything else… I met a lot of clients, got to know them and their needs. And we will take it up from here.

What have been some of your conversations with clients?
Clients need creative solutions. How do you get there? Obviously they need some kind of ROI or measurement. Sometimes ROI would be by numbers, sometimes it won’t be by numbers. Some people understand that, some people don’t understand that. But, at the end of the day, everyone needs a creative solution that makes the business happen. At Ogilvy, we believe that making brands matter is what we are all about. So, we will never let ourselves forget that.

Have you been able to attend the award ceremonies?
Not many. Today somebody met me from a company called Landmark in Dubai. They had won their first ever bronze; they were so thrilled, they wanted to take pictures with me because they had heard me speak earlier. They said we are following in your footsteps. I said, no, you create the footsteps, I will also follow you.

I set foot in Europe for the first time and was awestruck by the beauty of this place. I was excited and nervous at the same time as the Cannes Media Festival is a once in a lifetime experience. It was a week full of learning and getting new perspectives.

What did I learn – The world is changing all the time, brands should innovate by embracing change.

Session 1- Gaming: The Future Brand and Consumer Battleground

Last year saw an explosion in media, brand and investor interest in gaming. But many brands have been reluctant to dive into gaming and in particular Esports, with both feet. The speakers of the session discuss the opportunity presented by the global gaming industry and how it can help brands drive transformational growth.

Speakers:

Thomas Fellger, CEO, IconMobile Group, explains that the gaming community is an over-arching umbrella and that Esports is kind of a niche sector of that.

Sue ‘Smix’ Lee, Partnerships Associate, Twitch, E-sports Presenter, Event Host & Reporter, talked about how gaming is all about live, as well as interaction with chat. Brands are now coming up with different ideas to engage with this consumer base.

Twitch star Imane Anys, stressed on the importance of giving creative control to influencers.

Key Takeaways:

1. There are 2.1 billion people in the world playing games and 350 million people are Esports fans.

2. As marketers, we need to understand that gaming and Esports are all about the interactive and engaging gaming experience. So, we should focus on enhancing this experience and not interrupt it.

Session 2- Make advertising great again.

It has become so hard to make a case for investment in creativity even when evidence suggests it is effective. This is because we have made a rational, not an emotional case for it.

Speaker:

Rory Sutherland, Vice President, Ogilvy, leads us on how to make our colleagues and clients think differently about advertising. With the help of the below examples, he explained how setting the right context can lead to behavior change.

Turning weakness into strengths: Avis is only No. 2 in rent a car. So we try harder. Here the first sentence is obviously a weakness but the last word of the second sentence “harder” made Avis more appealing.

Humans distinguish between gain and loss: A pension plan salesperson tweaked how he describes the scheme to the customers, by stating that they need to pay the 25% premium only when he gets his increment. Registration for this pension increased drastically, as the customers are not losing anything but they are gaining a little less than what they would’ve gained.

Key takeaways: Behavior science and behavior economist helps businesses if we codify what we already know.

Session 3- Building brand love with purpose, brick by brick.

All brands seek something, otherwise why they would be in business. It’s not simply to make a profit. Simply put, all brands need to have a purpose. A reason to exist. For more than six decades, the LEGO brick has been on a mission to ‘inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow’, children.

Speaker:

Julia Goldin, Global Chief Marketing Officer, LEGO Group, explains how purpose can drive innovation and ensure a brand remains inspiring, trusted and loved, from one generation to the next. She further stressed on how the world is changing all the time, you don’t know what was right yesterday, may not be right today. The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Key takeaways:

1. Change is inevitable, so as a marketer we should be ready to deal with it. Adaptation and evolution should go hand in hand.

2. No matter how strong your brand is, you can’t avoid challenges. It will come at some point or the other. The market leaders of 2000 are not the same as in 2019.

Purpose. Technology. Inclusivity. Integrated Media and Creative. Short form creative. Marketers, Marketers, Marketers. These are the buzzwords that ruled conversations at the 66th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity that ended last week. The festival saw a significantly larger turnout of marketers compared to earlier years, and their refrain was integrated services in one place – media, creative and digital all put together.   
Read what senior industry leaders had to say when we asked them to tell us about the trends they spotted this year…

Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Group
‘A lot of our conversations are about the integrated offering’
Obviously the presence of tech and data analytics are important conversations that we are having. Frankly, a lot of our conversations with our clients are about the integrated offering. I believe clients are now looking to the extent we can have a single source provider for all their marketing and communication needs, and we can do it on a client-centric basis, on an efficient basis, on a global basis. That’s what they want to hear, at the same time they want to hear innovation. And so we have a number of our agencies working on innovation, on design changes, on consulting capabilities, and of course bringing in our creative, digital and media capabilities all in one place.

John Seifert, Worldwide CEO, Ogilvy
‘Over 25% of this year’s festival attendees @Cannes are clients’
Cannes has turned a corner. Over the last couple of years, some debates have been about ‘Is it too expensive?’, ‘Is it relevant?’, ‘Does it matter in terms of clients and what they cared about?’ Over 25 per cent of attendees are now clients; the diversity of our industry has never been broader, and Cannes is getting back to celebrating creativity in its broadest sense, whether it’s creativity in data or technology or story-telling or brand experience or user experience through technology. I think it is going to find a way to bring these different areas of expertise together, so that people are beginning to see the whole rather than the sum of the parts. They have also been responsive to the concerns that many of us have had about it being too long, too expensive, and they worked very hard to make it more cost-efficient and inclusive. Cannes is really going to go from strength to strength in the days ahead.

Sonal Dabral, CCO, South and South East Asia, Ogilvy & Vice-Chairman, India
‘Including the older consumer, who has the money to spend’
Tech is playing a really big part now; there is more impending conversation about AR and VR. Another key conversation was on diversity and not in terms of gender, race, etc., but in terms of including the older consumer. Many brands are talking about millennials but there is a big chunk out there from the brand and business point of view, as they have the money to spend. Most brands exclude that consumer. Inclusivity in terms of age. Another thing is brands communicating with authenticity, finding their purpose and communicating.

Saurabh Verma, CEO, Publicis Communications, India
‘A lot more is happening outside the Palais rather than inside it’
Some trends are macro and some of them are micro. The macro trends are that a lot of the work is becoming very purpose-driven; if you really look at some of the big winners, it is largely work which can result in this purpose. 

The second big trend is that a lot more is happening outside the Palais than inside it. There was the time when the Palais itself used to be the place where everything would happen. Now, there is a lot more, from a Google workshop outside to a Facebook to Spotify to Twitter beach or space, they have all taken the place of the brands and are actually creating engagement. They are actually showcasing their tools; they are showcasing their work, technologies in these places. 

The third big trend is the huge focus on technology delivery. So, how do I use AI? How do I use machine learning? How do I use some of the things? Fundamentally alter, change the game and use that technology to have a massive delivery for an idea. Creating a great idea is one thing but scaling that idea, making that idea bigger using technology is again a very big thing. One thing I noticed is that the festival was much less attended than it used to be in the past. Of course, the number of clients is going up. I am sure every third or fourth person I met was a client. So, there are a lot more clients attending, which is good overall. But, at one point I know that the festival used to have 12,000 people attending, that was two or three years back. I am not so sure it’s still the case. Many agencies are under pressure to cut budgets and therefore lower the number of people who are at the festival here.

Josy Paul, Chairman & CCO, BBDO India
‘Media and creative should never have been separated’
Firstly, the work is purpose-related, specially the Grand Prix winners, but the difference is that they are not just talking about it, but doing something about it. It’s all about the action behind that work. The second part is that they are creating products to stand and commit to that work. 

The second thing I have noticed is cheeky competition which is very interesting – for example, the kind of thing Burger King has been doing and the kind of applause and recognition it is getting. 

The third thing I am seeing is the rise and rise of short form creative. I have been at YouTube and Facebook seminars and everyone is talking about the 5-seconders and the 6-seconders and even the 1-seconder. It is also about the randomness of the work. Many of it is just stuff that’s done for fun. Nobody really knows why they suddenly become memes. But YouTube’s watching and it’s interesting to know that there’s no real strategy behind it and human beings have now become the medium of that message. 

Another thing is what Nick Law said at the opening of the festival – the media and creative departments should never have been separated, because now, more than ever, it is the guy who understands the medium who will get the message.

Susan Credle is a different kind of CCO, she sees a side of her employees which perhaps would have been lost in the garb of the professional rat race, she knows how much more they are capable of and she drives them to achieve that goal. The best example of that is clearly the FCB India team which won four Lions in 2018, their very first since the agency’s inception 60 years ago, which clearly was a big victory for Credle.

A year later FCB India has brought home India’s only Gold in 2019, another victory for Credle for which she is quick to give credit to Swati Bhattacharya and her team. In conversation with Susan Credle, Global CCO, FCB on why she doesn’t believe in rushing her team to win awards until they are completely ready. "Big work takes time," she says speaking fondly of Bhattacharya while also narrating a very interesting story on how she met her future India CCO.

It has been a great year for FCB, you have won 5 Grand Prix.

Yes, it is surreal. It’s rare that this happens, and it’s rare that it happens across agencies and across different kinds of work. Like, a lot of times one piece of work will do really well across the festival. And Burger King’s - The Whopper Detour has been that for us this year, but there are also a lot of other things that are picking up Gold and Grand Prix, I am so proud of everybody. We started this creative mission 3 years ago. It was started a little bit before I got here, but Carter Murray brought me on to say ‘Let’s double down on the value of creativity’, and then everybody stepped up. So, it’s really fantastic to see the outcome of a lot of labor.

Did the big wins coincide with the campaigns you were betting on?

You know entering work is expensive, and I think it’s lazy if you just throw all your work in at Cannes and hope. So, we have a global creative council twice a year. It has all the CCOs of our major markets. And we are tough on each other. And we look at the work and decide what as a group we believe represents the kind of work we want to do. At Cannes last year we have had a very good conversion rate, in fact, it was higher than the Cannes conversion rate. So, we kind of knew Burger King - The Whopper Detour was going to do great. The statistic I love the best is that in five years they have gotten 4.5 million people to download their app, and with Burger King - The Whopper Detour, in three months they got 4.5 million people to download the app. We just did something in three months with creativity that took five years without creativity. So, it’s really important to me. I am tired of hearing, ‘a billion impressions, you know everybody saw it, people loved it, people shared it.’ I don’t care. If we can get back to proving that we have an economic value, then creativity will not only be celebrated but even be paid for. We have to pay for creativity to keep creative people in the business. And if we lose creativity to other industries, release people to other industries, it could run the industry into the ground.

So, would you say that now CCOs are not trophy thirsty and they are client solutions thirsty today?

I would say 50-50. I am very conscious of putting awards in their place. At FCB we say they are part of the journey but they are not the destination. Yet they are important because they set a standard for the kind of work we should be doing. And from a creative standpoint, they open up your mind. When you see how your colleagues are thinking about work, it changes you. And it’s just like feeding your brain. I think where we got messed up a little bit with awards is that we got lazy. And we are like, ‘let’s go do some things that are really cool that creative people will love for Cannes, and the real work we will just do whenever the client wants.’ It’s very dangerous to play that game because you may have won a lot of awards here, but the advertising and of all those creative award-winning ideas aren’t seen by the public. All the public is seeing is the average work, because we are lazy, or we think it’s going to be too hard to do it on a big scale. If people can actually see the work, they will be like "Advertising is the coolest industry". It’s amazing to work in the real world and not just in our little world.

For 60 years FCB didn’t win a single Cannes Lion, 2018 was the first year they struck Gold. As the global CCO did you ever put pressure on them to perform at Cannes?

Let me tell you a very interesting story of how I first met Swati Bhattacharya. I ran into Swati Bhattacharya at another industry event, and I was so taken with her. The way she behaves, the way she talks to people, the way she engaged with them. And then she started telling me about some of her film projects like the 'Seven Deadly Sins' that she was doing for women which I thought were brilliant. Later I joined FCB as the Chief Creative Officer. At that point in time, we needed a CCO in India. So I asked Rohit Ohri if we can get her on board. Rohit said, ‘I totally love her work, in fact, we have worked together at JWT but I don’t think she will come owing to some personal issues, she is a single mother, has two girls to take care of, so she is still not sure at the moment.’ And we are talking about parenthood, you know about women not being sure, whatever. I was like, ‘No, she is coming.’ So, Swati and I went back and forth and I told her ‘You have to come to do this.’ I didn’t even look at her book, her portfolio. And I knew her outside of advertising work. And my feeling was that she is the future because advertising shouldn’t look like advertising. I felt maybe Swati, though she had done very well for herself, had not done work as exceptional as her work outside of advertising because she has not been allowed to fly. What I love about Swati is that she is relentless. She has got partners at FCB that understand where she is going, she gets clients to do risky work that works. We have allowed her to fly and do things. Incidentally, the things she has done over here have performed better because we believe in her. She is able to bring her voice to advertising instead of making advertising adjust her voice. She has taken a company which no one thought was creative to one of the most creatively acclaimed agencies in India now. And this is not a fluke. She has done it in 2018 and now she has won a Gold, India’s only one this year.

India struck gold on the final day of the 66th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as FCB bagged a Gold Lion for its work on the Open Door Project for The Millennium School in the Sustainable Development Goals category. This is the only gold for India this year. The other award of the day – a bronze - was picked up by DDB Mudra for Stayfree’s Project Free Period, in the same category. The two metals take India’s tally at Cannes to 18 metals.

The Open Door Project by FCB for The Millennium Schools is a path-breaking initiative to induce more private schools to create space for underprivileged kids, giving them an education they would otherwise miss. The institute also unveiled a special film called ‘Bhukkad- the hungry one’ created by FCB’s CCO Swati Bhattacharya at the launch of the initiative. The film sensitively portrays the hunger for learning in the child of a sex worker. The campaign had earlier won a bronze in the Brand Experience and Activation category.

Speaking about the big gold win for FCB, Rohit Ohri, Group Chairman & CEO, FCB India, said, “This Gold Lion is true testimony to FCB's creative transformation journey. I'm proud and humbled to have the honour to win India's only Gold Lion of Cannes 2019. WARC Creative 100 named us the Number 1 creative agency in India. It was a flaming debut for FCB. This Gold Lion win reaffirms that we deserve to be there and will stay there, hopefully, for a long, long time to come.” 

Sharing her happiness over the victory, Swati Bhattacharya, CCO, FCB Ulka, said, "To address the biggest problems of our world using creativity as a tool is the most heartening joy for us at FCB. The open door project is a simple idea that can solve India's biggest problem- education"

Shantanu Prakash, Founder, The Open Door Project, said, "I am very happy that The Open Door Project has received this amazing honour of winning a Gold at Cannes! This will allow the mission of the project to get the international attention it deserves. The project seeks to eradicate illiteracy in India by opening the doors of hundreds and thousands of schools to children from under-privileged class and community. This award will go a long way in getting the message of the Open Door Project to our supporters and other likeminded people and shines a spotlight on what we need to do, to bring literacy and education to the young generation of India."

Sanitary napkin and feminine hygiene brand Stayfree and DDB Mudra together created and conceptualized Project Free Period, focusing on the empowerment of women in the sex trade. A vocational training programme was created to impart life skills to these women to transform three days of their period to three days of learning.

Speaking about the agency’s win in the Sustainable Development Goals category, Rahul Mathew, National Creative Director, DDB Mudra Group, said, “Since 2018, we’ve been working on making Project Free Period a more sustainable initiative. And we believe we now have an executable blueprint that can be replicated anywhere. We’re glad the jury could see the larger impact that we have managed.”

Three Indian entries had made the shortlist in the Sustainable Development Goals category – two for DDB Mudra’s Project Free Period and one for FCB Ulka’s The Open Door Project.

The Open Door Project 

Project Free Period 

On the final day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2019 on Friday, Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman of S4 Capital, held a conversation with Marian Goodell, CEO, Burning Man Project. He stressed upon the idea of ‘creative disruption’ and ‘creative reconstruction’.

“Our industry, the advertising and marketing services, is going through massive disruption…may be because of the tech platforms, or consultancies, or clients taking back control. And every day you see symptoms of that pressure, in terms of irrational behaviour by the holding companies,” he said. According to Sorrell, the only way to deal with the situation is to adopt ‘creative disruption’ and ‘creative reconstruction’.

In the conversation further, Goodell gave the audience a run down on the 10 principles of Burning Man. She said they have no rubbish bins because they have a principle called ‘Leave no trace’. ‘Radical Inclusion, which means welcoming a stranger to the table, is another principle that they follow. Gifting, De-commodification, Radical self-reliance, Radical self-expression, Participation and Immediacy were some other principles that she shared.

Talking further, Goodell said, “We are not really in the business of manhandling the culture. We are in the business of watching things happen and making adjustments.”

In our fourth installment on young professionals from Wavemaker India talking about their experience at Cannes Lions 2019, Ayush Doshi, Business Manager tells us more about the 'Shoppable TV' technology developed by NBCUniversal, how brands were able to reconnect with their target audience by changing their communication strategy and how AI-powered Aira is helping to empower the visually challenged.

I started my day by experiencing the future of advertising on television.

A unique technology developed by NBCUniversal - 'Shoppable TV' launched during the French Open. Where the audience can buy the apparel worn by a celebrity just by scanning the QR code on the screen and redirecting to the online retail store for purchase. It is observed that people tend to purchase those products that are associated with celebrities or athletes.

Moving ahead to an interesting session on 'Tell me a story - How to break through the noise and form a real connection' conducted by David Sable-WPP, Joe Mangognia, Executive Creative Director, Grey Group and Jon Pearce, Global Chief Creative Officer, Hudson Rouge.

They showcased case studies on how they managed to break the clutter in a disruptive way, firstly with the Lincoln Motor Company, a luxury vehicle brand which was losing its share, and how it was able to re-established itself by using celebrity as an authentic brand voice. 

They researched and found out that fame generates more sales and profit than any other communication strategy. Hence they took actor, Matthew McConaughey who is very famous for his classics. After airing the commercials they made Jim Carrey do a spoof on the commercial. 

It not only helped to garner positive responses but also increased high awareness in the younger audience than its current owner base

Learning: how to choose the right celebrity so that it doesn't overpower the brand and also how light-hearted comedy about the brand can generate buzz among the target audience.

Secondly, Gillette targeted the most trending topic #MeToo by changing the tagline from 'The Best a Man Can Get' to 'The Best Men Can Be'

The advertisements showed the news clips of the #MeToo movement. It was a great risk for the brand but it garnered 4mn views in 48hrs. 

One more interesting session which I came across was 'How AI can empower the blind community' conducted by Anirudh Koul, Head of AI & Research, Aira.

Their mission is to provide instant access to visual information for anyone, anywhere, anytime. They developed smart glasses where a visually challenged person can call a dedicated number where Aira agent can see through the glasses & gives the blind real-time updates and guide them in whatever situation they're in.  Truly, technology is clearly proved to be an equalizer, where it helps the visually challenged people to go and experience what they could not. 

Let's see a video where an AI agent helps a visuall challenged person to drive: