Today was the third day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and I saw a common theme throughout the speakers I attended today. Though each talk varied, it was interesting to see similarities in companies like Burger King, Wendy’s, Facebook,and P&G. At some point in each event, the company representative mentioned a time in their company’s career that it took a large step in advertising or product creation that seemed outrageous at the time but turned out to be something incredible. They also talked about problems that their companies had faced and how they overcame those to build their brand to something even greater.
I took this morning slower than the last two, and spent it at the Facebook beach. The Facebook beach always has the coolest things to view or people to meet, and its on the beach, therefore I could literally stay all day! While at Facebook I was encouraged to attend the exhibit Snapchat had created with the LA based artist, Alex Isreal. The exhibit ended up being an interactive virtual reality experience, therefore the artwork came to life when viewed through the lens of a snapchat filter.
The first talk I attended today was hosted by Burger King. There they discussed the importance of design, technology and product in advertising. They talked about design in the sense of the environment a company creates for its consumers. In Burger King’s case this includes posters, food and drink packaging, and the interior designs of restaurants. A company can have the best advertising content in the media, but it is the impression that the company leaves on the consumer which will determine their loyalty to the brand. They used humor throughout their presentation to inform the crowd that they knew a lot of their locations had work to do, but used them as an example of how they are creating a better environment for consumers. Throughout their presentation they revealed new design ideas that would help modernize their fast food restaurant and brand. I also really enjoyed their new advertisement campaigns that included their rival, Mcdonalds. For example, their app would recognize an ad from Mcdonalds and “burn it” into a Burger King advertisement. This brought their company brand awareness, humor and eventually more sales. Burger King presented so many neat ideas that I would not have initially paired with the brand, therefore I left the event impressed with their strategies.
My day continued by attending a talk by Sheryl Sandberg with Facebook, who was the first woman to become a member of the board of directors. The issue of fake news that is posted on Facebook was discussed and many examples from past elections were talked about. It was very comforting to hear the steps that are being taken daily to delete those articles on Facebook, and the alerts that users can see on posts that are detected to be false. She also discussed the stereotypes of women in the workplace where she used a very interesting illustration. She talked about how women at a young age are considered bossy if they have strong leadership qualities, but men are not because is considered a normal trait for males. Therefore she emphasized girls who are sassy at a young age are not bossy yet exhibit executive leadership skills.
Later in the afternoon, I heard about Wendy’s advertising methods in today’s society which included connecting with pop culture. Wendy’s uses Twitter as a way of connecting with consumers on a personal and humorous level to spread important messages of their brand. Another example of how Wendy’s has emerged with today’s culture was through a well known game, Fortnite. The game created a food fight between pizza and hamburgers, and Wendy’s was saddened to see freezers in the hamburger restaurant. Wendy’s is known for their slogan, “Fresh never frozen,” therefore they took it upon themselves to destroy every freezer within the game. They promoted this and other gamers joined them in destroying the freezers rather than one another. Through this they connected with today’s generation in a new way, and continued to spread their message against frozen meat.
The last talk I attended was with Katie Couric, John Legend and Marc Pritcard. The topic of how advertising needs to become more diverse was discussed. It was brought to my attention that too often our advertisement world does not reflect the world we live in, and as creators we have the job to change that. John Legend ended the event by singing which was a fun surprise.
I ended my day by attending an awards show that focused on public relations, influencers, print, creative media strategy, and design. I was once again amazed at the new ideas that were presented, and hopeful of how this industry is slowly changing the world. This industry is talking about important issues in the world and creating ideas on how to slowly fix them.
Keeping up with Katherine 