UK Advertising Needs Me!

Yeah I know, it’s a bit pretentious, but apparently it’s true.
This postulate is not from me, but was the title of an event organised by Cannes Lions which I went to last week. Luckily I managed to get a space to attend this event, even though we had a very busy week and had a lot to do it seemed like a good opportunity to risk a bit more stress on Thursday and Friday for the hand in of our next PB.

They had a presentation for the Cannes Lions event informing us all on what exactly happens over the few days the event is on. This was very eye opening and really inspired me to want to go there one day to experience the people and atmosphere myself. The location for the event looks amazing, it is in the south of France and the surrounding town is beautiful. They told us about a scholarship entry scheme they are opening up soon and encouraged everyone and any one to sign up and try to get a space.

After the talk we had an opportunity to have some speed mentoring which had a very similar concept to speed dating. There was a room full of different agencies and we had a five-minute timer to get as much information out of each person as possible. The agencies and companies around the room weren’t just purely advertising agencies which ended up being the more interesting tables to question about what they do and how we may be able to help in the future with the skills we are developing. The agencies consisted of a wide range of things like Cinema animation, post production, strategy, media space owners and a few more. This really opened up some new routes that are available for us to go down as creatives, which I may not have considered before.

The day before the event we had a masterclass with the great Alexandra Taylor where she asked us to bring a poster which we thought had been beautifully art directed. Max brought the ‘beans’ poster for Harvey Nichols which we then discusses and formed some different opinions over about who this was aimed at and why. Alex then asked us who made these posters we all admired the most. The art director that made Harvey Nichols posters was Justin Tindall which is the creative director at MC&Saatchi and has a really great portfolio of work.

Fast forward to the next day we’re at the event and listening to the people on the stage speak and soon came to realise Justin Tindall was on the panel speaking directly to us. They said they would be around after to speak with people so we thought this was a perfect way to settle a debate and also speak to someone who’s work we admire. It was as if the stars aligned for these two days to happen one after another so we were prepared.

After the speed mentoring sessions had finished we looked around and found him in the other speed mentoring hall and managed to get onto the back end of another group who were speaking to him.

The sessions finished and we used this opportunity to bring up our query about who this ad was talking to. He was very happy to speak about his work as it was one of his favourite pieces he had produced. It turns out we were overthinking it way too much and he didn’t even have a specific demographic. We carried on having a conversation with him about other things he has been involved in and spoke about what we are doing and where we are studying. We saw this as a perfect opportunity to try and get some advice from an art directing legend and asked if we could come in for a book crit. After a few anxious seconds passed he told us he hasn’t reviewed a student book in about ten years, but said we are more than welcome to come in and show our work to one of their senior creatives. Jackpot! This was a really nice moment and made me feel as if I had made the most out of the day and of the event.

The stress that was to come over the next two days would all be worth it as we made chased something we wanted and got it.

Gem ?