Chocolate is part of a healthy diet?? Thanks, Nestle CEO

Day 6 at the Festival- Friday!

Today started off as a typical day in Cannes---at the Cookies and Coffee shop. After jump-starting my day with a latte, I headed to the first master class of the day: The HP Graphics and BBDO seminar on creative engineering. During the seminar, Marcos Medeiros spoke about Billboard Magazine’s new successful campaign. In this new digital age, various print magazines, such as Billboard, struggle to maintain their market share. When first learning that Medeiros was going to talk about a print campaign, I questioned if it was going to be interesting. I was surprised.

BBDO utilized digital technology to create an interesting, unique and engaging campaign for the magazine. They used the newest HP printing technology to take images of famous celebrities and incorporate them into the print ads. To take the campaign further, HP set up places where people could take their own pictures. I found this approach to be very innovative!

In one of the ads, BBDO made the entire alphabet out of images of pop stars. One in particular, was focused around Michael Jackson (though it never was printed because of his death). I believe that this campaign successfully integrated new digital technology into a medium that is sometimes not up to speed with the new technology.

This campaign showed that print (as a medium) can still be interactive. It can cause emotions and link to other ideas.

After the master class, we listened to the CEO of Atlanta BBDO. He was very interesting to listen to. During our session, he stated that we are in the golden age of creativity. I believe that this is true. The growth of technology in the last 5 years is astonishing. It enables creators to produce meaningful and engaging ads. He also brought up the importance of teamwork. He claims that the only way to have a successful campaign is to orchestrate the idea and collaborate. So many times, a person’s self-interest gets in the way of the final goal. Teamwork is definitely the answer to being able to create the best product.

Next was the Cannes Debate with Sir Martin Sorell, James Murdoch and Jeffery Katzenberg. I thought the debate was okay. They spoke about how ipads can be used for educational purposes in school. I thought this idea was interesting. It was also stated that in 3 ½ hours of football, the football is actually in play for under 15 minutes. I was shocked! This statistic shows how relevant ads are on TV networks.

I then attended the Publicis groupe seminar with Nestle CEO Paul Bulcke. It was not one of my favorite seminars. Though Bulcke talked about some aspects of Nestlé’s marketing plan, such as being sensitive to a customers needs, he offered no insight into their overall campaigns and did not add any meaningful information. He did state that chocolate is part of a healthy life. Apparently it has a lot of anti-oxidants on it. I want to see research on this!

Tomorrow is our last day at the festival…I can’t believe it. I’m looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings. Maybe we will figure out a way to get closing gala tickets!!