Downloading a New Wetware Patch to “Fix” an Illness, Or Programming Your Genes to Radically Extend Your Lifespan

Think back three decades. Who envisaged that mobile devices would become the portals for our lives? Or think back to 2007. Did you imagine that Twitter would become the force it is today? Probably not. That is because our thinking is so often tethered to the past rather than to the future.

At PHD, we believe that looking into the future can jolt us into thinking differently about today. We need to escape the tendency to interpret new technology with the tools that already exist.

So, we are asking marketers to come on a mind trip. We want you to gaze a few decades into the future and consider what the world will look like in 40 or 50 years’ time. This will hopefully help you make sense of the new developments that are happening here and now.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is an ideal forum to set about changing people’s mindsets. At this year’s festival, PHD organised a conference session featuring US futurologist, philosopher and TV personality Jason Silva. In “Mind trip: A complete reboot of the way we see the world,” he pushed the boundaries of our imaginations on how the world will change.

Exploring areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and extended consciousness, Jason gave us a fresh perspective on how the world could evolve and ultimately opened our minds up to the possibilities the future may bring.

To further enhance the mind trip, we decided to partner with the 2014 Cannes Lions smartphone app and create some content within it that would give an intensified blast of future thinking. We asked some of the world’s foremost figures in advertising and marketing to curate their own Cannes Lions conference programme.

They identified sessions that were future-looking, creatively-inspiring and likely to give people fuel for cutting-edge thinking about our current state of play.

These sessions were blogged live at the conference and we have knitted an edited selection of these summaries together into this booklet. We hope that sharing these snapshots will help you tether your thinking to the future so you can re-interpret what is happening in the present.

Mike Cooper | CEO, PHD WORLDWIDE

3 Our need to grapple with the implications of a world sustained by increasingly powerful technologies is witnessed on a daily basis, both in our personal and business lives.

Consider the words of X Prize founder Peter Diamandis who reminds us in his TED talk that more change has occurred in the last 100 years than in the last million. Or the words of Ray Kurzweil, described as “the ultimate thinking machine,” who tells us that the supercomputer in your pocket (you call it a smartphone) is a million times smaller, a million times cheaper, and a thousand times more powerful than what used to be a 60 million dollar supercomputer that was half a building in size 40 years ago.

What happens in 25 years where those continuing exponential advancements become blood-cell sized devices interfacing with our neurons further extending our intelligence? Or when the full flourishing of biotechnology turns biology into our new canvas that can be upgraded the way you upgrade your smartphone today? Imagine downloading a new wetware patch to “fix” an illness, or programming your genes to radically extend your lifespan. ABOUT JASON Jason Silva is the But this is nothing new. We’ve been transcending our limits and redefining who we are since the advent host of TV show Brain of stone tools and the emergence of language. Games, National Geographic Channel’s mind-blowing Emmy- Technology is how we impregnate the world with mind, it is how we extend the reach of our nominated series consciousness, how we extend our agency, it is Crowley’s “magic,” defined as “Willed Intent.” about the mind’s inner workings. Television personality, futurologist As maverick thinker, inventor, and futurist Kurzweil tells us, from the very moment early humans picked and philosopher, Silva up a stick and used it to reach a fruit on a tree, we have been using technology to extend our reach. has been described as “part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and The cognitive philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers have written about the need to make a part Neo from ‘The cognitive leap, to transcend our skin-bag bias, and realize that technology is our second skin, our Matrix.’” exoskeleton: “iPhone therefore I am,” one might say. An active and prolific global speaker, Jason Technology is the embodiment of human imagination, it is the manifestation of our mental models. It is has spoken at the our extended self, our silicon nervous system. Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, TEDGlobal and Google’s We subvert our limitations with our engineering prowess. Zeitgeist Conference. He has delivered We literally think up new possibilities into existence and our creative solution to how we actually keynote speeches at transform and transcend our limitations manifests itself in our engineering, our science, our space international events for Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, stations and cities, jetliners and iPhones. Oracle, Electronic Arts, PEPSICO, Intel and Considering the next 40 years of exponential advancements is indeed a mind trip…but one that opens many more. He hosts a YouTube channel called up boundless possibilities and the doors to more creative thinking. Shots of Awe where he lays out his stunning Enjoy the journey! vision of the future. Jason Silva | TECHNO-PHILOSOPHER, FUTURIST, FILMMAKER AND TV PERSONALITY

5 THE SELECTION PANEL The leaders who handpicked Mind Trip seminars from Cannes Lions 09

PHD // MIND TRIP: A COMPLETE REBOOT OF THE WAY WE SEE THE WORLD PHD and Jason Silva take Cannes on a Mind Trip 21

TWITTER // #LIVE STORYTELLING Live storytelling – The hashtag revolution that is transforming marketing 23

GOOGLE // THE DIGITAL FUTURE Inside the Googleplex – how Google engineers create the breakthroughs of the future 25

YOUTUBE // THE ART OF STORYTELLING ON YOU TUBE Dreamworks king Katzenberg says advertisers must become story-tellers on YouTube 27

FACEBOOK // FACEBOOK: MAKING MARKETING PERSONAL AGAIN Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg talks mobile, personalised marketing & the importance of ad agencies 29

ADOBE // THE NEW CREATIVES Creatives need to think like marketers, behave like entertainers and move like tech start-ups 31

TIME WARNER // THE POWER OF STORY Armando Iannucci and other storytellers speak out on the importance of narrative 33

CANNES LIONS // BRAZIL’S GOLDEN AGE IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER Brazil: A creative powerhouse emerges 35

VISA // SPORTS AS A SOURCE FOR GLOBAL CREATIVE INSPIRATION Brands go for Gold with the World Cup and Olympics 37

BBDO // NICE IS THE NEW BLACK Why “nice” advertising is a hit with the public 39

OGILVY & MATHER // COSMIC QUANDARIES AND CREATIVITY Pluto killer shares words of wisdom on the secrets of creativity and scientific advancement 41

GOLIN // RELEVANCE AND THE HOFF The Hoff shows that brand relevancy is key to global marketing 43

CP&B // THE CREATIVE REALITY CHECK Creative maverick Chuck Porter talks Paddy Power, Lionel Messi and the downside of big data 45

BRAVE // THE SIN CITY CHRONICLES: HOW VEGAS CAN INSPIRE BRANDS Las Vegas marketing magic: What brands can learn from the neon metropolis 47

7 THE LEADERS WHO HANDPICKED MIND TRIP SEMINARS FROM CANNES LIONS

We asked some of the world’s foremost figures in advertising and marketing to curate their own conference programme at Cannes. They chose sessions TOP ROW from the Cannes Lions Mike Cooper Festival which they Worldwide CEO, PHD felt would improve our Carolyn Everson grasp on the issues Vice President, affecting brands. They Global Marketing identified sessions that Solutions, Facebook were future-looking, Rob Schwartz, creatively-inspiring and Global Creative likely to give people President, TBWA Worldwide fuel for cutting-edge thinking about our MIDDLE ROW current state of play. Paul Kemp-Robertson Editorial Director and Co-founder, Contagious

Rahul Welde Vice President – Media Unilever

BOTTOM ROW John Hegarty Creative founder of BBH

David Lubars Chief Creative Officer, BBDO Worldwide and Chairman, BBDO North America

Mark Holden Worldwide Strategy & Planning Director for PHD

9 Mike Cooper Carolyn Everson WORLDWIDE CEO, PHD VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL MARKETING SOLUTIONS, FACEBOOK ABOUT Mike Cooper became CEO of PHD Worldwide ABOUT in 2007, responsible for growing the Omnicom Carolyn Everson is the Vice President of Global owned network, which today has over 80 offices Marketing Solutions at Facebook, where she leads in 66 countries. Under Mike’s leadership, PHD Facebook’s relationships with its top marketers was awarded Adweek’s ‘Global Media Agency and agencies across the globe. Carolyn oversees of the Year’ in 2012 and in 2013 was Campaign’s a team of regional leaders, and the teams focused ‘Network of the Year’ runner-up as well as ‘Global on global partnerships, global agencies and Media Agency of the Year’ at the Cristal Awards. Facebook’s Creative Shop.

Mike started working in advertising at Saatchi Prior to Facebook, Carolyn was the Corporate & Saatchi in London in 1984 before being Vice President of Microsoft’s Global Advertising transferred to Hong Kong in 1989 to work as a Sales and Trade Marketing Teams. Carolyn also media director there. In 1991 he was appointed spent seven years at MTV Networks. Her last role CEO for Saatchi in Hong Kong and in 1993 was was as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice put in charge of North Asia. He then moved to President of U.S. Ad Sales for MTV Networks. CNBC Asia in 1995, in charge of sales, distribution and marketing before joining Omnicom as CEO for Carolyn has been named a Woman to Watch OMD Asia Pacific in 1997. and Fortune included her on the 40 under 40 list two years in a row. Carolyn is also on the Under Mike’s leadership OMD grew to 26 offices Board of Directors of Hertz Global Holdings, and became the number two media specialist in Inc; serves on the Friends of the Global Fight Asia Pacific. In 2005 he launched PHD across the Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Board; Asia Pacific region and a year later was awarded is a board member of the Effies and an advisor ‘Regional Agency Head of the Year for Asia’ by to Luma Partners. Media Magazine. COMMENTARY COMMENTARY At Cannes this year I was excited to see how The future of media is driven by changes in many conversations were focused on innovation technology more than any other single factor and and the future. There is much exploration of how there are exciting new concepts, technologies we need to change at the organizational level to and designs coming to life every day. The Cannes figure out how to best serve new customers on Lions Festival is the place to see groundbreaking, new platforms. There are discussions on what future-facing seminars, new technologies and “social” really means to people and how it works workshops. It is without doubt the highlight of with other channels. And there is analysis of how the year for anyone working in marketing and technology can help us answer the oldest and communications. most important question in our business: “how can I be more creative?”

10 11 Rob Schwartz Paul-Kemp Robertson GLOBAL CREATIVE PRESIDENT EDITORIAL DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, TBWA\WORLDWIDE CONTAGIOUS ABOUT ABOUT After graduating with a masters degree from Rob Schwartz is the Global Creative President Goldsmiths College in London, Paul started his for TBWA\Worldwide, overseeing the creative career at corporate communications firm Maritz direction and leadership of TBWA’s global before helping launch shots magazine in 1990. accounts. Previous to this, Rob was the Chief After a spell in commercials production, Paul Creative Officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day LA. returned to shots and became editor in 1994. Subscriptions trebled under his tenure. In 1998 A writer by trade, Rob has earned nearly every he was appointed worldwide director of creative major advertising award, including an Emmy resources at Leo Burnett in Chicago. In 2004, Paul nomination as well as Adweek’s “Best of the co-founded Contagious with shots founder Gee Decade.” Rob was also named “Leader of The Thomson and media entrepreneur John Gordon. Year” by the Los Angeles Advertising Agencies Association (now known as thinkLA). Paul has written for publications including Business 2.0 and The Guardian, as well as co- As the head of TBWA’s flagship LA office, Rob editing D&AD’s The Commercials Book. He has influenced every brand from Nissan to Gatorade appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme to Pepsi and more. He was one of the key and his talk on alternative currencies has been creative leaders on the breakthrough “Pepsi viewed more than 778,000 times at ted.com Refresh Project.” He has also been leading creative efforts on Nissan’s “Innovation for All” COMMENTARY campaign, the Visa “go” campaign — Visa’s While the awards are a rear view mirror, the best first-ever worldwide advertising effort — and seminars are like glimpsing the first light of a Activison’s “Call of Duty,” the most successful new dawn. The role of Contagious is to act as an entertainment launch in history. early warning system for people involved in the business of brands; so here’s my selection of the COMMENTARY five ‘mind trips’ that will hopefully teach us a few I hope you are ready for a ‘Mind Trip.’ A what? things about the immediate future that we don’t A ‘Mind Trip.’ A brain expansion. A new way of already know. seeing the world. That’s the power of Cannes and in particular the Cannes seminars. But frankly, with so many good ones it would be easy to get overwhelmed. So to ease your mind, so you can open it, here are the summaries of the not-to-be missed seminars that I chose.

12 13 Rahul Welde John Hegarty VICE PRESIDENT, MEDIA, UNILEVER CREATIVE FOUNDER OF BBH ABOUT ABOUT John Hegarty is the creative founder of BBH. Rahul Welde is the Vice President – Media for One of the most awarded agencies in the world. Unilever, a leading and innovative advertiser. His simple motto of ‘do interesting things and Rahul is a strong advocate of non-traditional interesting things will happen to you’ has guided thinking and creativity, with several award wins his career and his work. to his credit. Rahul is also considered an active thought leader and leads many an industry forum. COMMENTARY COMMENTARY We all attend Cannes for any number of reasons. Marketing is undergoing profound changes with a Meeting people, exchanging views, learning and burst of technology re-writing all the rules. This is hopefully gaining a competitive edge. It’s certainly a great time to be part of marketing and to shape not for the Rose! I personally like going to lectures the future of our industry. The Cannes show was that challenge my point of view and others that highly inspiring – a superb array of seminars with reaffirm it. But most of all I attend talks that are fascinating topics and very interesting speakers. enjoyable. Because when I’m having fun, I learn more.

14 15 David Lubars Mark Holden CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, BBDO WORLDWIDE STRATEGY WORLDWIDE AND CHAIRMAN, & PLANNING DIRECTOR, PHD BBDO NORTH AMERICA ABOUT ABOUT Mark started his career with Saatchi and Saatchi as a planner before joining OMD where he ran a Under David’s leadership, BBDO is delivering planning group, which included Gillette, Boots some of the most innovative cross-channel Plc and Volkswagen. Mark was responsible for ideas of any agency, big or small. It is currently an increase in the agency’s creative output in the ranked #1 in the Gunn Report and was named first year. He was personally nominated for 11 Creative AOY by AdAge. David has personally industry effectiveness awards, for which he was won over 70 Lions. commended for five and won two. Over the years Mark has held a number of positions within the COMMENTARY group from Managing Director of local market There were quite a few seminars that were agencies to his current role of Worldwide Strategy interesting and worthwhile. Twitter, Visa, Brave & Planning Director. In 2006, Mark was named one and CP&B were amongst my seminar picks. of the top three best media planners in the UK in Campaign’s Book of Lists and was also awarded Best Media Planner 2010 for Asia Pacific region by Campaign. Mark is the designer and creator of ‘Source’, PHD’s unique planning tool that, being constructed based on cutting edge marketing theory, has been designed to create thinking that consistently finds a better way for clients. Mark has co-authored 5 books, 2014, 2016, Fluid, Overthrow and Game Change.

COMMENTARY A few years back, seminars at this festival espoused concepts such as engagement and ‘social-by-design’. Rightly or wrongly, they then became the language, and therefore, the endeavour of our industry. The thing is, with the hundreds of seminars and events on offer, how can you be sure you’ve kept up with the most important new concepts? We hope this booklet helps.

16 17

power the future and enervate our culture. This is already happening. Humanity has been transformed through information technology to such an extent that our MIND TRIP: Silva’s two great passions are creativity and technology, and he smartphones are now like an “exoskeleton”, always kept at our sees them as intimately linked. “Technology is how we extend sides and becoming part of our “cognitive scaffolding”. A COMPLETE REBOOT OF our creativity out into the world,” he told the session. THE WAY WE SEE THE WORLD Silva takes it further: “This technology is swallowing everything PHD and Jason Silva take In Silva’s view, the future will be transformed by developments else so biology is now becoming information technology. The in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (or artificial biotech revolution and the healthcare revolution mean that we Cannes on a Mind Trip intelligence) known simply as GNR. This triple revolution will are mastering the information processes of biology and guess be fuelled by computing power, allowing us to create artificial what? That’s going three times faster than exponential. Gene Back in 2011, PHD propelled Cannes Lions neurons and engineer our consciousness. sequencing is going three times faster than Moore’s Law.” delegates five years into the future with its main stage seminar ‘2016: Beyond the Horizon’. It sounds like science-fiction – humans will morph into cyborgs and technology will be controlled by brainwaves. But this is As an agency that believes in the importance of not fiction for Silva, just an inevitable result of developments in THE FUTURE WILL BE TRANSFORMED looking to the future, this year’s Cannes Lions computing and biotechnology. offered delegates a “mind trip”, to consider BY DEVELOPMENTS IN GENETICS, what the world will be like in a few decades’ Moore’s Law, formulated by the co-founder of Intel Gordon NANOTECHNOLOGY AND ROBOTICS (OR time – aiming to deliver a vision of the future so Moore, states that “the number of transistors in a computer disruptive that it forces us to reconsider how we ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) KNOWN chip will roughly double every two years.” This means that, with think about and approach the present. miniaturisation, the computing power in your mobile phone will SIMPLY AS GNR. be over 2 billion times greater in 60 years’ time than it is today. For the session: “Mind Trip: A complete reboot A computer the size of a blood cell could be millions of times of the way we see the world”, PHD’s worldwide more powerful than our best computers. The implications of this are mind-boggling. “A new generation strategy and planning director Mark Holden of artists will be writing genomes with the fluency that Blake promised to invigorate the audience with a fresh Silva reminds us that the computing power of the smartphone and Byron wrote verses. Try to imagine that – biology becoming perspective on the world to come. in your pocket is the equivalent to a computer the size of half the new canvas for our genius, for our artistry, for our brilliance, a house forty years ago. So predicting that, in a few decades, for our poetry. We are not just going to cure every disease and Who better to deliver this than US futurist, that will shrink down “to the size of a blood cell interfacing reverse engineer ourselves, we are going to turn ourselves into philosopher and Emmy nominated TV host of directly with biological neurons, reverse engineering us from a work of art,” he says. So technology will ultimately open up National Geographic’s Brain Games, Jason inside out and redefining intelligence to unfathomable levels” new forms of creativity…and who knows what else. Silva to explore how technology will transform may not be as insane as it sounds. humanity in the coming decades. Silva believes people need to transcend their mental limits, He has a stunning vision of the world to their “been there’s and done that’s.” Only then will they come and promotes an optimistic view of comprehend that as a species, humanity is always looking to the technology-driven future. He asked us break out of its boundaries. We are the species that didn’t stay to re-evaluate how we look at the world in in the caves, that left the planet to explore space and that will preparation for the coming transformation of our now transcend the boundaries of our own biology. consciousness. And he told us that creativity will

20 21 for access to clean drinking water in developing countries. certain hashtags. “At American Express we became really The campaign took as a starting point the Twitter hashtag excited by this concept of storytelling and editorialising and #LIVE STORYTELLING “#firstworldproblems”, which was used to suggest minor the impact it had on the brand and more specifically on problems faced by rich westerners, parodying the whining of commerce. Shopping is an innately social experience,” Live storytelling – The hashtag some first-world citizens on Twitter. she said. revolution that is transforming marketing The ad put these complaints in the mouths of adults and The session heard from Bonin Bough, vice president of children in Haiti against a backdrop of poverty. They read out global media and consumer engagement at Mondelez, who statements such as “I hate when I tell them no pickles and they described the creation of that celebrated Oreo Super Bowl From that famous Oreo Super Bowl tweet to still give me pickles” and “I hate it when my neighbours block tweet. When a power outage hit the games, the US biscuit American Express linking up with Twitter, brands their wifi”. This powerfully demonstrated that our first world brand hit the nail on the head by quickly tweeting a photo are turning to live storytelling as they look for “problems” are tiny compared to not having access to clean and the line “you can still dunk in the dark”. This garnered new ways of connecting with consumers. Some drinking water in countries like India and Haiti. many retweets and became the high watermark of live call it the hashtag revolution. The Twitter hashtag brand communications. After that, every marketer seemed has become a vehicle for creating global, real- to be asking their agency to “do an Oreo”. time conversations about events, news stories and jokes - and everyone with a social media NO LONGER WILL BRANDS SIMPLY Bough said it took just four minutes for the social media account can join in. Live storytelling signals a team to get the Super Bowl tweet delivered, underlining huge transformation in the way marketing is done. MARKET AT PEOPLE, THEY WILL the importance of having a social media war room which No longer will brands simply market at people, NEED THEM TO ENGAGE IN responds to events in real time. they will need them to engage in storytelling and become part of a wider conversation - with the STORYTELLING AND BECOME Of course, brands can’t just “do an Oreo”. First they need whole world. PART OF A WIDER CONVERSATION - to transform their attitudes to marketing, realise that the days of command and control are over and become part of This was the subject of Twitter’s Live Storytelling WITH THE WHOLE WORLD the new wave of live storytelling that is gripping humanity. session. Twitter’s vice president for global brand strategy Joel Lunenfeld introduced advocates of live storytelling from the worlds of the arts and Marketers are having to live through a revolution as control of branding. their brands slips from their hands. As Leslie Berland, senior vice president of digital partnerships at American Express, told Sir Patrick Stewart, who rose to fame as Captain the session: “Marketers today are experiencing such a loss Picard in the TV series Star Trek, talked about how of control. We don’t control our brands, we don’t control our he had become an advocate of Twitter since his image, we don’t control the messaging we are putting out in first tweet only two years ago. He compared it to the market. It is the dynamic, real-time conversations that are the live storytelling that he engages in as a theatre happening all over the world by telling stories that are shaping actor in front of live audiences. our brands and our identity.” A powerful example of the way brands can She described how Amex sought to tap into this new marketing use hashtags to inform their marketing was a approach by offering to link customers’ payment cards with campaign by charity Water is Life which lobbies their Twitter accounts and offer them discounts if they tweeted

22 23 constrain ourselves too much when solving problems - by Indian man separated from his family as a boy to find them looking at the constraints,” Arora said. years later. THE DIGITAL FUTURE He also talked about the thinking behind the creation of He also talked about Google’s Project Iris, a contact lens that Inside the Googleplex – how Google’s Android mobile platform. Before Android and the enables diabetics to monitor glucose levels in their tears. Google engineers create the iPhone, there were over a dozen different mobile platforms, so When he first heard about some of these ideas, Arora says breakthroughs of the future every new innovation in mobile had to be created for all these his reaction was to say: “That’s crazy, it’s like something out different devices. “Larry thought that if you could take away of science fiction.” The point is that the ideas are derived the need to rewrite the code every time, you can speed up from looking at the most obvious way to solve a problem, Google has transformed the world with its innovation. Now there is consistency in the platform, how much then finding ways to make that solution work. He claims this search engine, with its maps, with Google Earth. better the innovation is.” He points out that this has allowed approach led Gutenberg to develop the printing press - rather Now it is on the cusp of further revolutions with technologists outside Google to become innovators as well. than trying to make people write faster. new breakthroughs that will change how we live, from self-driving cars to Google Glass and the Arora says that Google’s innovations are successful because Internet of Things. they are not driven by the thought of financial rewards but by WE THINK SEARCH IS ONLY the aim of improving the lot of humanity. But what drives innovation at Google? How do its engineers go about identifying and creating FIVE PERCENT OF WHERE “We don’t sit and talk about business metrics and how transformative inventions? In this session, IT SHOULD BE you make money out of it, but is this going to be useful Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora for humanity? We don’t kill it because it is not gave key insights into life on the inside at economically possible.” Google and the processes and mindsets Google’s core offering of search still has room for massive of the company’s innovators. development according to Arora. “We think search is only five Such an approach is likely to deliver many more transformative percent of where it should be,” he said. In future, you will be technologies in future. He described the way Google founder Larry able to point your mobile phone at a restaurant or landmark Page tackles a problem - by first looking at and request information about it - such as opening times or the most obvious solution then trying to make geographical details. But he emphasised that there are huge that work. It is vital not to be held back by challenges ahead for the engineers at Google as the search all the negatives and the reasons something system of the future will need to juggle so much information can’t be achieved. For a flavour of his thinking, about people’s needs. It will need to respond to a command Arora recalled when he and Page were flying such as “Remember that hotel I was looking at yesterday? Can over California and looked down at the traffic you book me a room there for tomorrow?” jams below. Larry’s idea for solving the traffic problem was to build low-flying cars as then you He also outlined a number of breathtaking Google innovations wouldn’t need roads and each car could travel that are poised to change the world. Project Loon is a plan to in its own direction. Levitating cars never got send solar-powered balloons into near space to connect the off the ground, but this indicates the thought whole world to the internet so the two-thirds of humanity who processes behind the company’s greatest don’t have access to a connection can finally join the web innovations. “One thing he taught me is to solve revolution. He played videos showing how Google Glass could problems from first principles. Sometimes we empower the disabled and how Google maps had enabled an

24 25 chance to connect with creators on a much deeper level and to “lean in” to the experience. DreamWorks TV has just launched THE ART OF STORYTELLING with plans to run 15,000 hours of children’s programming on YouTube. “Kids today aren’t looking at TV sets, they are ON YOUTUBE watching it on their iPad and iPhone. Everywhere the kids are, DreamWorks king Katzenberg that’s where we want to be,” he said. says advertisers must become YouTube will become the predominant media channel within story-tellers on YouTube five years, he said, but he thought marketers and advertisers would need to find a way to weave their stories into the digital YouTube has become the world’s top distributor narrative of YouTube content. of digital video, inspiring new ways of telling stories and changing how brands relate to their audiences. IT’S A WHOLE NEW GAME, AND WITH IT To discuss how to create a powerful digital COMES AN UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY narrative, YouTube brought together two of the FOR THE BRAND ADVERTISING AND world’s most successful storytellers. DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, the producer behind MARKETING COMMUNITY BECAUSE many of Hollywood’s most successful animated THIS IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT KIND films, was joined on stage by Eddy Moretti, OF ENGAGEMENT creative chief officer of Vice Media, the youth video service which has transformed the way news is presented and distributed. “But it requires you to become a story-teller along with us - the idea that you are going to take a traditional commercial and drop Katzenberg is indelibly linked to the world of it into what we are doing, that is not the way to do it today.” movie theatres and the big screen, but told the session that he is fascinated by digital media. He praised some of the work Pepsi (an Omnicom client) has It has opened the doors to creators of all types done on YouTube, particularly the Jeff Gordon slot, where the and has brought down the barriers to entry, US stock car racer plays a prank on a car salesman by taking he said. “It’s been exhilarating because today him for a test-drive from hell. “That’s where it (advertising) the floodgates of creative storytelling have is going - it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s engaging, and it’s incredibly opened up with this platform, it’s given us the valuable for the brand,” he said. opportunity to spot talent that I don’t think has ever existed before and it has given a voice Meanwhile, Eddy Moretti, chief content officer at Vice Media, to all kinds of creators to be able to express told the session that brands need to value internet communities themselves,” he added. and find out more about them from their content partners: “Very soon, digital is going to be the dominant distribution platform. He said YouTube is a much more personal Advertisers need to integrate now or they are going to be experience than cinema, giving viewers the caught off-guard in a couple of years,” he said.

26 27 opportunity for the resurgence of storytelling. We are seeing She says Mark Zuckerberg’s insight is that people want to some people really taking advantage of that, creating great share and connect, sometimes one-to-one and sometimes MAKING MARKETING PERSONAL AGAIN experiences that are most importantly driving sales for those with friends or publicly. companies.” Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg talks “We are not planning to roll ads into messaging,” she said, mobile, personalised marketing and She cited the McDonald’s (an Omnicom client) World Cup though added: “Would I want to receive a one-to-one message the importance of ad agencies football fries campaign as an example of a strong creative from a brand or a product or a service I like? Absolutely.” approach. And she was excited about the possibilities for “personalised marketing at scale” through Facebook, She said the problems Facebook had encountered over the Facebook has put behind it any teething mentioning a Budweiser campaign where artists were past few years transitioning to mobile stemmed from timing - it problems of the past few years and is now interviewed about their songs then the films targeted to launched as a desktop company in a world that was about to performing very strongly. It has spoken of Facebook consumers based on their musical taste. And go mobile, so the company had to update its programmes for managing to catch up with the transition to she cited the Coca-Cola Super Bowl ad, with different the mobile age. mobile, where usage is growing, while brands demographic groups singing America The Beautiful, which and agencies are recognising the power of its was then targeted to different segments. But she thinks brands too are lagging behind in the mobile targeting tools. revolution. “Mobile is 20% of people’s time but only 4% of budgets. Mobile is just a really big opportunity,” she said. The session with Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg entitled: “Facebook: MOBILE IS 20% OF PEOPLE’S TIME making marketing personal again” highlighted some of the issues facing the social network BUT ONLY 4% OF BUDGETS. MOBILE IS and how it sees its progress over the next JUST A REALLY BIG OPPORTUNITY. few years.

Sandberg advocated the use of personalised Sandberg said there was a huge role for advertising and marketing through the social network, though media agencies in providing the right creativity to boost acknowledged that too many ads were still advertising on Facebook and its Instagram photo-sharing quite “boring.” She said ads were getting platform. “The question for us is how do we work with more relevant but there was room for more agencies? Agencies are hugely important to us because it advertising to be “delightful”. goes back to storytelling - the Facebook ad experience is only as good as those stories and it is the agencies that “The most important thing to understand about create those stories and bring those stories to life,” she said. Facebook is we are storytellers. And just like She mentioned Instagram’s tie up with Omnicom, saying: you have some friends who post some really “They have done great work.” great stuff and then you’ve got a friend that posts really annoying, boring things - that’s She held out the possibility of brands sending people the same with us. When we have brands and personal messages through the social network. Facebook has agencies that do great creative, that’s a great recently bought messaging app WhatsApp and it already has experience and so we believe that with the 200 million users of Facebook messaging. size and scope we are, that this is really an

28 29 He said attitudes to creativity have been transformed since backgrounds to work together forces them to “think outside he moved to San Francisco in the 90s. The combination of their box”. THE NEW CREATIVES the web, Apple’s demonstration of the crucial role of design in commercial success and the new creative tools have But he said, this was hard to achieve since each specialism Creatives need to think like allowed designers to combine business and creativity to build works to a different time-frame - PR people think about the marketers, behave like entertainers successful apps and products. He pointed to the new Vessyl daily news-cycle, while digital specialists think about the next and move like tech start-ups cup, which can tell you what liquid is inside it, even being able big technical developments and advertising people consider to tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. And he added: the two-year cycle of their ad campaign. “Steve Jobs’ biggest contribution was to bring creativity and Until recently, creativity played a secondary design to the business world. As designers we have found The way to get them working together is for them to remember role in business. It was nice to have, but was ourselves in a 180 degrees different place compared to the the three basic activities of a creative agency - what is the story considered far from important for commercial 90s.” you are trying to tell about the brand, what is the behaviour you success. But the advent of the web, the want people to engage in and how will this be distributed - how explosion of creative tools and the way Apple will you get those stories and applications in front of the right has revolutionised smartphones and tablets people? Looking at creativity in these terms helps creatives see have changed all that. Creativity today is at the AGENCIES IN THE AGE OF beyond the confines of their specialisms. heart of many successful businesses. CONTENT NEED TO: “THINK LIKE He said that agencies in the age of content need to: “Think like Adobe’s session on the new creatives explored A MARKETER, BEHAVE LIKE AN a marketer, behave like an entertainer and move like a tech the implications of this for business and for start-up.” the creatives themselves. Scott Belsky, who ENTERTAINER AND MOVE LIKE set up the online creative portfolio platform A TECH START-UP.” “It is a scary and exciting world we live in,” he told the session. Behance which was acquired by Adobe, revealed the results of a survey of 1,000 creatives that Adobe carried out. The survey PJ Pereira, co-founder and chief creative officer of top San showed that today’s creatives are versatile Francisco ad agency Pereira & O’Dell, put what he said was a and highly optimistic. Some 96% of them are “dangerous” question to the session: “If you were inventing the “extraordinarily” happy in their careers while ad industry today, would you do it in the same way as we do 88% feel the creative industries’ best days are it now?” He said the answer was clearly no, since consumers yet to come. behave in such a different way from the past. They control how they get information rather than being passive recipients. Yet Yves Behar, founder and chief executive of the ad industry keeps on coming up with the same solutions industrial design consultancy Fuseproject, told and ways of working as in the past. the session that many of the most exciting new ventures of recent years have had creativity When he and his partner launched their agency six years ago, at their heart - from Airbnb to Apple, from they wanted to create something in tune with the needs of the Facebook to Uber, designers have been modern world. This meant building an agency that brought involved right from the start. together creatives from a range of different specialisms. Diversity, he said, is at the heart of great creativity and getting people from different cultural, national and professional

30 31 ACTUALLY, YOU’VE GOT TO WRITE THE POWER OF STORY WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH, Armando Iannucci and other storytellers speak NOT WHAT YOU THINK MAKES out on the importance of narrative SOMEONE ELSE LAUGH. Storytelling is perhaps the most powerful theme running through the sessions at Cannes. And what better way for creatives and marketers to learn about storytelling than In the session “The New York Times: Storytelling with story listening to some of the greats from the worlds of television, creators”, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from The New York film and newspapers? Times Maureen Dowd gave an impassioned argument for the important role stories play in culture: “Movies and The Time Warner session on “The Power of Story” brought to TV compensate for the poverty of real experience, for the the stage the creators of HBO drama Game of Thrones and limitations of existence,” she said, adding: ”Without the arts, Armando Iannucci, writer and producer of the channel’s hit people would have underdeveloped imaginations and they political satire Veep. would not lead either meaningful lives or moral lives, for without the representation of otherness in art, you do not They talked about the processes behind the creation of these imagine the suffering or pain that someone else is feeling. shows and revealed a few of the tricks they employed to add interest to their stories. “Movies and TV have educated us about everything from war to politics - from the idealism of Mr Smith Goes to Iannucci said Veep was created with the real-time, Washington to the insane cynicism of House of Cards.” documentary-style feel that he employed in his BBC work such as The Thick of it. The idea is to give viewers the impression that they are looking in on something secret that they are not supposed to be seeing. He said the show was born out of people’s frustration with politicians, whom he described as: “People who are very, very tired making decisions about stuff they don’t know much about and as a result people get killed.”

He agreed with David Benioff and DB Weiss, creators of Game of Thrones, that storytellers should create what they find pleasing rather than trying to second guess what the audience wants. Iannucci said: “We become aware of our audience as the show goes out. Actually, you’ve got to write what makes you laugh, not what you think makes someone else laugh.” This will be music to the ears of some advertising creatives, who feel ads suffer from being too tightly targeted at a defined audience.

33 to economic crisis. But it is a market that is becoming increasingly significant for global brands and they are BRAZIL’S GOLDEN AGE IS looking for ways to unlock the potential of tens of millions of emerging consumers. JUST AROUND THE CORNER Brazil: A creative powerhouse emerges Some predict that Brazil will become a global hub for TV programmes and cross-media storytelling. Content company The Alchemists which has offices in Rio de Janeiro, Los Brazil is not just an emerging nation economically, it is also Angeles and London, believes there are opportunities for growing in creative stature. The World Cup and Olympics may brands to take advantage of the great wave of content have sparked protests about the sums being spent, but the creation that is coming out of Brazil. sporting events are also being seen as a chance to showcase the emerging talent and inspiring community projects which are The Alchemists co-founder Mauricio Mota has developed a transforming the world’s fifth most populous country. tool called “The Storytelling Compass” which helps brands align their content strategies worldwide. It has been used by Such is Brazil’s impact on global creativity that Cannes Coca-Cola and many other top global brands. dedicated a whole day to sessions about the nation’s emerging entrepreneurship. One of the Cannes sessions discussed a project called “Ta no mapa” which aims to digitally map some of Brazil’s Increasingly seen as a creative powerhouse, Brazilian agencies poorest areas. This uses online mapping to outline the have been behind ads such as the Dove “portraits” campaign favelas of Rio de Janeiro, bringing the chance for millions (created in conjunction with PHD as the media agency), which of inhabitants to take part in the digital revolution. has already had over 60 million hits on YouTube.

The aim is for kids to interview business owners and manage the online mapping platform. This will create digital IT IS A MARKET THAT IS BECOMING networking skills and boost young people’s social media and digital skills and enhance their creativity. The project is being INCREASINGLY SIGNIFICANT FOR backed by agency JWT Brazil. GLOBAL BRANDS AND THEY ARE “This is the kind of work the advertising industry should be LOOKING FOR WAYS TO UNLOCK THE doing because it is where the growth is happening in Brazil POTENTIAL OF TENS OF MILLIONS anyway. It is a Brazil that goes beyond the white middle class ad industry. Let’s celebrate and let’s learn about this other OF EMERGING CONSUMERS. Brazil,” the agency’s president Ezra Geld told the session.

Brazil is a nation of contrasts - there are twice as many homes with a television as with basic sanitation and there are huge gaps between rich and poor. While millions have been lifted out of poverty in recent years, the country is still vulnerable

35 the brand’s “Everywhere you want to be” campaign and its importance of social media in keeping in touch with fans and sponsorship of both the Olympics and the World Cup. “At inspiring them, but worried that it could be time-consuming for SPORTS AS A SOURCE FOR GLOBAL the heart of every brand is a brand promise. At Visa, our an athlete, whose main commitment should be to training. And brand promise is that whatever it is you want to be, Visa can he added: “A lot of times when you work with big brands, the CREATIVE INSPIRATION help you get there,” he explained. brand may say you have to fit in with its approach, but that can Brands go for Gold with the be frustrating because as an athlete I have a brand myself.” He World Cup and Olympics He highlighted what he saw as the four pillars of great sports said he preferred Visa’s approach, where it spent time getting marketing. The campaign must involve brand story-telling to know him first to see how he could fit in with their campaign and it must be based on a basic human truth. “Universal rather than shoe-horning him into it. Sport has become the ultimate platform for human truths allow us to tell local stories and turn them marketing and creative advertising. From the into global stories”, he told the session. A sports marketing Desailly said more work needs to done in educating footballers Olympics to the World Cup, sport offers brands campaign needs to be “unexpectedly delightful” and must about the important role sponsors play in delivering the key an unparalleled vehicle for communicating be inherently social, which he defines as “a social mindset, messages about the sport. the values of excellence, passion and not a channel”. determination and is readily grasped by The session gave some strong insights into the ingredients consumers across the world. Burke introduced two sporting greats to explain what sports needed for creating a successful sports sponsorship and was sponsorship looks like from the other side of the fence. a great opportunity to watch some of the best ads ever made. From Pepsi to Procter & Gamble and Nike Marcel Desailly was part of the French team that won the to Visa, global brands have produced some of World Cup in 1998 while David Wise is a US freestyle skier their most stunning marketing campaigns as who brought back Gold from the Sochi Winter Olympics. part of their sponsorships of great sporting events.

Speaking at the session Visa: Sports as a SPORT OFFERS BRANDS AN source of global inspiration, Marcello Serpa, creative chief at AlmapBBDO in Brazil, pointed UNPARALLELED VEHICLE FOR to P&G’s Proud Sponsor of Mums ads as a COMMUNICATING THE VALUES powerful example of an Olympic campaign that combines the common values of the event with OF EXCELLENCE, PASSION those of the P&G brand. But while the Olympic AND DETERMINATION AND Games have come to represent the pursuit of personal excellence and achieving individual IS READILY GRASPED BY feats, the World Cup stands for something very CONSUMERS ACROSS different. It is about the clash of teams and national pride in overcoming the opposition. THE WORLD Serpa highlighted this by showing Nike’s Good vs Evil World Cup campaign.

Wise spoke of the challenge for sports stars when creating Meanwhile, Omnicom client Visa’s chief associations with brands and keeping up a strong social marketing officer Kevin Burke spoke about media relationship with their fans. He recognised the

36 37 ads done well, he pointed to some of the recent campaigns and strategy and process when actually human feelings – that for Guinness. which creates true change – lies in things that you cannot write NICE IS THE NEW BLACK and you’ve got to take cognisance of that and give the space Josy Paul, creative chief of BBDO India, steered the for accidental answers and all the things that make that magic.” Why “nice” advertising is conversation on to what he called “the chemistry of nice.” a hit with the public He identified the chemical oxytocin as the key to nice He believes that nice advertising gets shared far more than advertising. Often referred to as “the bonding hormone”, other types of ads. “If you look at social networking, the work oxytocin is released in women during childbirth and is that’s a lot nicer seems to be shared more than something that The rise of “nice” advertising over the past few thought to enhance motherly love for the newborn. It can is just having a laugh,” he said. years has been a notable phenomenon. More be induced in us all. “Oxytocin is what induces a feeling of ads are eschewing sarcasm, dark humour and empathy and generosity” said Paul. “Without oxytocin there “The world wants to create a lot more comfort zones.” irreverence in favour of simplicity, emotion would be no stories, no communities, no families, it is the and authenticity. trust hormone in all of us.” This was the theme of the session “Nice is the Advertising must try and induce the release of oxytocin new black” which sought to get to the bottom through its work, he said. “The difference between good of what is driving the nice movement. and great lies in the level of oxytocin you can induce in The session brought actor Beck Bennett to your commercial.” He played the film Google Reunion, an Cannes. He starred in AT&T’s Lion-winning “It’s ad for the search engine about two childhood friends who Not Complicated” campaign and hosted the were separated by the partition of India and the creation of session. Pakistan. They are reunited in an emotional scene after the daughter of one of the men uses Google Search to track David Lubars, chief creative officer at BBDO down the long lost friend. Worldwide, believes that the rise of “nice” advertising is down to the hard times that people are living through. “Decent people are desperate to hang on to something decent. So THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD we need to start understanding how to give it to them in a way that is great. It is very hard to AND GREAT LIES IN THE LEVEL do well.” OF OXYTOCIN YOU CAN INDUCE Bennett asked why more brands weren’t doing IN YOUR COMMERCIAL. nice advertising. Lubars answered: “Because there’s a trap, and the trap is that just doing nice isn’t enough, because it can easily go into Beck Bennett decided that this was a good point to give the sappy, the maudlin and frankly the hack. It Paul and Lubars a hug. He then entreated everyone in the can be very bad, the stuff that makes you want audience to start hugging the person to the left of them, and to dig your eyes out, stuff we are not happy they duly obliged. with in our industry.” For an example of nice

Paul told the session: “We spend too much time on data

38 39 the finch. Italy has featured Marconi, Yugoslavia had a note for adults – but this could be a good thing. with Nikola Tesla and Germany has featured Gauss. But in COSMIC QUANDARIES AND CREATIVITY the US, currency notes have used the faces of the founding “If you cannot correct your elders, if you cannot say they have fathers of the nation – without mentioning, for instance, the got something wrong, if you are not allowed to do something The “Pluto killer” shares words of scientific work of Benjamin Franklin. This indicated the low different, are you not then locked into their understanding of wisdom on the secrets of creativity regard the US has for its scientists, he said. the world? and scientific advancement “I wonder when you have these irreverent American children where no-one respects anyone who is twice their age – Is that Creativity and scientific discovery are closely the source of our creativity?” he said. connected. A society that values the first CULTURES THAT VALUE will end up with plenty of the second. This CREATIVITY, IRREVERENCE Tyson thought that cultures need to value problem-solving was the contention of US astrophysicist Neil and creativity but also need to be prepared to live with the deGrasse Tyson, who gave a series of unusual AND WHICH HOLD NO FEAR risks that this involves.“If you stop making mistakes you are perspectives on scientific advancement in the OF MAKING MISTAKES ARE no longer on the frontier,” he said, adding, though, that if your session “Cosmic quandaries and creativity”. mistakes have been made before, that is because “you didn’t Tyson is the scientist who destroyed the idea MORE LIKELY TO PRODUCE do your homework.”His conclusion could be equally applied to that Pluto is a planet and has since traded on SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC marketing as to science. his reputation as the “Pluto killer.” DEVELOPMENTS. “Welcome to the frontier, because when you succeed, you He argues that cultures that value creativity, succeed in ways that everyone thinks – ‘how come I didn’t irreverence and which hold no fear of making think of that?’” mistakes are more likely to produce significant It may have come as a surprise to hear his downbeat scientific developments. assessment of US scientific culture, given the giant technological strides that have come out of America over Tyson believes that the United States has the past decade. But he seemed optimistic that the US been losing its place as a source of scientific had the ingredients of creativity and irreverence necessary discoveries, though seems hopeful that it can to continue creating and discovering. recover some of that creativity.

“I come to this as a scientist, not an ad person, but it is all In an unusual experiment, he looked at the related. If you have a creative culture, you invent new ways extent to which different countries have used to solve problems. You discover problems you didn’t know pictures of scientists on their currency bills as were there previously,” he said. a measure of the importance that their cultures place on science. He believed scientific creativity was related to the health, wealth and prosperity of a nation. “Creativity as manifest in The UK has featured Charles Darwin on the a culture shows up in so many different ways”. £10 note, though got the illustration wrong by showing a hummingbird when the scientist’s On the plus side, he said the United States has a culture or favourite bird from the Galapagos Islands was irreverence. American children misbehave and lack respect

40 41 relevance can boost a brand’s global presence in the age of social interactions. RELEVANCE AND THE HOFF As Matt Neale, President International at Golin, told the The Hoff shows that brand relevancy session: “By understanding David’s “relevance fingerprint” is key to global marketing and building a campaign on his ability to entertain, we’ve been able to create something that we think is of the moment and likely to be a success across all In today’s connected world, brands and celebrities live media channels.” and die by their relevance. People can easily screen out your brand if they think you aren’t relevant to their lives. Golin has studied the relevance of celebrities and brands PR agency Golin used its session at Cannes to show that in markets around the world, measuring a series of relevance is hugely important for brands as they plan their dimensions such as “classic”, “humanitarian”, “prestige” and marketing activity globally. “entertaining”. Through these measures, it creates a “circle of relevance” showing how different brands and celebrities are relevant in different ways in different markets.

PEOPLE CAN EASILY SCREEN OUT For instance, Dove scores highly on being humanitarian, YOUR BRAND IF THEY THINK YOU welcoming and noble, though its score varies in every market. The Hoff has low relevance in some markets, but in AREN’T RELEVANT TO THEIR LIVES Germany he outdoes even George Clooney in the celebrity stakes.

There are lessons brands need to learn from this - to To prove the point, the agency flew in The Hoff - that’s understand the role they play in the lives of different groups David Hasselhoff, ex-star of Baywatch, Knight Rider and of consumers and to find ways to boost that relevancy. America’s Got Talent - to take part in a live experiment at Cannes. The agency created a fun online game - “hoffornot” - where players are shown a series of photos and choose whether they are of the real Hoff or one of his impersonators. The agency asked the audience at the session to play the game then share it through their social media platforms, with a prize for the player that shares the game most widely - to spend some time with the Hoff over dinner. Who could resist? Hoffornot achieved millions of social media impressions and ran during the entire Cannes week.

But there was a serious message behind getting one of America’s greatest maturing heart-throbs on the stage at the Palais. The point was to show how creating

43 But he was sceptical about the over-dependence of data and analytics on advertising. “The tools you need to figure out THE CREATIVE REALITY CHECK who your audience is are available. But the tools that aren’t available are the ones that tell you how you get them to care. Creative maverick Chuck Porter talks Paddy I warn you against believing that advertising is a science or Power, Lionel Messi and the downside of big data that big data is a substitute for creativity,” he said. Above all, people want to be inspired. Chuck Porter, creative legend and co-founder of US ad agency He quoted a statistic that half of advertisers’ social network CP+B, lived up to his reputation as an irreverent maverick in pages in Europe have fewer than 1,000 friends, though added: his Cannes presentation - “The creative reality check: A brief “I don’t know if that is true - they might be making it up.” message on behalf of the seven billion people who aren’t at Cannes.” He spent half an hour upending some of modern marketing’s most cherished ideals and threw in a variety of amusing one-liners. “I’ve spoken at Cannes a few times before TO BREAK THROUGH THE CLUTTER and really don’t have anything new to say so any questions?” he joked. He got the audience eating out of his hand as he OF OUR AD SATURATED WORLD, dished the dirt on data and analytics. “I love big data, I heart HE POINTED TO GOOGLE’S CLAIM data, I love analytics, so don’t write me any more emails.” THAT THERE ARE THREE SURE He professed to hate talking about creative work - “it’s WAYS TO STAND OUT ON YOUTUBE - bullshit!” - so showed some of the agency’s work instead. BY USING CELEBRITIES, THROUGH His brief was to speak about interesting ways of using PARTICIPATION AND WITH technology so that it doesn’t “wreck your campaign but enhance it.” He played a few of the agency’s Paddy Power UNEXPECTEDNESS ads, such as “Ball of shame” and an ad promoting “tasering” people. Both amusing campaigns were derived from comments Porter said he had done a lot of research for the presentation, on Twitter. watching ads and directors’ cuts and had come to the conclusion that ”everything is too long,” with which he To break through the clutter of our ad saturated world, he wrapped up the talk and started to walk off stage. pointed to Google’s claim that there are three sure ways to stand out on YouTube - by using celebrities, through Porter’s main point was that new technologies may come and participation and with unexpectedness. While Porter said go, but creativity and story-telling will always be at the heart he was suspicious of using celebrities in ads as they were of brands. “Every new technology is just another way to do “borrowed interest”, he showed the agency’s Turkish Airlines brilliant work. It just depends how you use it,” he said. ad featuring Kobe Bryant and Lionel Messi which has achieved 137 million hits on YouTube. “So I guess they are right about celebrity,” he said.

45 “There is a desire to give you the Vegas experience you want and ensure it is a positive experience,” says Bendelow. “What THE SIN CITY CHRONICLES: THE CASINOS DO THREE THINGS Vegas did was embrace the fact that if you can change the game and see creativity as a way of solving problems, that HOW VEGAS CAN INSPIRE BRANDS REALLY WELL, ACCORDING TO can work. It manages the tensions between creativity and Las Vegas marketing magic: BENDELOW - REAL-TIME MARKETING, science, between automation and human experience.” What brands can learn from PERSONALISED CONTEXTS – To demonstrate the power of magic in keeping audiences the neon metropolis “ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOUR” - AND enthralled, Bendelow invited on to the stage magician Dynamo, who has performed widely on TV. He managed to What happens in Las Vegas should definitely COMBINING SOCIAL, MOBILE AND get the audience to randomly call out the names of places, not stay in Las Vegas according to Ash LOCATIONAL DATA. dates and objects, then revealed that he had written down Bendelow, MD of agency Brave. He sees the those very words the night before on a scroll of paper that neon metropolis as a goldmine for marketers, was hanging in a box above the stage. This brought gasps bursting with insights about how to get and applause from the audience. customers to open their wallets and to keep So if you go out to catch a show, a casino or hotel might on coming back for more. send you a mobile message suggesting a number of Bendelow believes marketers can learn real lessons from the restaurants you could eat at afterwards. “They offer a Las Vegas loyalty marketing experience and summed up the It may be known as Sin City, but there is sensory plan where everything about you is considered at a aim for all businesses - and it would seem magicians: “Vegas nothing sinful about turning over $8bn and single moment in time,” he says. You can order your drink knows you better than you know you.” attracting 40 million visitors a year. Las Vegas via a mobile app. They get to know each customer’s desires, crams so much into its 7.5 km, matching needs and behaviour and use propensity modelling to work Paris as a tourist destination. out when big spending players are likely to visit.

For Bendelow, the secret of its success lies One of the pioneers of this data-driven, customer-centric in the way the big four casino operators - approach was not some flamboyant entrepreneur or casino MGM, Ceasars, Wynn and Sands - have king. It was in fact Harvard academic Gary Loveman, who become experts in real-time marketing and was given the job of chief operating officer of Harrah’s mining data. There are loyalty schemes that Casinos never having worked in the business before. ask customers about the amounts they are prepared to gamble and their risk profiles, He established the company’s Total Rewards loyalty system. so if they are on a casino table and hit that This gathered data on customers and allowed the company level, an employee will tap them on the to analyse their travel and spending habits. One insight was shoulder and suggest they would be better that repeat slot players rather than high rollers were most off calling it a day. The casinos do three profitable for the company. Harrah’s has concentrated on things really well, according to Bendelow - creating loyalty among these customers and bringing more real-time marketing, personalised contexts – of them into the casinos. This boosted Hurrah’s to the point “adaptive behaviour” - and combining social, where it was able to buy out Caesars Entertainment and mobile and locational data. become the biggest casino operator in the world.

46 47 WITH THANKS FOR THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF;

JASON SILVA

CAROLYN EVERSON

ROB SCHWARTZ

PAUL KEMP-ROBERTSON

RAHUL WELDE

JOHN HEGARTY

DAVID LUBARS

DAVID BENADY

CANNES LIONS

Images courtesy of Getty Images

JASON SILVA

PASSWORD: MINDTRIP