The brush with Cannes Lions is addictive and contagious. The excitement after having won a Lion ignites the craving for more. So much so that absorbing sessions and international networking soon give way to the desire of bringing home more metals.
So even though 23 Lions are won already, the announcement of the Film Lions shortlist disappointed the Indian delegates considerably. Film Lions was one category that many agencies such as Publicis, Ogilvy, JWT and even McCann Erickson were looking forward to. When Publicis’s Himani ad film or Ogilvy’s ZooZoos did not make it to the shortlist, the conversations amongst the Indian delegates had hues of shock and unpleasant surprise.
The evening at the Gutter Bar didn’t see many advertising professionals discussing anything but the Film Lions. However, that changed as the evening progressed.
Indian delegates have otherwise been making way to the seminars regularly. BCCL’s Bhaskar Das and Sujoy Ghosh; Ad Club’s Bipin Pandit; Cadbury India’s Giridhar Seetharam; Nirvana Films’ Sneha Iype, Syzygy’s Meera Sharath Chandra are some of the people seen attending seminars. The JWT team Tista Sen and Senthil Kumar spent the evening at the JWT do, and other teams like CreativeLandAsia, media owners like Joy Chakraborthy were seen in the regular haunts.
Some Indian jurors like Direxion’s Leena Basrur and Ray and Keshavan’s Sujata Keshavan Guha have already left Cannes. Innocean Worldwide’s team, BBDO India’s Rajdeepak Das and the Sorento Healthcare team have too left the city.
It has been a slow Cannes. As day five ends, the only things coming to mind are some of the interesting seminars of the year, including Campaign Manager for Barak Obama, David Plouffe’s on Day Dive. DDB Worldwide hosted the seminar. The house was packed and the advertising fraternity had not cheered for anyone else, as they did for Plouffe.
Some of these subjects took the discussions away from Film Lions for a while but the one question at the back of everyone’s mind is whether the three entries would win anything. If the Print Lion experience is anything to go by, it is not unfair to expect at least two Lions from Film category but one would know only on day seven when the Film winners would be announced.
The highlight for day six, apart from Cannes debate featuring WPP’s Martin Sorrell and the seminar with Publicis Groupe’s Maurice Levy and Google’s Eric
Schmidt, is the Integrated Lions.
