SANDY SCHLËMMING’S CANNES DIARY

The Worldwide CEO of PARASIT Brand Design gives us his personal, intimate and deeply insightful take on Cannes.

It’s 5am in London, 6am in Cannes and I’m up like a cock, ready to crow. I strongly believe in strongly shouted early-morning positive mirror affirmations. Everyone should have a mantra. This is mine. ‘You’re POSITIVE. You’re OPTIMISTIC. You’re FORWARD FACING.’ I holler this in the bathroom mirror over and over again like a primal scream until I am spent, or, in this case, when the steward knocks on the door to tell me that other passengers are ‘complaining’. I return to Business Class refreshed, invigorated and ready for the mind fuck (yes, I said fuck) that is Cannes, France.

Through the window I see the azure waters of the Mediterranean glistening like post pilates sweat. I am ready. I remind my PA to check the limo booking via email as she’s in Economy.

Lunch at L’Angle des Saveurs with the News Limited crew. Homemade duck foie gras, toast and onion confit with “Simmental” rossini beef tenderloin to follow, although I barely touched it as I’d had a huge line in the toilet before we started.

Everyone’s buzzing about my speech and I am too, although that might be lingering remnants of the gak. I take a taxi to the Palais du Festivale, making sure to avoid the endless lines of chattering ‘creatives.’ My speech isn’t for them, it’s for those who actually understand the unifying principles of branding.

The room is full of expensive linen shirts and Pringle jumpers draped coquettishly over the shoulders. Marketers. My people. I take a quick line in the wings as the lights go down. Unfortunately, I walk onto the stage to ‘She Bangs’ by Ricky Martin. I glare at the sound guy as the track was supposed to be the next one, ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay. The huge screen explodes with colours to reveal the famous Nike swoosh.

We won the Nike worldwide rebrand a year ago. I remember walking along the ‘great wall’ in our Shoreditch office with every award-winning Nike ad pinned up. I said to the team ‘What a privilege it’ll be to take this legacy and finally introduce a consistent branding colour.’ I told the CD I’d chosen green as it’s the colour of grass, the colour of ALL sport. And yes, I was TOTALLY  aware of clay courts, F1 and ice – so fuck you Clive and the stupid electric scooter you ride to work on.

My talk dissected how years of disparate branding had made Nike ads a patchwork of different executions and styles. We showed the Nike team how our brand bible would put a stop to their agencies chasing awards and actually follow some simple rules. I showed the room how we’d reworked some of their ads to our new guidelines. Remember the out of breath fat kid running up the road? We replaced him with a young, fit female athlete with brown, frizzy hair running optimistically into a positive future. The screen then went green and we replaced ‘Find your Greatness’ with ‘Run Happy.’ The crowd went ballistic.

The biggest cheer came at the end when I showed Nike’s ultra grim ‘Colin Kaepernik’ poster and with a button press, replaced the black and white shot of him looking unhappy to a dynamic stock shot of him scoring a touchdown when he was actually playing. Half of the ad was green and curved like the swoosh. In fact, EVERY ad was half green and curved like a swoosh.

Total consistence. No deviation.

The lights went down and a single spotlight bathed me in light. I closed my eyes and said with a whisper ‘Positive. Optimistic. Forward facing. This is the new Nike.’ People stood up and I could swear I could hear someone crying.

Dinner at L’Assiette Provençale. Salade de Gambas followed by Cuisse de Canard. Didn’t touch it. Obviously.

Yoga and a wank before hitting the 500 thread-count sheets. Some claim that Cannes is a non-stop party. It is for some. For others, it’s an opportunity to listen, learn and actually touch legends. I spotted Mark Zuckerberg backstage and actually knocked David Droga violently to the floor in my attempt to get within firm handshake distance. (Marketing is a full-contact sport. David should know this). I gabbled about the metaverse, how I also do Jiu-Jitsu sometimes and would he like a quick line and a chat with me in the toilet. Mark nodded and smiled as his people dragged me away. I bet he was in the audience for my speech.

On the terrace for breakfast. A creative nearby has passed out. But I’m Linkedin. I adore Linkedin, and constantly find new ways to educate and amuse my followers. I design a quick poll online to find out what I should have for breakfast.  A huge bowl of snails it is. I’m a huge believer in research, and my vast audience of professional marketers quickly let me know what’s right (or wrong!) about my work, the food I should eat, the clothes I should wear. Even my Tinder date swipes are entirely up to the hive mind.

AI has thoroughly dominated Cannes this year, and so it should. I made a decision to fire three writers after just one hour experimenting on Chat GPT. It’s clear. It doesn’t use flourish and absolutely won’t try to be clever. I use it to write Linkedin articles and almost every email I’ve written to colleagues, friends and my children has been written by AI. Some say it will kill advertising. Based on what I saw in the Palais, I say BRING IT ON!

Perusing the ‘ideas’ is always a thoroughly depressing activity, but this year even more so. The work is eclectic, too clever by half and almost entirely for charities and aid organisations. I spotted only a handful of posters for real brands. Can’t these creatives do award winning work for their real clients? I’d sell my mother for just one highly-branded poster for an insurance company or a big supermarket. And none of this artsy photography either. I’m talking nice, clear Getty Images with a slash of branding. And some puns.

It’s like creatives have given up on big brands. As I keep telling agencies worldwide, large brand design companies are NOT your enemy. We love awards and want you to win them. Just follow our clear guidelines and once you’ve got that out of the way go fucking nuts! Have fun with the brand. And as long as you stay positive, human, optimistic and forward facing you can do anything.

Charity work. My arse.

Sandy Schlëmming is worldwide CEO of PARASIT Brand Design.

(As told to Andy Flemming. 72&Sunny, Sydney.)