Cam Hoelter’s Cannes Diary: Day Four

Cameron Hoelter, creative director at DDB Sydney is Australia’s representative on the Cannes Lions Press jury. Hoelter, along with most of the Australian and NZ jurors, is of course reporting exclusively for CB.

Day four was by far the most interesting. Today we awarded Lions and selected the Grand Prix.

Campaigns that on day one you thought had a good chance, suddenly felt out of their depth. A pretty harsh reminder of just how good a press ad has to be here to even compete.

The basic parameters in press haven’t changed in a hundred years. Just ink on a page. So creating something that feels fresh is unbelievably difficult. Consequently a fair bit of debate centred around originality. How close does it have to be, to have been done before?

With everyone having to raise their hands to vote, as well as arguing for and against particular campaigns, it was fascinating seeing which ideas resonated with some jurors more than others.

The Argentinian juror loved the ‘sheep’ ad and thought it deserved silver. ‘Sheep’ ad? I couldn’t remember a sheep ad. Until he pointed to a very nice Jeep campaign on the wall.

‘Accents are funny’ I thought, until I realised I was probably the only person in the room who only spoke one language.

The last two hours were spent choosing a Grand Prix. We went from 4 campaigns down to 3. Then 3 down to 2. And then we debated… And debated… And debated. With no campaign winning a majority. At 8.30pm pizzas and tuna nicoise arrived. We ate and debated some more. Then as the deadlock seemed permanent and festival heavyweights we being called into adjudicate, someone crossed the floor. Le phew.

To be honest there was some breathtaking work this year. But not one clear winner. Not one that  used the medium in a completely original way. But then I thought, maybe I’m being too harsh on print. Maybe comparing it with other new and rapidly evolving mediums is unfair. Because after a hundred years of pushing around ink on a page, how ‘revolutionary’ can

you be?