Mark Harrick’s 2011 Cannes Diary – Day Two and Three from the Cannes Film Lions jury room

June 22 2011, 8:07 am | BY Lynchy | 2 Comments

Screen shot 2011-06-22 at 8.03.16 AM.jpgMark Harricks, executive creative director at JWT Sydney, is representing Australia on the Film jury. Harricks has just finished day three of judging and writes exclusively for Campaign Brief. Other Aussie and Kiwi jurors will be contributing exclusively to the CB Blog over the next few days, so make sure you check in daily, hourly, every minute…

For your pleasure I thought I’d combine the incredible excitement of two days “culling” into one highly charged, action packed report.

Our group started day 2 with “Banking, investment and Insurance” 182 entries all up. it was interesting to see the ways different countries regulate this sector of advertising. 

The US, as expected I suppose, had an essay of legals accompanying most of their spots. One even ended with the phrase “use your discretion when purchasing this product” or something similar – which made the jury laugh. The More Than Freeman and Geico work

stood out, and from Australia, Medibank – For every breath.

We then moved onto “Restaurants and fast food outlets”. I was looking forward to this section. In the past Maccas and Burger King have been entertaining. when it finished I think I may have even vocalised my inner thought – “is that it?”. World must try harder next year.

DANCING MAN.jpeg“Alcoholic drinks” next. This section made me proud to be Australian. It is absolutely clear that Australians know more about beer and beer advertising than any other nation on earth. Our ads – All of them – stood head and shoulders above the rest of the world. It is clearly in our blood. The other jurors even noticed it – I felt like a US defence delegate at a UN Security Council meeting. WE FUCKIN’ ROCK IN THE BEER UNIVERSE!!! I thanked them for noticing and we moved onto “Business equipment & services”.

What a fucking come down. Nothing to write home about here.

Day 3 started with 229 Internet films. One thing. Just cause you got all the time in the world doesn’t mean you should use it. Ok. There I said it. Moving on. There was actually some pretty cool stuff in this section. It seems as though clients aren’t as worried about what they make for the online environment as they are about TV. Overall the work was much freer and more engaging – I guess they don’t research it.

There was a stunning film to promote a game called “Dead Island” – very beautiful/scary. Adidas Star Wars Cantina made an appearance and two new films for Gatorade Replay, amongst many other great spots. All in all not a bad day.

Trend alerts: 1. Films that show music being made by things moving past other things that make noise. 2. Ads inspired by the opening sequence of “Lord of War” – (dammit I’ve got a script for that one!). 3. A person moving through a party seamlessly performing an unbelievable amount of clever tricks. Heineken UK have done it best, so everyone else can stop now.