June 30, 2010, 6:33 am : Cannes, AdAge – Cannes picks and full interview

The image above is the edit of my (obviously too long) Cannes picks interview for Advertising Age, which was a very big honour for me and good fun to write as well. Below is my full interview, complete with references to the X-Men and of course, Berkeley the Dog. Oh, and some cool advertising too.

Cannes Picks for Cyber 2010 – Tom Eslinger

I’m looking forward to Cannes this year with a mix of anticipation and fear. Anticipation of fthe shoot-outs in Cyber and fear  of the extinction-level magnetic field that will be caused by all that smartphone blog-tweet-share-apping in one place. It will be the magnitude of the one that Magneto used on Wolverine in the battle at the end of Ultimatum, and we all know how that turned out, right?

1.What campaign is likely to do well at Cannes, and why?
My Cannes experience has been on Cyber and Titanium juries, so I have goggles set on simple, connecting and WOW! Ideas like Monopoly on played out on Google Maps, the Boone Oakley site, IKEA Showroom and cool augmented stuff like BMW Z4 all have those qualities. When I first served on Cannes juries, anything from Absolut and Nike seemed to be pre-printed in the shortlists. Now, Uniqlo looks to be taking over the Absolut spot with consistent work like Calendar and Lucky Switch. Personally, my fingers are crossed for Saatchi LA’s Sponsafier and 3G Prius work – GO TEAM!

2.What’s the best use of social media you’ve seen in the last year?
I really like Nokia’s World’s Biggest Signpost (no more Farfar, sniffle) because it was simple and happened in the real world, making ripples through relevant media online and mobile – and was way weird and wonderful. I love We Choose The Moon, which made Twitter feel warm and immediate and re-awakened inner little kids all over the world. My dog Berkeley got his head stuck in a mini-Pringles can as a puppy, so he is organizing a block-vote for Pringles’ Oversharers. Ikea Showroom and Uniqlo stuff will no doubt be magnetic in one of the juries.

3.Which region or country most impresses you right now, and why?
I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time in China over the last few years and have watched the work move rapidly into multi-layered ideas like recent stuff from there for adidas and our  Beijing office’s work for HP. Years ago, I yabbered on and on about how mobile from Asia was going to blow people’s minds but surprisingly I’m still waiting for the jaw-and-phone-dropping work to match the gnarly hardware.

4.What would you like to see less –or none–of next year–what needs to be retired?
The simple answer is technical tricks posing as ideas. The challenge is to pick out the hits from all that random noise that’s blasting out at full volume. I can only imagine how many smartphone apps, Twitter-y things and AR one-hit wonders are lined up in the judging jukebox waiting for a spin.

On my watch as President of Cyber we collectively focused on the ideas that cut-through, not the fancy technical tricks. We pulled out Dove, Nike iD and The Heidis, which all went on to kill across the board – should have moved Cyber to Saturday night.  I’m hoping that the juries will apply similar filters, because in a short time, the delivery mediums in this space have matured and are now rabidly loved.

5. What was the most exciting work you saw from your country/region in the past year?
Essentially, I work everywhere we have an office, so unless I get some free gear from Uniqlo and Nokia, I’ve reached my plug-limit!

6. What were the biggest challenges you faced in the last year within your particular country/region when it came to doing great creative work?
Wherever you are,  the challenge when you work neck-deep in “digital stuff” is to find your place in the overall process and to spread the way you think into every bit of the core idea. I tell people it doesn’t matter whether you are first or last in the presentation to the client, you have to be in there all the way along. Screens are the connective tissue in our work now and our job is to hook ‘em all together. The challenge is getting our teams and clients to see us all, regardless of how we self-identify – media, agency, all of the pieces in the puzzle – as an ecosystem around their brand’s ideas – one can’t (and mustn’t) exist without the others.