Blog o' RAMA

Cannes Advertising Festival: Day 5, Last Day

Today was our final day at the advertising festival, and it definitely went out with a bang!

The first part of the day we spent in a seminar with IdeaManagement, Mike will talk to you about that one.

After that, we decided we'd check out the screenings of the winning commercials in the theatre. We were planning on attending another seminar in the early afternoon, but were drawn into the commercials so much we couldn't leave!

The winning commercials that we saw were in the segments of Food, Alcoholic and Non-alcoholic drinks, and automobiles. What was very interesting was the rise that the Ballpark commercials got from the crowd. These commercials were very "American" with their "in your face" style. The campaign was "hunger gets what hunger wants," and each advertisement showed an arm coming out of your stomach and basically beating you up until you eat. The crowd laughed so hard and applauded these ads every time.  Here is a YouTube link to one of the commercials. 

I also found the alcoholic ads to be very interesting. Much like the automobile advertisements I discussed in an earlier blog, there is a major difference between the campaigns in this segment, based on the type of product. In this case, it was the difference between liquor advertisements and beer advertisements. In general, the beer companies focused on humor and crass jokes in their advertisements, while more liquor companies would use very rich production, to convey the quality of their product.

A very good example of this was in one of the Johnnie Walker whiskey commercials. The commercial was an android discussing the differences between humans and robots, and how the robot wished he had feelings and emotions. Then, the end conveyed the quality of Johnnie Walker whiskey. It was a very well produced advertisement, and a very high-end feel to it. 

Here is the YouTube link to the Johnnie Walker ad.  This was a  major departure from what you would normally think of coming from in the alcoholic drinks segment. 

After these advertisements, we checked out the Al Gore seminar, which was extremely interesting and very inspiring, and I'll let Jess discuss that seminar. 

Overall, the festival was absolutely amazing, we've met some fantastic people from all over the globe that have been great friends and also inspirations to where this industry is going.

I'd really like to thank Dawn and Yvonne for all of their help throughout this process, and the support of the Rochester AMA, it has been a blessing working with your group, and we really appreciate everything. [Speaking for Dawn and myself, you're very welcome. We can't wait to see your presentation. Yvonne]

After this, Mike, Jess and I will be traveling through Monaco, Germany, Scotland and England, and soon after we return, we'll be presenting about the Cannes Festival, so I hope everyone is excited for this!  Thanks again, and we'll see you soon!

Au-Revoir!

-Todd

Last day at the Cannes Advertising Festival!

Hey everyone!

Well I guess it was inevitable; the Cannes Lions Festival is officially over. I went to the Idea Management seminar entitled How great ideas work even harder. Idea Management is a training company that focuses on advertising agencies. Essentially what happens is -- a client comes to Idea Management with their concept and the people at Idea help translate that concept into an advertisement.

Idea Management was responsible for the Volkswagen GTI "For boys who were already men" campaign which was a HUGE success in Europe.

VW Gti Commercial - Youtube

It was nice to see how ideas are conveyed successfully and that there are agencies out there who can help you get your ideas protected and produced efficiently and successfully.  Agencies such as Idea Management are a great asset to the advertising world.

We finished our festival by attending a seminar from former Vice President Al Gore.  He discussed the importance of advertisers in the realm of global warming and how they have an moral obligation to  influence positive change in the world.  It was a riveting speech and we were all amazed at the passion Mr. Gore has.

I would really like to thank everyone from RAMA who helped make this trip possible for myself, Todd, and Jessica. We appreciate SO MUCH all that you have done for us and the rest of the Alfred University AMA chapter throughout the past year. I would especially like to thank Dawn McWilliams for all her help and hard work in making sure we were comfortable and on the right track to success. 

Yvonne, thank you so much for going through our posts and helping us with the blogging process.  [You're most welcome - we are honored to have all of you writing such exciting content! Yvonne] You are a huge asset to the RAMA community.

I look forward to presenting to you all in detail all that we did on this wonderful trip and I'm sure you are all anticipating it (Just a hint, it might be one of the best presentations you have ever seen!).  Take care, and enjoy the rest of your summer.

Mike Heaney
Executive Vice President
Alfred University AMA

Conclusion of the Festival!

Yesterday (Friday) was the last day we attended the festival, and a full day it was! They were playing screenings of the award winning ads all day long, and we spent 2-3 hours watching those. Luckily, we got there early, b/c the room was completely filled, there wasn't a square inch of the floor open to sit on, let alone an empty seat.

We really enjoyed seeing all of the winners, and it seemed that Nike ran away with a good percentage of awards! This was interesting after attending two seminars involving the Nike rep.

Last night we were also able to attend a seminar hosted by Al Gore. This was extremely exciting! He  was mainly there to inform marketers what they can do to help with the climate crisis. He is part of a concert series taking place within a few days that is involving many celebrities, speakers, and performers, all with the intent to educate viewers on the crisis. The concert is taking place on the same day in 10 major cities, world wide. They expect over 2 billion people will see the concert, between viewing parties, attendants, television, etc.  Keep your ears open to hear anything more about it!

Today, we are getting some shopping and beach time in before we head out tomorrow morning. I cant believe our 10 days here are almost up! This was by far one of the most exciting and best experiences of my life, and a big thank you to the Rochester AMA for all of your support.

until next time,
Jessica

The more things you see The more ideas you have

Bill Ward, Collegiate Relations Chair for RAMA and Assistant Professor of Marketing at Alfred University reporting from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. 

The theme for the Festival is "The More Things You See, The More Ideas You Have."  With over 26,000 creative entries and daily seminars, workshops from industry leader CMO and Brand Managers from Nike, Apple, American Express, Nokia, Frito-Lay, Unilever, Microsoft, etc. and the top executives from the marketing, advertising, public relations, media, and production agencies that support these brand and thousands of other around the globe. 

In addition to global representatives from 49 countries there were also presentations sponsored by Dentsu on Asian Diversity - "Know the Unknown" by Akira Kagami and Jimmy Lam.  Their  presentation included examples of cultural diversity from multiple Asian countries -- from India, China, Japan, South Korea, Mylasia, Singapore and Thailand, just to name a few, with many different languages and cultures.  To know one Asian country does not mean that you know Asia. 

Text Appeals' Global Marketing Disasters presentation included a wonderful panel presentation on how to spot global disasters and how to avoid them.  It is true, the more things you see the more you learn and the Festival is only one place you can experience such a range of global culture.

The students will be better prepared for the global marketplace and professional industry for attending thanks to RAMA scholarships and support.   

Cannes International Advertising Festival: Day 4

Today was quite the day!

We started the day off bright and early, as the automotive commercials were being screened at 9am.  Since I'm a bit of an automotive buff, I made sure we made it there as soon as they started.  I found the advertisements were really interesting, I think that automotive ads have the most variations based on manufacturers than in most markets.  It's very interesting, not only are there major differences in the advertisements based on where they were produced and broadcast from, but also in the manufacturers themselves, and what segment of the market they're attempting to attract.

I think the most interesting ad campaign, as far as high-end auto manufacturers go, would have to be Lancia.  The Lancia campaign, which aired throughout Europe, featured very dark tones, extremely contrasted images, and very surreal and dark themes, something not very common in automotive advertisements, especially in America.  Here is the YouTube link to an example of one of the commericials. 

I also found one of the Honda ads from Europe very interesting.  Normally, Honda commercials are associated with discussing the features versus the price of Hondas, converying more about economy and benefits rather than excellence in quality.  This commercial, however, was driven purely on the quality, and almost looked like a Lexus, or Mercedes-Benz commercial.  I thought it was extremely well done, of the highest production quality, and really brought Honda up to a whole new level.  I've got the YouTube link for the Honda commercial as well. 

After the screenings, we went to a Content Showcase Workshop featuring Leap Music and Vodafone.  The workshop discussed music production and copyrighting music for using in advertisements.  Vodafone, with the help of Leap, has been using a whole new approach to licensing material for using in commercials.  Vodafone now purchases the copyrights to the music directly from composers and producers, in order to ensure full usage of the material.  This way, they can keep the material as an asset, and are able to then distribute it as the need, making it much more flexible, and easier to recycle the material when they want. 

Matthew Gillard, of Marketing Operations and Evaluations, discussed all the pros of this new method.  What was very interesting about the workshop was that there were several people in the audience that were involved in the music business, whether as producers or in advertising.  They all had very interesting takes on this method of acquiring licensing, all with fresh ideas and thinking it was a progressive and impressive maneuver. 

After this workshop, we went to two seminars, one from USA Today and one from Ad Age and Nike Plus, I'll let Jess and Mike discuss those ones for you!  Well, that's all for now, we'll be posting again soon!

Au-Revoir for now,

Todd

Nike Plus gives A+ performance at the Cannes Lions Festival

''Change running forever.'' -Nike

Stefan Olander of Nike gave a fantastic presentation on the Nike Plus running shoes and transmitter.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this technology, it is a two-piece transmitter where one end goes into the sole of your specially made Nike Free shoe and the other end goes into the bottom of your iPod, where the charger/usb cable would normally go.

Once you are plugged in, you can listen to your own playlists while a pleasant voice lets you know how far you've run, how much further you have to go, and how fast you are running.  The technology is seamless, affordable (about $100 for the shoes and transmitters), and as Stefan put it, ''addictive.''

Nike has created an entire consumer culture with the Plus technology.  Runners can log onto the Nike site to blog about their runs, give tips, talk about their favorite running spots, and look at the leaderboards to see who has the fastest time's in their respective area(s).

So why was Nike so successful with this product?  There are a couple reasons:

First, Nike hit the three C's (Content, Commerce, Community) perfectly.  They created an entire culture around this product.  Runner's are a very rare breed of consumer.  They are passionate, critical, and knowledgable about their sport.  Simply put, there is no fooling them.  Nike knows the runner just as well as anybody else.  Their company was founded on running decades ago when Steve Prefontaine was in the scene.  Due to this knowledge, Nike was able to cater to the running community without fail; blogs were set up, maps were posted, and unique songs were created and available for download on the iTunes webstore.  Runners were instantly sold on this.  They could tell that Nike was just as serious about their sport as they were and they would not quit until they satisfied them.

Within weeks, runners were online uploading their running times, challenging friends to races via the special email forwarding system, and downloading songs of iTunes (The Rocky theme ''Eye of The Tiger" being the most popular).

To date, over 30,000,000 (yes, you read right) km's have been ran by Nike Plus users and that number is growing by the second.

Have you been wanting to get back into running but can't quite find that special 'push' needed to get you back on track?  Then check out Nike Plus and watch as your life is changed forever.

Click here to see the latest Nike Plus commercial!

Mike

Cannes Lion Festival - Day 2

Tuesday, the second day of the Cannes Lion Festival, was crazy!

Why not break the rules?

- Metro International Newspaper

I started off the day by going to a workshop given by Metro International Newspaper, Nokia, and Xbox 360.  The workshop dealt with their collaborative efforts to create successful marketing/advertising campaigns for their respective companies.

The central challenge for all 3 companies was to ''continue to differentiate products and services in an even stronger, more creative, and constructive way.'' 

Metro was having a problem keeping the readers' eyes on ads because the readers of today have no time to sit down and read long, drawn out articles during their seldom, precious free time.  So what did Metro decide to do?  They created a newspaper that is toally free of charge, distributed to 23 countries in 20 languages, where 10 million copies are distributed each day!  This was a revolutionary solution to an old problem.  Metro relies solely on revenue generated from selling advertising space.

In terms of advertising space sold, Metro is top-notch.  They worked with Swatch watches to created 3 special editions of Metro papers that feature a certain Swatch watch.  They created a paper that plays a song when opened, as well as a rose scented issue for mothers day.  During the Year of The Pig in China, Metro had their couriers dress up in pig snouts and hand out fortune cookies with each issue.  Really cool, huh?

Puma and Metro collaborated to produce a new ad campaign that featured mock stories featuring top soccer players in Europe.  Each episode featured a mystery 'scandal' that created turmoil within the soccer scene.  The viewers were promised that at the end of the series they would see what was creating all the fuss.  Finally, at the end of the series, the new Puma shoe was unveiled as being the big mystery and as a result there was a 40% increase in turnover.

Metro closed up with a quick list of what newspapers in the future should look like if they wish to be competitive in an increasingly paperless world:

• More paid-for niche papers that cater to specific audiences
• Papers that drive the audience to go online
• Papers that allow the audience to choose the content
• Papers that drive their audience to check out paid-for content

Next, Nokia spoke briefly about their experiences with their past Metro collaboration.  Nokia was on the brink of launching a new ad campaign for their Nokia 6630 cell phone.  They wanted to position it as being the handset for providing 3G technology. 

Metro decided it would be best to completely integrate the phone into the theme of their newspaper and create advertisements that include life-size pictures within the areas of the newspaper that Nokia's target market reads most.  Nokia then showed us one of their print ads that I thought was really cool.  It was a full page spread that featured all the topics of the days paper on the screens of the 6630!  I have tried Googling the image, but have found nothing.  If I can find it, I will post it for sure because you guys need to see this.

The ad campaign ran for 15 days and the following results were tallied:

• 9.9 million "urbanites" were given the paper
• 35% weekly penetration was reached
• 88% of consumers saw the ad and could recall it
• 64% of the aforementioned consumers stated they liked the advertisement
• 48% said the ad increased their desire to buy

Finally, Xbox 360 came on and gave their responses to Metro's partnership.

They started with a sentence that I thought was very appropriate to today's business environment:   

"Our interest is in the future because we are going to spend the rest of our lives there."

In Christmas 2006, Xbox had to produce an ad campaign that drew the attention away from the much anticipated Playstation 3.  The consumers were said to be a cynical, media literate audience that is not easily swayed.

So what did Xbox do?  Simple.  They bought EVERY SINGLE AD SPACE in the metro newspaper and for each space bought they put an advertisement for one of their games.  Xbox wanted to remind the audience that out of all the video game consoles out right now, theirs still offered the most games in high definition.  What was especially cool was that Xbox would put an ad for say, a Baseball game, in the sports section, thus effortlessly reaching their target market.

Awareness of the 360 during Holiday season skyrocketed up 76% and 15% of the consumers said they would be more likely to buy the 360.  The reaction to the gratuitous ad purchasing spilled onto myspace where users posted videos of them flipping through each page of the Metro, showing the ads.

This workshop was a great example of how corporations can collaborate together to create BIG ad campaigns in a short amount of time.  It's incredible how quickly consumers can be reached in such a short amount of time.  The digital age of technology is most definitely going full-steam and we can only imagine where the business world will be within the next year.

The times they are a changin'

Mike Heaney

First day at the festival

We are just finishing up the end of our first day here at the Cannes Lion Festival.  Luckily we found a break in the long line that have been at the computer lab all day! Today we were able to get into one workshop from the company Chellomedia.  Their presentation mainly consisted of interactive advertising, which they described as the delivery of additional content to the main TV commercial.  Basically, they provide the viewer with access to more information they might want after seeing an add for a product.  This sometimes even includes a direct method to purchasing a product, right on your tv.

Next we attended a seminar hostel by Nigel Morris, president of the company Isobar.  This company is a digital agency who was able to show us many interesting adds.

By far, the seminar I found most interesting was Starcom Mediavest and Microsoft.  They spoke about the problems surrounding ad avoidance.  They informed us that 1/3 of people ages 17-35 are ad avoiders, which is a problem that the Alfred Chapter of AMA has had to deal with alot!  We thought this seminar would be very important b/c we have tried to think of new ways to market projects we were doing in many clubs I have been in, and especially in the art school it often proved to be very difficult to reach people's attention. 

We learned a few main ways to reach the people that don't want to be reached, such as finding an appropriate outlet for your message, not expecting something for nothing (what can the target audiance get from you?), be a welcomed surprise, whatever you say, say it well, and to let go of some of the control.  The two speakers gave many examples, and were quite enjoyable and funny to listen to!

Other than seminars and workshops, the building is completely filled with print ads. Many of them are extremely interesting, giving public service announcements, scary statistics on war, and amazing imagery.  Dr. Ward was not kidding when he told us how much interesting things there would be to look at!

Luckily the computer labs here have american key boards which will make blogging easier than the cyber cafe near our hotel. Thank you so much to the rochester AMA for providing us with this opportunity. I look forward to the rest of the week, and professor Ward told us that the festival only gets bigger and better by the day!

au revoir

Jessica

First Day of the Festival

We just finished our first day of the festival!

After registering this morning, we immediately jumped into a quick workshop with representatives from Chellomedia.  The company helps develop interactive advertisements, which basically means developing commercials and advertisements that entice consumers to find more information, via a broadband connection.  Chellomedia discussed interactive television, which is something not very common in the United States yet, as only DirecTV uses the technology. 

The reps described interactive TV (iTV) as the "Delivery of additional content to the main television commercial."  They described it as the "red button" on the remote that takes consumers directly to a broadband website which shows additional content from the commercial.  It was very interesting how popular this technology is becoming in Europe, 70 out of the top 100 advertising companies use interactive advertising in their campaigns.  They also said that the price of this technology, while high now, it becoming more affordable as more companies are using it and it is becoming more popular.  I think as soon as digital cable companies in the United States begin integrating this interactive television, it will take off very quickly and we will find many US companies employing this strategy. 

After this workshop, Jess, Mike and I attended two seminars which inclusded Isobar, a company that creates marketing networks online, and also Microsoft, discussing the "creating time," which is basically enticing consumers who are referred to as "ad avoiders" and generating advertisements that will connect with this group and make them listen to the ad. 

Today was a very fun and extremely informative day, we got to browse many amazing print ads, along with several ad campaigns on exhibit in the main area of the festival center.  Unfortunately, the cyber cafe at the festival only allows 20 minutes of time at the computers, so next post I'll try to upload some pictures of the festival, and give some more in-depth descriptions of the festival!

Au-Revoir for now!

-Todd