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Time of India

The Cannes Syndrome

A lot has been said and done about the extravaganza that is the Cannes Advertising Festival - the wet dream of many an advertising professional - a celebration of great advertising across the world. That begs the question - what makes an ad campaign 'great'? Is it the craft that went behind it? The impact it had? Or some other metric altogether? Ideally it is the beautiful point where creative execution leads to measurable and visible impact for the brand, and that is the criteria as well. And yet, LinkedIn was rife with industry professionals talking about how many awarded campaigns have one thing in common - almost nobody outside the industry has seen them. Campaigns like 'Lucky Yatra' by FCB India - with brilliant ideation & craft behind it, and yet even the people employed by the Indian Railways were not aware about it till it was too late. Somewhere there's a disconnect. So what is the purpose of a platform that celebrates creativity in advertising if the impact of said great work is being called into question by industry veterans after every edition of the awards? From the point of view of a new professional in the field, they give you something to aspire for. A standard of out-of-the-box thinking that not only raises the bar for good work each time, but also rewards those who manage to crack something meaningful. But maybe, just maybe, there is a need for a course-correction. Maybe there needs to be a mechanism that ensures that there is parity, clarity, and sincerity in the campaigns that claim impact while ensuring that the passion behind the craft shines through - Something that takes care of the Cannes Syndrome where the bells sing of impact, but the echo is largely silent. Something to think about…