This year there are 41 different sub-categories under digital in Cannes Lions. Only this by itself, is a great evidence of how digital landscape is diversed and extended. As I always mention, creativity comes in many different forms and shapes in today’s advertising world. Be it an illustration, a motion graphic, a social platform, an integrated campaing, storytelling, use of video or a branded game. There are countless oppurtunities and connections. Below you can see the Cyber sub-categories.
Cannes Lions 2014 is over. My main interest is Cyber Lions of course :) This year there are about 41 different sub-categories under 9 different Cyber main categories. The most-crowded categories are Craft and Social, as you may guess.
I will share the outstanding projects of this year briefly, here we go:
Pharrell Williams – 24 Hours of Happy collected many Cyber Lions in different sub-categories such as user experience, interface & navigation, use of video, microsite, interactive video and overall aesthetic design. It deserved anyway.
The Scarecrow, digital campaign of Chipotle Mexican Grill, was another star of this year in Cannes Lions. The overall campaign got Cybers in Integrated multi-platform campaign, storytelling, animation & motion graphics and use of video. This campaign really showed again, how different moving parts a big idea can have, mainly digital components.
Live Test Series from Volvo Trucks of course was another hit of this year. The epic split, one of the series, quickly became an internet phenomenon. Te campaign got Cyber Lions in engagement platform, webisodes/series, integrated multi-platform campaign.
Check them out here: http://winners.canneslions.com/2014/interactive/index.cfm?award=1
A couple of my other favorite award winner projects are;
If We Made It from Heineken,
Speaking Exchange from CNA,
Melbourne Remote Control Tourist from Tourism Victoria,
Sweetie from International Childs Aid Organization.
Check all the winners;
We are huge video consumers. That’s why brands need liquid video contents to engage with audiences. But that doesn’t mean each branded video is viral!
First of all, each highly viewed video content is not viral video. Today with organized and well planned media investment, you reach pretty good results in video scores. Especially with the introduction of Youtube ad models, favoritely pre-rolls, and cost-effective pricing, you can have a particular display with your video. That is totally OK by the way, as long as the brand & agency are aware of that, and purpose of the video content. I mean each video hasn’t necessarily to be viral anyway.
But each video has a “Virality Effect”. Brands need to decide the expected virality effect of video in the briefing session. And it is more important to observe the organic wins on top of the media scores. But what are those organic figures? Here I list the major ones;
-The views gathered apart from media coverage
-Conversations in social space about your video content and reach
-Content curations from users, like spoofs, caps, re-posts, etc.
-Any type of interaction in brand’s social media assets
Keep in mind :)
Joseph Campbell’s iconic work Hero’s Journey is a master piece for storytelling. And it always work. Hero’s journey light the path of stories in Holywood and film-making industry. Today, with digitally empowered audiences, brands had to craft compelling stories too. But how?
Hero’s Journey is still the answer for marketers and creatives. Brands create stories. And their communications are like chapters. There is always a moral of story which storyteller wants to share. The moral of story is value of the brand.
The story begins with the HERO. Who is the hero in a brand story? Your brand? No! It is your audience. You only empower them to live their adventure and participate to your story.
What about the brand? The brand is not a hero, but the MENTOR. The mentor guides and inspires the hero to reach his potential and succeed. The mentor does not talk about himself, but tells how great the hero is. The mentor makes the hero believe and take action. Just as a brand does in an engaging creative campaign today.
The mentor also gives a GIFT to hero to help him/her in his journey. In communication that is actually the BRAND GIFT, what the brand will deliver.
To sum up, Hero’s Journey is still a beautiful guide to marketing people who needs good stories. And the foundations of storytelling is the right path to success in digital landscape.
Storytelling is the new “buzzword” among creative industry. But why? Let me give a quick wrap-up about that. Since the beginning of history people spread ideas through stories in an oral tradition. Ideas used to spread, change, evolve among people for years. Up until golden advertising age of 1950s where messages drived by broadcasting. In broadcasting era, people became consumers of ideas, there was only one-way dialogue, no oral tradition.
With digital revolution broadcasting era use over. Audiences again get the charge of ideas through spreading, sharing, curating them all over the world. It is the “digitally empowered version of oral tradition” In this new landscape what kind of ideas can survive, of course STORIES!
In my next post I will give some tips for good storytelling based on Joseph Campbell’s iconic work Hero’s Journey. The video above also covers the fundamentals.
People don’t love brand messages or advertising. But they love stories. Stories are memorable, interesting and inviting.
It’s better for brands to create a story and empower consumers to join that story. Make it bigger in an engaging and authentic way. This is the new way of advertising in new media landscape. Social space ensures the stories to get bigger through conversations.
In digital landscape, technology can also change the way we tell a story.
Sometimes what you need is to get rid of the all known variables, thoughts and existing ideas about the work you do. You need to start from scratch.
Technology and new media landscape shapes the advertising industry. Digital era transforms the way of doing advertising. However, in United States the biggest ad spendings is still TV with 66 billion USD in 2013, followed by online advertising spendings around 42 billion USD!
Obviously it is not just about online advertising. The agencies, clients, technology companies are becoming more data savvy day by day. These data can be derived from web habits, social media activites, credit card histories of each online individual. And the both marketers and agencies try to find out the way of doing more personalized advertising practices through these data.
So far, it is still difficult to build a crystal clear advertising solutions based on online data. But both agencies and brands started to invest on that. Some global brands like Coke, Nike, Burberry established marketing software departments. Ad agencies acquire technology companies focuses on this. And huge technology giants build services specifically addressing this issue for brands.
However, in order to create a change & impact in indivuals’s lifes and perceptions with an effective advertising, it is not enough just to command the data and technology. Brands need creative minds and storytellers to merge insights with new technologies & data.
Both brands and agencies used to run for a big idea. The agencies used to work to craft one big, TV centric, broadcast campaign. But this approach is over now.
Digital landscape also transformed the creative approach for crafting ideas. A core creative idea may come up with a lot of tactical ideas and executions which will provoke conversations among target audience. So, for agency people; creatives should not just focus to find a very “big idea”. Because in digital, creativity comes in many different forms. What brands need is to craft a lot of integrated tactical creative ideas & executions, originated from a single core creative idea, that can live in a number of channels.
There will always be “big ideas”, and we will be running to get them. But a big idea is most effective when the agency also crafts other extensions/interpretations of the idea in each different channels in an engaging way.
To me Instagram is one of the best communication platforms for brands. Some brands already recognized the huge potential of Instagram. We will definitely see more of Instagram initiatives in the upcoming days.
Why brands started to love it? To me, because it is a perfect environment for branded user generated content in a very cool way! In Instagram every ordinary moment can magically turn to piece of art :) Journeys, moments, foods, travels, experiences, selfies, fashion.. And people are more likely to share the visual expression of their lifes to their network. Instagram gives the oppurtunity to look/feel good and bringing them close to photography. And brands can not stay away from such strong instinct.
Here are some quick tips for brands from Instagram;
– Be true to your brand
– Share experiences
– Find beauty everywhere
– Inspire action
– Know your audience
See more Instagram tips & news for brands in their own blog for businesses:
http://instagram-business.tumblr.com/
