Hegarty: Cannes is losing focus on advertising that builds brands
Legendary ad man John Hegarty has said that the Cannes Lions is “losing focus”, because in his view the world’s top ad show is not a true reflection of advertising that builds brands and businesses.
In an interview with Mumbrella today, the BBH founder said: “One of the major problems we have at Cannes is that it’s hard to get a grasp on what’s actually happening in the real world of advertising. The festival is losing a bit of focus.”
“What Cannes should be all about is how creativity aids branding and builds business. But are we really seeing the ideas that are creating effective work? I’m not sure that we are,” he said.
The man behind classic ads such as Levi’s ‘Laundrette’, who is increasingly critical of the industry he has served for so many years, took issue with technology, data, work designed purely to win awards and Asia’s approach to brand building.
He said that the ad industry has become “obsessed” with technology, which was distracting advertising practitioners from the true role of advertising.
“As an industry have become so obsessed with technology that we’re forgetting what it is suppose to deliver. People are not interested in technology, they’re in interested in what it can do for them.”
“Is technology delivering messages that move people?” is the question the industry should be asking itself, he said.
Hegarty suggested that the ad industry will not survive is it depends on data, because other industries are better at using it.
“The danger of a reliance clients have on data is that they think it will give them an answer for tomorrow. They want it to be their oracle,” said Hegarty, who pointed out that brand builders such as Nike and Apple do not use it.
“But they are seeking a nonsense really. You can have all the data in the world, but you can’t predict the future.”
Data would never replace intuition in creating effective advertising, he said.
“Since everyone will have the same data, there’s a danger that everyone will end up with the same ideas and the same products.”
Work created to win awards he called an “abhoration”.
“It is like drugs in sport. It is a delusional practice, and the problem is we’ve created a beast called awards and it’s taken over,” he said.
In answer to a question about the tendency for Asian brands to follow market leaders rather than try to stand out, Hegarty said Asia should look at how Europe builds brands otherwise risk not living up to its promise.
“Unless Asia learns [to build brands that are unique], and accepts that it has got to do things differently and build brands that are different, it won’t be the powerhouse that everyone claims it will be,” he said.
Robin Hicks
Couldn’t agree more.
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Great article John, always important to remember that the tools (however shiny & new they might be) are there to aid delivery of an idea – not to be the idea itself…
As for predicting the future, we tend to overestimate our skill in this department.
Take recent stats from CXO Advisory Group, who polled the predictions of 500 investment strategists and pundits. The “experts” had a 47% success rate. Good luck if you listen to any of them!
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Totally agree
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Yes, a very sane article.
When ever the topic arises, “new tools” I think of Sat nav. Earlier they used a chronometer and a sextant, before that, they read and measured the stars, yet they managed to navigate the same seas and explore the same globe.
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I loved his work with Creedence. His solo stuff less so.
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Great article.
It’s for these reasons that I ‘opted out’ of Cannes (and a lot of other award shows) years ago.
Even right now, it seems people are not prepared to accept the fact a lot of scam ads are picking up metal (yes, Australian ones too). All it does is cheapen the entire spectacle.
And in an industry struggling for recognition and facing increased problems around revenue and business models, we bring in speakers like Kanye and The Hoff. For fuck’s sake!
The industry has become over-run with charlatans preying on the fact that nobody can predict the future, but hey, look at this shiny new technology and let’s throw in some bullshit buzzwords.
Like lemmings looking for a cliff to jump off.
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Couldn’t agree more with this article and @Sam.
Why is Cannes full of celebrity speakers this year (?), telling advertisers to connect with them as people or ‘fuck off’ – it’s ridiculous.
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Cannes has become a mainstream red carpet event and the actual important industry speakers add less value each year .
The line up speakers this year is a joke.
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I share the same sentiments.
I guess what he is saying is that creativity in ads need to be used more for conveying the brands’ unseen specialness rather than merely display the advertisers’ ingenuity and wittiness(clever and humorous in perception and expression). It is like making genuine art that has a strong persuasive message and influence, rather than let these get lost in the midst of the artist’s fancy and colourful showmanship — seems to be prominent in spam ads.
However, perhaps because advertisers do not know much about the brands they are promoting due to lack of research or because clients are not proactive enough to provide the data, the kind of strong and persuasive brand-building message in ads are not coming through.
I have the exact same issue with the kind of empty and superficial modern art created nowadays that people worship like silly. Many artists don’t understand deeply about the subjects they want to portray, they just create art that reflects their superficial perception of the subjects. I guess superficiality can be prominent anywhere, I believe it is a phase that everyone has to go through.
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