Cannes media juror Nick Waters on cutting out block voting, why ad agencies are better at entering, and Asia’s Achilles heel

Nick Waters, the APAC boss of media agency Dentsu Aegis Network, sat on the jury of the Media Lions at Cannes this week.

Waters, who is six months into the role running the region for DAN, caught up with Robin Hicks, the Asia editor of Mumbrella, after the Media Lions results were revealed to talk about how the jury has been reorganised to eliminate block voting, why media agencies who complain about ad agencies winning in the media category are “feeble” and why India is better at strategy than anywhere else in Asia.

Matt Seiler, the jury president for the Media Lions, said there was “no voting for self interest” to quash any suggestions of block voting between holding companies, which has happened in the past. What was your take on proceedings this year?

This is my second time judging at Cannes. My first was five years ago, and things were different then. There were 30-plus people sitting in one room all together for the duration of the judging process. I was irritated because there were definite attempts for blocking voting going on. It got progressively worse until the bust up between WPP and Omnicom went public. This meant Terry [Savage, the Cannes Lions chairman] and his team had to really think about to changes things.