There was A LOT of talk about technology at Cannes this year. A lot of talk about social networks. And mobile. I think there is much confusion about technology.

Being an old media technology engineer, I guess I should embrace and defend technology, but even though I love technology, I don’t view it as an entity of its own. Technology is nothing more than an enabler of communication. This year in Cannes, people seemed a bit blinded by technology. They seemed to have forgotten about purpose and relevance. The whole idea was in some cases a “cool” technical solution, completely off topic and irrelevant to the brand. I call it technology clowning.

We must understand that the changes taking place are not in technology as such, but in people’s behavior and maturity in using technology. We’ve had computers and the Internet for a while now. That’s not new. We’ve had social networks for many years too, but only now have the masses matured enough to make use of it on a big scale. Why? Several reasons, but these reasons have very little to do with technology and very much to do with psychology.

Sure there are technology leaps that are important, but they are rare. One that is coming up now is useful mobile internet. My guess is that this is going to be the big hype at Cannes 2009. And again the lion raking conservatives will put up mobile solutions crammed with technology, but without the psychology. And they will win lions.

I hope I’m wrong about this.

I think that perhaps the most buzzword-laden and empty talk in Cannes might have been Go Viral’s one. I shall here provide a vizualization in support of my thesis. The vizualization shows the text from the seminar program and is provided by Wordle. “Social” and “Media” are the biggest buzzwords, no surprise there, but note the size of “increasingly” – a word that I’ve dubbed the most missused buzzword in advertising 2008.

(Thank’s to the excellent little blog Fyra till Fem for the tip on Worlde).

The Walter Awards for best dressed agency of the year 2008 goes to…

GARBERGS!

Congratulations!

And here is what the jury had to say:

“More a family than an agency, Garbergs not only dress impeccably stylish, they also pull together a nice symphony of color and form. It’s not the individual pieces, or even the individual outfits, it’s the whole ensemble that just stands out with a truly striking message of ‘here we are, and we like it’. Congratulations Garbergs on a team effort in a class of its own”.

I have mixed feelings about Cannes 2008. It felt like maybe, just maybe, things are starting to move ever so slightly. I would say that there is a growing void between two different schools of advertising. Myself, I’m clearly on one side. It seems to me that the majority of the world’s advertising juries are on the other.

The other side is pretty content. They devour everything at Cannes Lions. They love the print category production value. They watch the film category for hours and hours. They take notes. They win lots of prizes. They repeat old one-shots over and over, and they know it’ll win them even more prizes. I’ve stood around listening to conversations going on between people from these agencies. I’ve watched them patting each other’s backs and telling each other that they are the only good agencies around. They have massive respect for the Lions being presented on stage and they’re blinded by gold. They are the people that will hold us all back, because they’re a comfortable choice for marketing managers everywhere. The print grand prix winner above is a typical product of this school of advertising. Quirky/funny but strategically rock bottom. I’d rather have my kids being playful brats running around outdoors than having them hypnotized by some battery powered toy.

The side that I’m on is the frustrated side. We see the changes happening in people’s behavior, and we see that communication NEEDS to change. We read psychology books, not awards books. We see enabling components and platforms becoming available as commodities all over the Internet. We consider firing our technical production staff, and focus on story and psychology. We stare in disbelief at how Cannes Lions and other contests conserve old communication rather than embracing and awarding innovation. Again and again we see how old and often times “borrowed” solutions are delivered in ultra polished presentations and are awarded prizes. Sure, we understand why this happens, but that only makes us more frustrated. We want to have lions too, but today we are not winners. We’re idealists. It’s a whole other ball game. Here is an example of this school of thinking. Below is another, that actually did win an integrated lion. (Strange category name by the way).

Before I end this post, which I suspect will provoke a reaction or two, I just want to say this:
There are some incredibly smart people in this industry. I’ve talked to a few of them during this week in Cannes. We don’t necessarily agree on everything, but i truly respect them. I hope that these people will keep producing amazing work and that they’ll manage to sell it to their clients. And I hope that they’ll have their day on stage in Cannes. They deserve it.

Forgot to mention. Yesterday I saw Tony Bennett talk about music. TONY BENNETT!

Need I say more than SAAAAN FRAAAAN SISCO!

After watching the game and being treated to a great dinner with the stars of Forsman & Bodenfors (thanks!), the night turned in a whole new direction.

The fun, but oh so dangerous Bâoli was our next destination. Johan from Ruth and this wickedly beautiful planner from SWE were all over the place.

And she ended up stealing my hat. Bummer.

The other Johan from Ruth (they’re all Johan at Ruth), me (now hatless) and Adam of Saatchi&Saatchi were trying to look our best.

Next stop Martinez where production managers from Jung von Matt and Forsman & Bodenfors were holding court.

And Peter Westling of Garbergs of course.

Me and Christian Olsson from Hyper Island (whom I love thank you very much) stole a Gold Lion to get a feel for it. It felt pretty good (notice also that I got my hat back). First time I met Christian was at a very late, very strange, Chinese maffia type underground night club in Los Angeles. Very strange place, very strange night. I’ll tell you more about that another time.

We lost the soccer game, but had a great time. Garbergs and Forsman & Bodenfors were among the new arrivals.

Colony threw an amazing pool party with barbeque, great people and fantastic athmosphere. Thanks for having us!

Johan Jäger of Jung von Matt was there, and he always makes me think of Almost Famous for some reason. Great film.

Like I said, seminars are getting better. The R/GA one about Nike+ and three other Nike projects was interesting. Though perhaps a bit shallow (hey, they only had 45 minutes), their projects are impressive.

For the sheer scale of it, The Human Race-project is also interesting, gathering 1 million people to run on one single day.

The Nike ID-project was nicely executed, but it really didn’t get my juices flowing. I’ve seen it before.

Most interesting to me was their new Ballers Network project, which can most accurately be described as NIke+ for basketball. Cool.

The Wunderman talk, featuring Nick Moore was one of the better ones this far. Clearly one of the not so many who has really put thought into digital communications (or simply 2008 situation for communicators). Interesting company as well. I’ll keep a closer eye on them.

Nick’s statement of “don’t make big campaigns, create ongoing conversations” is one that we’ve been talking about for a while on this blog and elsewhere, but it’s a good (though simple) premise for creating good brand relationships.