Cogs in Cannes – Day 5

Paul Coghlan, senior creative at Meerkats gives his take on the festival after day four….

Just found out Meerkats has a Film finalist for HBF. Got our fingers crossed for the ceremony.

I want to start by apologising. I don’t know what i was on when yesterday i said that Edward de Bono was knighted and was calling him ‘Sir’ Edward de Bono. Ha ha, I just assumed that because he was so awesome that he MUST be some kind of knight or something – he’s only a Dr. And no one messaged me to tell me that either! How embarrassing.  

Alright. Today was again great.

On my way to the seminars i grabbed an ice cream. In order to get it, i had to smile at a sensor screen in the vending machine. The ice cream then dropped out. Awesome.

Seminar one had Will-i-am from Black Eyed Peas. He talked about innovation and the future. He’s actually employed by Intel to fire up their team with his visions. I originally thought he was employed by McCann for that role! I told a lot of people that too.

He said a couple of interesting things. He wants to eventually be recording music in real time with fan interaction and feedback and collaboration. Sounds profound. But i thought will that mean Will-i-am will no longer be Will-i-am?

The guy who invented Guitar Hero was also on stage. He is now looking at using music as a form of healing. Nothing new…but he wants to create healing/music environments and use music to try to understand conditions like Cerebral Palsy. Nice one.

The next one was brilliant. I was sitting only 20 metres from Sir Ken Robinson. This guy actually is a ‘Sir’, not like the other de Bono Dr guy.

In a humorous and extremely eloquent way he poked through human existence and talked about what has made us who we are today. He concluded that creativity is original ideas that add value. He believes we need to double our efforts to be more creative.

Japanese agency Dentsu was next. Their talk was about the sub-culture Anime (basically means ‘animation) and how this trend has swept through not only Japan but the world. They touched on the earthquake and discussed this trend as a beacon of light for a nation.

Final one i checked out was Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

I must admit i felt star struck. Over the last decade i have worshipped these guys. They did Subservient Chicken. They did Counterfeit Mini. They did Whopper Freak Out. They did IKEA lamp. So, you can understand a dumb smile appearing on my face as they came on stage.

They were okay. Not ground-rumble-melt-my-face-away inspiring. But it was cool just to see them chew the fat about their company and work.