Best of Cannes Day 6 – Friday

Paul Yole continues to highlight his best experiences in Cannes.

Contagious and Publicis gave a pretty good talk today, with some great examples. Go to the Cannes Lions website and see if you can download it. Or subscribe. Or read Cogs in Cannes because he is very good at reporting the detail.

Talking of Paul Coghlan, we were debating where he might register on the chart of Meerkats who come to Cannes and never party.

Adam Cannell put in a good effort last year to break the cycle, despite being stricken by pneumonia, but Cogs has given it a good go and has also been very studious. Well done Paul but if you guys pick up a Lion tomorrow for HBF, your credit card is coming out!

Highlight of the day for me was probably Sir John Hegarty. Even though his talk was a blatant plug for BBH (which after all has a damn good product to plug) he was really single minded with his argument for the power of difference and gave some great examples. Here are some of my notes exactly as I tried to scribble them down:

Growth needs space.

The pressure for fast growth is a problem because everyone is doing the same thing.

We’re here to sell.

It (advertising) is not a science and never will be.

Agencies are just as guilty of not breaking convention, eg logo is always bottom right

Psychologists tell us that the brain is stimulated to notice and investigate when it is confronted by difference.

But difference needs courage.

‘Dishabitulation.’ This is the third new word we’ve learnt this week. The fourth is one I invented and it is ‘Brupper’, referring to the panini that Kim has at 5am every day here.

Sir John’s talk was littered by great examples and I’d encourage you to check out Choosy Cat, Yeo Valley and a probable big winner tomorrow, the It Gets Better campaign for Google Chrome.

Sir John finished with a challenge. Most of us will go home inspired but will not be able to change our companies’ behaviour. That’s because the biggest threat to The Power of Difference is The Power of Inertia.