That’s it. It’s all over. Done and dusted. If ever anyone was still in doubt, we have officially moved into a post-digital world. No self respecting cyber man or women need ever worry again that their creed will be taken seriously; digital has gone mainstream and in doing so has vanished into the ether.
According to the Cyber Jury President Lars Bastholm in Cannes this year, a mere 12 of the 83 Cyber Lions awarded were produced by agencies that describe themselves as being purely digital. Instead the vast majority came from a hodge-podge of digital, direct, traditional, pr, design, technology and advertising; all delivered through a variety of agency models and organisations.
By entering the mainstream digital has ceased to be the exclusive domain of the interactive specialist. What it certainly hasn’t done though is put the traditional ad agencies back on top; fortunately things are much more interesting than that! What is clear is that we’re slap bang in the middle of a great period of consolidation, just at the very same time as everything is becoming ever more fragmented.
I got a taste for where things might be heading, by judging the Titanium and Integrated Lions, a chance to see this new reality up close and personal. It was a fascinating and extremely inspiring process to be part of the jury; to get the chance to spend a week talking about great work from around the world with a group of distinguished peers is a rare honour and hugely enjoyable, if somewhat exhausting.
In the judging we got down to a selection of work that in different ways represented a culmination of ten years of change and a reaction to media fragmentation, greater consumer control and involvement. You can check out all of the shortlists and winners for yourself.
At the top of the pile, the daddy of them all was the Obama campaign, which quietly dominated the judging discussions, and to no-ones great surprise scooped both the Titanium and Integrated Grand Prix’s.
A campaign of this scale was clearly going to stoke debate; how do you separate the idea from the man, what if he hadn’t won, what if this had been for McCain? What we chose to recognise was instead the organising idea itself and also the incredible level of integration that came about as a result.
For me what the Obama campaign did was to draw the outlines, and leave space for others to colour in-between; and they did so on an unprecedented scale.
What all of us can learn from are the tactics and techniques the campaign team used to curate and guide the overall campaign. Whenever something remarkable began to take shape at whatever level, traditional resources could be used to draw attention to the most exciting and interesting activity. In doing so they were able to amplify and expand the reach of the overall campaign, reinforcing favoured themes, creating a constantly evolving and diverse, but on-message movement.
The desire to create a movement became a theme for all of the Titanium and Integrated work. Each blessed with clarity of thought and excellence in execution across all bought, owned and earned media. Other highlights for me included the three titanium winners; the Great Schlep by Droga5, Whopper Sacrifice by Crispin Porter & Bogusky and the Oasis Dig Out Your Soul in the Streets Documentary by BBH New York.
During the festival Steve Ballmer of Microsoft described this recession in terms of a reset; for Cannes itself this was a chance to reset itself getting back to education, discussion and debate (with a modicum of debauchery still in evidence of course).
Overall for me it marked a welcome redrawing of the playing field for all agencies, but the trends shaping the industry at the moment clearly mean that we all need to look at our agency models, our approaches, how we use the core digital strengths we have to best take advantage of bought, owned and earned media. At the same time we need to be aware if we’re not already that the competitive set has grown exponentially and now comes from all sides.
So definitely the Cannes results are one pointer towards the far more complicated and exciting few months and years ahead of; but most of all they present ample opportunity for those of us brave enough to take it.
(A version of this post appeared in my column in New Media Age.)
