Cannes Lions: Inspiration Surfing

There’s a lot of stuff at Cannes. Awesome stuff, some pretty self-indulgent stuff and, at the core of this beast, stuff that is creatively and commercially energising. 

 

So, what’s pushing my inspiration buttons, and what will I take back to the office when the day job kicks in again?

 

Surf the wave you get*

Across every geography and every type of discipline, the agency first-world ‘complaints’ and challenges are the same. We talk the same. We worry the same. We all kinda broadly think the same. So, if you’re not getting the perfect brief, client, budget or other excuse for poor work, just surf the wave you get. Do a great job, every day, every time. Because if you keep waiting and you fail to get on, one of the other ‘kinda like us’ agencies is going to get on that mediocre wave, do a great job and you’ll have missed it. And at Jack Morton, in brand experience, we’re surfing the waves everyone wants to be on.

 

The next big wave: VR 

I may have stumbled with my AI-like analytical skills, algorithmic data mining prowess and old-fashioned curiosity into discovering the next big wave at Cannes. Virtual reality. OK, perhaps these impressive skills may not have been essential - You can’t move, sit, look, talk without VR being pushed, explored or eulogised by someone at Cannes. But here’s the thing – I’m buying in. I get it. I see it. I think it could be the real deal.

 

We’re in the early days for VR, akin to the briefcase car phone in technology terms. The rules are yet to be written. The narrative and storytelling structures haven’t been defined, and visual artists are learning how to reframe the frame. (Thanks, Google, for that one). Yet ultimately, VR will allow people to immerse themselves in new worlds: otherworldly escapism with real world presence.

 

These are extraordinary experiences.  And at Jack, we LOVE extraordinary experiences. We’ve spent 76 years building an agency where experience is our business - our social currency and our artistry. And now VR / MR / AR can give us the potential to immerse people at scale into the power of extraordinary brand experiences. We’re at the dawn of a new age of experience.

 

Our next wave is the perfect wave

If there’s one thing I’m taking away from Cannes, it’s a fresh sense of purpose. Agency purpose. It’s our time ride the wave. Today, we create the immersive brand experiences everyone wants to be a part of. Tomorrow, technology will allow us to scale these brand experiences. That’s extraordinary.  The next wave just happens to be perfect, and we’re going to strap in and ride it.

 

*h/t 72andSunny