We missed laughing
Second takeaway: Humor is back in all forms from quirky to weird to dark. Four of the biggest winners (Grand Prix) were truly funny campaigns: “The Last Barf Bag” for Dramamine; Specsavers’ “The Misheard Version” with Rick Astley, CeraVe’s “Michael Cerave” and Weber Shandwick’s “Edible Mascot” campaign for Pop Tarts. Also, the adorable “Marina Prieto,” without being strictly humorous, combines a Spanish little town sensibility with social media ambitions.
Those winners show that comedy and a light-hearted tone of voice can be transformative for a brand. Specsavers has a history of great comedy, but they were able to channel that into a new demographic for those with hearing loss. CeraVe, not in a category that typically stands out during the Super Bowl, nevertheless became the talk of the (advertising) game. Kellanova’s Pop-Tarts reached an entirely new audience by injecting dark humor to toaster pastries and giving the world something truly meme-able.
And that’s just the funny stuff. Other big winners, like what we did for Mastercard with “Room for Everyone” and Xbox’s “Everyday Tactician” as well as W+K’s Titanium Grand Prix winner, the Doordash Super Bowl campaign that averted viewers’ attention away from the game itself and onto all of the ads, were ideas that inspired an array of emotions. Empathy, triumph, even greed!
In the end, these executions make a point that you can extend to the festival: When we laugh, when our barriers are brought down by an unexpected twist or a surprising human connection, we are more able to feel.
This is the exact reason we come to Cannes: we want to feel, in real life, what it’s like to belong to this industry, to be on the winning side and celebrate, to be on the not-winning side and recharge ourselves with envy as the fuel, to be amazed about what people who do the same job as us are capable of achieving and question ourselves.
Feeling is what separates us from, yes, machines. At least for now.
So, (final takeaway) it is on us to keep coming here. Let’s continue our day-to-day jobs to connect with those emotions through the only thing that justifies the existence of Cannes or any other festival: The work we love.
