Today we arrived in Cannes for our first Young Lions workshop sponsored by BBDO and HP. The featured speaker was Brazilian (shocker… they seem to have all the talent these days) Art Director and advertising rockstar, Marcos Medeiros. He gave a presentation that featured a client of his, Billboard Magazine. His concept was for covers featuring popular musicians faces, but made up of their musical influences. He then partnered with last.fm where music lovers could design a cover of themselves and with paid subscription, receive a custom cover printed by HP.
The idea really impressed me because of its integration. It featured all of the right people, it was witty, it reached the target, and it even had a brilliant outdoor campaign to match. The outdoor campaign featured typefaces made out of important moments in popular artists careers. These could be downloaded from the Billboard website as well, creating a product placement forever in the individuals’ font books.
BBDO also did something a little… we’ll call it interesting. I was a plant with a pre-written question to ask during the workshop. “How do digital print and traditional print differ?” Formerly considering a degree in traditional darkroom photography, I know exactly why digital is different than film. It makes things easier and cheaper. And although I do believe that he answered the question very well, I don’t think that easier and cheaper is always better. For the next few years at least, I believe there will still be some advantages to traditional print… at least in the art world.
Chris Hall talked to us briefly afterwards, and while he is quite the valuable connection to have made (especially in Atlanta), I couldn’t hear him very well. One message I did take away was the importance of creativity, which my entire experience at the festival has completely reinforced.
Commercial critiques are good. Blogs here a little thin, but that probably has to do with end-of-fest fatigue.
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