Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!usa-post Newsgroups: usa-today.bonus From: usa-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: usa-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: bonus Fri, Jun 26 1992 Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 05:19:54 EDT Message-ID: 06-26 0000 BONUS: Advertisers compete in Cannes USA TODAY Update June 26-28, 1992 Source: USA TODAY:Gannett National Information Network Cannes, France - once dubbed a sunny place for shady people, this Riviera resort has become a sunny place for people to sit in the dark. Every year after the Cannes Film Festival ends, another screenfest moves in. The films are taken just as seriously. They're just a lot shorter. The International Advertising Film Festival is a week-long scene where advertising people schmooze, cruise, sun and run in and out of day-long screenings of ads from around the world. It's as competitive as the Oscars, as nationalistic as the Olympics, and as full of booing, whistling and cheering as an Italian opera house. WHAT'S THE ALLURE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING FILM FEST? For U.S. ad agencies, the financial demise of the Clio Awards, the industry's best-known prize, has left a Cannes Lion the most prestigious trophy to put on the shelf. Started in 1954, Cannes is the one advertising competition that pits ads from different countries against one another. And because advertisers increasingly are demanding global work - one campaign that can play from Peoria to Prague - understanding international advertising has become crucial for agencies that want to keep their business. HOW DOES THE ADVERTISING FESTIVAL WORK? It's possible here to sit through 302 car ads in a row. Or 178 soft-drink ads. Or, God forbid, 121 bank ads. The 24 judges each watch and score one-third of the total 3,800 entries, then watch and argue over the top 500. They award gold, silver and bronze Lions in each of 26 product categories, then award a Grand Prix to the best of shows. The judges can award as many Lions as they want; last year a notoriously tough jury awarded only 80, down from 138 the year earlier. WHAT IS TYPICALLY DONE BY THE SPECTATORS? Complaining about the quality of the commercials is always fashionable - and often understandable. Take the Swedish floor-covering ad, shot on poor-quality videotape that shows a man in a Santa suit waterskiing. Or the Japanese ad in which a woman won't give her boyfriend the name of a hangover cure unless he marries her first. ANY EXAMPLES OF GOOD COMMERCIALS? Good ads are a welcome relief. In an ad from Minneapolis agency Carmichael Lynch, a woman describes her husband, Bill, in glowing terms, as a tall man stands by her side. "Then two months ago he bought a Skeeter fishing boat," she says. "And if he'd ever get his buns out of it, I'd introduce him to my new boyfriend, Bob, here." The tag line: "Eat. Sleep. Fish." Another favorite: a Spanish ad for rubber cement in which two nuns summon their Mother Superior to reattach the penis of a statue of the baby Jesus. ANY INTERESTING ENTRIES IN STORE FOR THIS YEAR? This year's entries include commercials from fledgling countries such as Slovenia and Serbia, including - ironically enough - a public service announcement for the Serbian Red Cross with the slogan: "We're here trying to help. Please don't shoot us!" WILL THE RECESSION HURT THE FESTIVAL IN ANY WAY THIS YEAR? The recession is commonly blamed for the wavering quality of ads. Slashed ad budgets and tense clients have left agencies cautious. And cautious advertising - the consensus goes - is bad advertising. Still, poverty can be the mother of invention. "We're seeing pieces where thought has replaced production dollars," says British judge Adrian Holmes. On the other hand, "We're seeing also where people said, `We have no money, let's go to lunch.' " WILL THESE LOWER-BUDGET ADS STAND A CHANCE? At Cannes, low-budget is almost chic. "Cannes has a history of rewarding straight forward, less-lavish commercials," says Allen Rosenshine, chairman of BBDO Worldwide, who was president of last year's jury and whose agency has taken home 34 Lions for its Pepsi-Cola ads. "They're more easily understandable. They cross languages easier. Cannes appreciates a simple idea well done." WHAT EXACTLY ARE JUDGES LOOKING FOR THIS YEAR? The buzzword this year is "global." Coca-Cola blanketed the globe with a commercial earlier this year when it ran ads hourly on CNN and MTV worldwide. But global advertising is seldom that simple. More common is a campaign like Nestle's Taster's Choice, the ongoing saga of neighbors Tony and Sharon, who share coffee and steamy glances. After success in Britain, it was recreated for U.S. and Chilean television, with appropriate cultural nuances. WHAT'S THE KEY TO MAKING COMMERCIALS GLOBAL? "Never, never, never assume you can simply translate," Bob Watson, AT&T's director of advertising services, told a seminar on global advertising. The AT&T ad uses logic puzzles for readers to solve, accompanied by explanatory text. "The key is coming up with a concept that travels." HOW EASY IS IT TO COME UP WITH THIS TYPE OF CONCEPT? Sitting through a screening here shows just how hard that can be. A New York Lottery ad shows two men apparently swapping baseball cards - until the camera pulls back to show two lottery winners trading real ballplayers. A crowd-pleaser in the USA, the ad was greeted with silence by the audience here. Another lottery ad, in which a limo careens around a circular driveway while a nerd in the back seat screams "Faster! Faster!" drew a big laugh. WHAT IS THE TYPICAL REACTION TO AMERICAN ADS? American ads, like Americans, tend to be viewed by Europeans as overly emotional. "Sentiment does not travel well," says Patrick Cunningham, creative director of Ayer. This is, after all, an audience that boos ads for McDonald's and Disney World. What's more, "They don't know Bo Jackson from Bo Diddley." HOW CAN AMERICAN ADS IMPROVE THEIR CHANCES THERE? To improve their chances of bridging the cultural gap, many ads shown here are dubbed or subtitled in English. But that drew a shot from Nestle advertising chief Michel Reinarz. "We are spending money to dub commercials to seduce judges? I wish the money would go to seducing consumers." HOW MANY ADS WILL DO THIS? Such barbs are likely to increase today when the 500 finalists are screened before a packed house in a nine-hour marathon. Charges of nationalistic voting by the panel, whose members come from 14 countries, often fly - and, according to judges, are often true. "The gold (winners) are always political," says Michael Conrad of Leo Burnett International "The silver are just really good work." AREN'T THESE `BARB' A LITTLE MUCH FOR SUCH A PRESTIGIOUS AFFAIR? But raucousness is part of what Cannes is all about. Along with heights of creative inspiration, "You get a large dose of the bulls--t," says Rosenshine. Still, Saturday's grand finale will have to go a long way to top last year's. Then, director Jean-Paul Goude, who won the festival's top prize, the Grand Prix, for a Perrier ad, was so soundly booed he threw down his statuette and gave the crowd the finger. "You don't get that at the Academy Awards," says Cunningham. Indeed. Bonus Editor: Annette Semprit. (1-919-855-3491) Making copies of USA TODAY Update (Copyright, 1992) for further distribution violates federal law. This article is copyright 1992 Gannett News Service. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM