Yes, yes … I know I said there wouldn’t be a post until Friday but as I’ll be in China without internet access and this issue has been angering me since Friday, I thought I’d bung in another post for errrrm, good luck.
On Friday at the SPIKES, we had the absolute privilege to see the utterly brilliant Sir Ken Robinson speak.
Putting aside that some people might not know who he is [which say’s a lot more about them than I could ever achieve], the fact is the turn out for this rare opportunity was a disgrace – about 30% at the beginning of the speech – leading to Sir Ken even making a joke about it.
But where were they?
Were they all hungover from pretending they were rock stars the night before?
Maybe some … but it seems the majority of the delegates were attending a workshop on “How To Win A Bloody Cannes Somethingorother”.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
If you want to win a Cannes Lion, all you have to do is something insightful, differentiated, interesting and real.
How long does that take to tell? 13 seconds?
For an industry that talks about ideas and media neutrality – it’s telling that the biggest attended seminars were the ones where a lot of ads were shown. And putting a TVC on the web is NOT digital … it’s called putting a TVC on the web.
As you all know, I’ve been a groupie of Sir Ken’s for many years and I know everyone who saw him left feeling in awe at his intellect, passion, humour and viewpoint on creativity … and for me, he was by far the most inspiring speaker of the SPIKES and the fact he has never even worked in adland is very telling about the real state of our industry, a state very few seem to ever want to talk about publically … or should I say, talk about publically with total honesty.
[I should point out there were some very good and interesting speakers who came from adland – however just like Monica Lewinksky did to El Presidente Clinton, Sir Ken blew them away *]
By sheer fluke, I saw Sir Ken at the airport and after calling on my ‘Baz spirit’ I went over to say hello and ended up chatting with him for a couple of wonderful, glorious hours.
Well, they were wonderful and glorious for me – not sure about him – but given he sent me an email this morning that didn’t feature the words “CEASE & DESIST” I think he didn’t mind too much, but that could be because we both have wives that have an unnatural love for Elvis Presley.
Anyway, I truly believe that if more people in adland followed his philosophy on creativity rather than just chase award ratings, then I reckon we might be an industry with a strong future rather than just a great past – alas, like drug addicts, for all the talk of wanting to think interms of the ‘bigger idea’, the lure of the 30” TVC and print ad is just too much for many of them, even though they all know it’s what’s slowly killing them and their industry at the same time.
* Yes that is the worst analogy of 2009. Sorry.