DR4WARD

CANNES LIONS EDUCATES AND INSPIRES MARKETING, ADVERTISING AND ART & DESIGN STUDENT DELEGATES AND PROFESSIONALS

I hope you enjoyed the Alfred student guest author posts from Cannes Lions 2008 at DR4WARD.com and got taste of how busy and exciting it is at this must-attend international event.

Here is a link to a video interview with the Lions Daily News that I did on the education, training, and mentoring of student delegates and young professionals at Cannes Lions. To the left you will find the magazine article from the interview and a photo of our group in the Lions Daily News.

You can also view 2008 Festival Highlights / Video Clips to get a flavor. (Sorry - New users will have to get a password.)

Education and Continuous Learning
Cannes Lions is a global leader in educating and inspiring students and professionals. Students and young professionals have the Student Delegate Registration Option, the Young Lions Zone, Master Classes , and the Roger Hatchuel Academy to look forward to in addition to the seminars and workshops that the pros attend.

Where else can students and young professionals network with over 10,000 delegates from 90 countries and learn from the best strategic and creative marketers and advertisers in the world. The latest trends, topics, and tips are shared by leaders in thought and innovation in over 50 seminars and 25 interactive workshops from the top brands and agencies.

Professional Development
Professional Development is a requirement and important part of my success as a marketing educator preparing students for careers in industry. In this spirit of continuous learning and improvement some of the diverse Master Classes, Seminars and Workshops I attended were:

Creating Sustainable Green Marketing, Mobile Marketing Possibilities, Social Media and Interactive Digital, Sports Marketing, Culture Shock and Avoiding International Marketing Disasters, Cause Marketing /Social Responsibility, Improving the Creative Process, Diversity in Asian Marketing, New Models in Branded Entertainment, Exploring Russian Advertising, What Wins in the Streets of India and Music and Brand Marketing

Creative and Strategic Inspiration
Daily film screenings, exhibitions, Content Showcases, and galas/award ceremonies, celebrate the best strategic and creative marketing entered in a variety of competitive media categories and inspire students and professionals to what is possible. You can also view all of the Festival Winners (Sorry - New users will have to get a password).

The 2009 Cannes Lions Festival will take place from 21 to 27 June. I hope to see you there. I will be taking another group of students to Cannes Lions 2009 from a different university where I will be teaching Marketing, Advertising and Creativity.

Look for my next post to find about my new position and responsibilities after my move from New York to West Michigan.

I look 4-Ward to your feedback.

Keep Digging for Worms!

 

Cannes Lions & Roger Hatchuel Academy After Thoughts

After Thoughts-

Cannes Lions & the Roger Hatchuel Academy were by far one of my greatest education experiences, and my experience there goes beyond just classrooms and lectures.  It was a global social event for creatives; it was a mind blowing broadway show; it was a week long afternoon tea with masterminds of marketing and advertising; a big buffet of opportunity and it was full of fun. 

Roger Hatchuel Academy was the most tiring and exciting week of my life. It was the 6th Roger Hatchuel Academy at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.  RHA was the biggest ever, 35 students from all around the world.  At RHA, Advertising wasn't the only subject we learned, as we have been introduced to industry's masterminds, joined press conferences, discovered top secrets  and were lead by brilliant creatives like Rick Boyko (the new dean) and Clive Challis. Rick is heading the up postgraduate course at VCU Brandcenter, and was in charge of all the creative output from Ogilvy & Mather. Clive is head of the advertising course at Central Saint martins in London.

Every day at Roger Hatchuel Academy was tiring and overloading.  RHA started at 9:30 every morning and we attended non-stop seminars and discussion until 7pm.  I didn't want to miss a thing there, weather it's classes in the morning or fun activities at night.  Yes, I have definitely overloaded with what I have learned, and it lead me to a state of emptiness at the end.  It will take me a while to digest what I have learned there, and it was a good thing for me to take notes for revisiting my memory.

Friendship were so easy to form in RHA in Cannes, it only happens in Cannes and I can hardly see it happening anywhere else.  35 of RHA students instantly became family on the second day.  We used our energy to learn the culture difference and we pretty much grouped together like a multi-nation country. We share thoughts, ideas, or whatever anyone had in mind, and beside the skin color and appearance, we weren't different at all. I feel very much connected to all of the RHA mates, and enjoy the experience of meeting international students.

Roger Hatchuel Academy at Cannes has changed me. Before I came to Cannes, I thought I was good enough for myself, and ready to start up my own business and take over the country.  After seeming so much talent and creative minds from all over the world, I have changed.   I have been crashed and forced to be reborn from a new state of mind.  I realized I wasn't getting ahead of anyone at all, but so much behind.  I still yet have a long journey to go, and so many people to meet, I was glad I made this trip, the trip that refreshes me for even bigger challenges in the future.

Many thanks to friends from Roger Hatchuel, Alfred University, and Dr. William Ward.

-Scott Liao

Roger Hatchuel Academy - Judgement System

Clive had us pull out the films from the shortlist, and we were being able to pretend to be juries at Roger Hathcuel Acadmey. Judging is not easy and very hard to decide which would be the best.  Even if the ad is well crafted, without an original idea it would be placed below six. There was a lot of shortlists and we had to look at in two hours. I learned how difficult it is just to win a bronze at the Cannes Lions with all the great minds and talents competing.

Below is the system that Juries use in Cannes Lions.  One to ten, and one being the lowest.

10: most inspiring in the world

9: new standard in communication

8:new standard in category

7:excellence in craft

6:fresh idea(s)

5: innovative strategy

4:cliche

3:non competitive

2: destructive

1: appalling

Scott Liao

Roger Hatchuel Academy - Clive Challis Talk

Just to follow up with Clive's discussion yesterday, he introduce us to a "new" idea, and Helmut Krone, the first "modern" art director for VW, Avis, Polariod and Porsche.

The meaning of "new" doesn't mean who you are or what you have already.  You are doing stuff that is in the forefront of today's advertising.  That's not what "new" means at all.  That just means you are a club member or have some ownership to certain things.  You have joined up with the best of them and yours stuff looks like what is considered today to be really hot stuff. The new "NEW" is looking for something that your have never seen before.

The only quality Clive reallly has an appreciation for is newness.  To see something no  one has ever seen before. New is an inspiration that comes late at night, takes hundreds of hours working on an idea, and it means breaking the rules.  Newness is a new born idea that walks out of giant messes, and it's necessary if you want to do something creative. 

To Helmut Krone, "new" has two extreme heads and tails.  "New is when you have never seen before what you have just put on a piece of paper... when a thing is new all you know about it is that it is brand new.  It's not related to anything that you have seen before in your life.  And it's very hard to judge the value of it.  You distrust it and everybody distrusts it." At the other end, "What I have always liked to do is an existing look and give it a half twist, which makes it new - H. Krone

Since I have learned the new definition of "new", I am still trying to adopt the new perspective from Clive.  Which isn't easy, becuase it's not easy to give up what I had, and accept new ideas just in a seccond.

-Scott Liao

Roger Hatchuel Academy, Wednesday, June 19.

Roger Hatchuel Academy, Wednesday, June 19.

Jim Stengel from P&G, Jim used an open discussion as his presentation style.  He was able to answer our question quickly, and very detaily.  He gave some insight of how P&G kept thier clients while interact with them outside of the agency.  P&G play a unique role in the market, not only they are the best know campany in the era.  Jim mention of how they build their mega clients with deep trusting and open mind. P&G make commetment to the open, and keep that promise as long as they can, just to make sure the spirt live.  As how P&G stay independ, they stay very close to consumer, watch close enough and the right chose will come eventually.

Being in Roger Hatchuel Academy is great for one big reason, we have more accress to more meetings.  We were able to see a lot bit of press conference on the third day.  When I saw media that come from different countries and show up in the same room. It reminded me of how hard it is to win the Cannes Lion at the global competation. 

Back to the Roger Hatchuel Academy den, we have a short conversation with our turtor Clive.  he simplely went through some history ad which focus on copy writing and design.  The past VW ad was also included in the Powerpoint, and it was very smart, simple and fun.  At the end, Clive made a great point on modern advertising,  "Ads today doens't have timeline anymore. If putting an Ad from three years ago on the wall, we probably wouldn't notice the difference today.  The problem of the ad right now, which they were created with the same style, and they just don't deliever the history of today.

Tribal DDB, there were five topics that included in this presentation. 1.Techology drivers 2. Micro interactions 3.Marketing 4. Challenge 5.Design thinking.

Open source technology is rising up to mash up.  Consumers are able to change the prigionality of any technology produc.  Take Wiimba as example, a Nintendo Wiimote was able to combine with iRobort. Micro interaction such as small exchange that we have with a product brand and service.  Each one of them seems in sighificant but comebined they define how we feel about. Marketing with digital reality is a new marketing area, and the risk is hard to expect.  Challenge is to connet with people, consumer insight are use a lot to create and produce products.  It's about build an envirnment that consumer will go back again. Allow intergration is important for the product, such exaple like Nike, running shoes to a runny experience. Design thinking include the interactive of tree areas such as people behavior, technology driver and marketing models.

Tribal DDB's blog

-Scott Liao

Cannes Tuesday

Tuesday, the Roger Hatchuel Acadamy has overloaded our brains by giving us a tight schedule today.  Phew.... but I get great insights.

9:45 am: Young Lion Zone for Naked Communication.

11:00 am: In the Den for R/GA, the mastermind of cutting edge motion graphic.

12:pm : In the Debussy, Profero on how you get to talk engage with "mainstram" people.

1:00 pm: Get to hear what the leaders in charge of Facebook and MySpace have to say about their portals.

2:45pm: Young Lion Zone, Bob Isherwood on what he wants to see from you before giving you a job.

4:00pm: In the Den, we met up with Michael Conrad, he who was ex-world wide creative director of Leo Burnett, and he still producing great work from his own agency in Switzerland. He introduced his "7+ plan", a way of trating advertising.

6:00pm, We review what we have learned today.

I really enjoy presentation from Paul Woodmingon, he is the founding partner of NAKED Communication.  Paul started out his presentation with "Live Naked", which promoting to tell truth to the clients.  Paul compair the "classic models" to "modern models".  In the classic model, creativity was treated as a product, but now we see creativity as process.  We have to be active in order to grow the process. He also made really good point of how "people trust people more than advertising". Finally he made with a really good point for the ending. "Everything communicates! Youtube alone isn't the answer, because there are thousands of channels of communication.

Bob Isherwood from Saatchi & Saatchi also give a fun master class on "I'd want to hire you if..."  Bob had giving great point of how should I imporve myself not only in the advertising, but life as a whole. Great ideas doesn't just came from sitting in front of computer all day long, he encourages all his employees to get out, have fun and get inspired by life.  Bob really freed up my frustration on how to think creative in the advertising field.  "Stay with the work and money will follow."  However our academy director, Clive Challis made a point on how he disagree with Bob Isherwood's theory.  It is true that Bob is more on the traditional side of advertising, but can't we all grow from learning the past?  Maybe Clive's theory is on the opposite side of Bob, but they all have their point, it's just up to me on how am I going to take it.

-Scott Liao

Cannes Lions - What is Design?

To most people in Art & Design School, design is the prospect of getting paid for something that you want to do.  To the design groups, it's almost the same with a bit more client interference.  If pairing deisgn with advertising, it's not simply just advertising design anymore. It embrace as a whole "new media", or is it something that goes out of its way, out of the norm, deisgn is something to achieve a realization that's new, but relevant. 

A question came up in the discussion, if there a difference between what design could be if done really intelligently and what advertising is if done really intelligently.  The whole balance and position isn't as the same as it use to be.  ( Maybe just in a year, many things have changed, and who knows what's coming up in a year after.)  I think what's important for us is to embrace the "change".

Scott Liao

Cannes Lions Roger Hatchuel Academy - Monday

I have attend four seminars from Rick Boyko, Brain Thomas Callins, Nick Law from R/GA, and Ogilvy. Rick Boyko is heading up the postgraduate course at VCU Brandcenter, and being in charge of all the creative output from Ogilvy & Mother. Rick is also the new dean of Roger Hatchuel Academy. During Rick's presentation, he mentioned a important point of educating young creative at school and after school. A lot of agencies now, would only like to hire experience young creatives, but they don't necessary want to offer the training. To me, it is an important point, because I am also a young creative, and for the past job interview experience from many agencies, Rick had proved his point.

Another great speaker who came to the academy was Brain Thomas Callins, Broamn used to worked with Rick at Ogilvy, and he started out his own creative agency in New York City. I had a really good impression of Brain, because his international knowledge and outgoing personality. I see how he become a leader at the top creative firm. He was educating us of re-addressing ourself as "Problem seeker" not a "Problem solvers", think "participants" not "consumer", think "the small idea" and not "the big idea". The also gave out many examples of his project, but one of my favor on of the Hershey's store in New York city. His creative skill had went behind "just advertising", like Hershey's store in NYC, he was bring a whole chocolate experience to life, and to many different age groups. However, he mentioned we as creatives/designers should seek for problem before problem actually happen, and think about how to market the experience better.

Scott Liao

ALFRED UNIVERSITY TO LEARN, TWEET, AND BLOG AT CANNES LIONS 2008

Alfred University was the first college to take advantage of the student delegate package launched by the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in 2007.I will be taking a second group of Alfred University student delegates to Cannes Lions 2008 from June 14 - 21 to learn about the future of 360 Degree Branding,  Integrated Marketing Communications and Social Media from the biggest brands.

To share our wonderful experience the students and I will be posting on Twitter throughout the day during the Festival and we will also be blogging daily at Dr4Ward.com. If you would like to follow us you can receive automatic blog updates by subscribing to receive email updates or RSS Feeds at Dr4Ward.com. You can also follow our Tweets throughout the day after signing up for a free account and joining Twitter. For those of you not familiar with Twitter, according to Wikipedia it is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.   

I will be taking Alfred University students Irving Escobar, Ashley Fantigrossi, Stephanie Hankins, Kayla Peterson and Scott Liao to the Cannes Lions 2008 55th International Advertising Festival as student delegates. The students majors include Art & Design, Marketing and the MBA Program and they receive course credits in their related disciplines for their participation in the International Marketing and Advertising Program that I developed. Scott Liao will be attending the prestigious Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy held during the Festival. Kayla Peterson and Scott Liao will also have their art and design work on display at the Festival in the Young Lions Zone .

I have been very impressed with Cannes Lions and the industry commitment to mentoring and training students and young professionals through the Young Lion Zone for Cannes Lions, Master Classes, Young Lions Competition, and the Roger Hatchuel Lions Academy. Young Lions and Students get a world-class experience during their week at the Festival and the fantastic line-up of speakers, seminars and workshops provide education and training for the global leaders of the future.

The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is the largest gathering of worldwide marketing, advertising, media and creative professionals, each year drawing more than 10,000 delegates from 80 plus countries.  Students and professionals attend over 50 comprehensive seminars and 25 interactive hands-on workshops with the best marketing, advertising, and creative professionals from around the world. Daily film screenings, exhibitions, Content Showcases, and galas/award ceremonies, celebrate the best strategic and creative marketing from over 50 countries entered in a variety of competitive media categories. For a flavour of the Festival, view video and images from Cannes Lions 2007.

I look 4Ward to your feedback.

Keep Digging For Worms!