Blurred Together

Cannes Days 4 + 5: I am running on FOMO fumes on the final two days of this marathon of creativity. We celebrated Canada’s Young Lions today. Happy to report our Marketing team is bringing home a Silver.

The closing show is tonight.

I continue to huddle in the bastion of creativity, also known as the basement of the Palais. There are only two temperatures in Cannes: Scorched Croissette or Hyperthermia Basement.

The work I’ve loved honours the classic advertising tenets of emotional connection, storytelling or problem-solving. Such as:

Help! for SantaLucia, Axa’s Nothing Stops Women’s Sports and Bullet Machine for La Union Newspaper. Gastronaut for Intermarché get marks for a tough category standout.

I’m fascinated by the battle of the AI companies here. The campaign for Open AI is so retro it includes a Neil Diamond soundtrack, while Claude urges us the “Keep thinking” and makes fun of bots.

On a personal level, it was great to reunite with some of my fave Canadians on this side of the pond including Krystle Mullin, Stephen Brown, Marcin Zerek, Susan Irving, Shannon Lewis, Penny Hicks, Krista Webber, Neil Ewen, Sabaa Quao, Kevin Harrington and my roomie Andrea Hunt.

My thanks to Globe Media and Strategy for helping bring the inspiration home and helping Canada shine on the world stage.