The Swiss want to know

Cannes Lions 2006 With the Swiss
confidence prevails. This year's creative competition in Cannes is well
A quarter more works from Switzerland are in the running than last year.the organizers of the 53rd International
Advertising Festival Cannes Lions had their hands full. In total
24862 submissions from 81 countries were sent to the Côte
d'Azur were sent. That is 12.5 percent more arrivals than last year.
The increase was due in part to the new Promo Lions category.
to this. Even the high growth rate is nothing compared to the
The optimism that Swiss advertisers have generated with their above-average
increase in participation (around 25 percent).

Whether the eager equipping of the competition will also have a correspondingly positive
will be reflected in the medal tally is questionable, however. So
for example, will be the Beck&
Bondi spot series for the customer Swisscom will have a hard time getting in front of a
international jury. On the one hand, the Swiss pun
lost through the translation into English, on the other hand the
developed by the Contexta agency.
And with 4860 film submissions, the jurors probably lacked patience,
adapt to the peculiarities of this advertising series. In the
The Suva ad by Ruf Lanz is the big favorite in the print sector.
Admittedly, the highly decorated subject in its own country fulfills all
important creation criteria: It is striking, easy to understand and
communicates a clear message, namely that the wearing of
bicycle helmets offer important protection in the event of an accident. Nevertheless
It should be noted here that this motif is six years too late,
because it was a reference to the then very successful horror shocker
"Scream" represents.

Brazilian style already out?
In general, there is a lack of genuine Swiss entries.
Innovations. The well-crafted commercials and advertisements offer
Nothing that didn't exist before. In the print sector, the agencies have
once again endeavored to achieve the much-cited "Brazilian" style.
copy - in other words: to create funny picture jokes. But it will always be
more difficult to score points in Cannes with this kind of work, of which
even the Brazilians themselves are now distancing themselves: "The
Visual wit is no longer the be-all and end-all. We now have to be very
think much more conceptually," says advertising guru Marcello Serpa,
Creative director of the highly decorated agency Almap BBDO in São Paulo. He is
the view: "The moment trends are recognized as such, they are
it's over." And it does indeed appear that the
jurors at international creative competitions are saturated with
such contributions.

Instead, they vote for campaigns that show new ways of doing things,
contact with the consumer. So it does not come from
that the younger categories Direct, Cyber, Promo, Media and
Titanium Lions is attracting more and more attention. There it goes
The jury members are similar to consumers in the "real" world. They
skip the advertisements, hardly notice the posters and zap through
the commercial breaks - if you want to reach consumers today,
must involve him, surprise him and invite him to interact. This
is most likely to happen on the Internet, at the point of sale, in the
direct approach or by means of new, unusual methods, which were presented in Cannes.
be honored at the Media and Titanium Lions. Ideally
these channels with the classic media in a creative way.
networked. This is precisely what not only the Swiss, but also
all advertisers around the world should channel their creative energy into.
The supreme discipline of film has not yet lost its glamor factor.
But at the grand finale gala, the once sole
Cannes Lions stars already sharing the stage with the Titanium winners
share. This is a signal to the entire industry that should not be underestimated.
Industry.

Bärbel Unckrich is an editor at Horizont Deutschland.