"Whassuuuuup" in Cannes?
At the 47th Advertising Festival in Cannes, the Swiss won a Cyber and a Media Lion
Lightning, thunder, hail. A Mercedes driver confidently drives through the worst of the dog weather, while his wife enjoys herself at home with a lover. In the Springer & Jacoby TV commercial, the wife acknowledges the husband's fear that she will soon be surprised by him with a snide "But not in this weather! The husband, at the end of his stormy journey - and in the arms of his beloved - allays her suspicions with the same reply. Humor as understood in Cannes and awarded a Silver Lion by the jury.
Even if the annual ceremonies and rituals in the advertising mecca always follow the same scripts, time does not stand still, at least in the TV commercials. Whereas four years ago the notorious side-splitter received a slap in the face when he tried to blame his lateness on a breakdown of his Mercedes, today there is perpetrator symmetry: husband and wife no longer owe each other anything. The audience liked it.
It was to remain the only film medal for the entire German-speaking region. It could just as well have been a Gold Lion, but for that the TV spot came from the wrong country - "German bashing" is still a reality in Cannes, although not as vociferous as before. In Cannes, people are politically correct to the point of pain, but they remain trapped in an incomprehensible Germanophobia.
The Mercedes spot benefited from the fact that it was dubbed in English and not subtitled. "Germanic is still a stumbling block in Cannes," jury member Feico Derschow tried to put the German-speaking countries' still low Lion haul into perspective.
Otherwise, the Anglo-Saxons dominated the advertising film festival as they always have. The USA (26 Film Lions, including 10 Golden Lions) and England (24 Lions, including 7 Golden Lions) defended their reputation as the most creative advertising nations in the world. They left the rest far behind.
Firmly in the hands of the beer industry were the two main awards: Both the Stella Artois campaign by Lowe Lintas, London, and the "Whassup" spot series by DDB, Chicago, were awarded a Grand Prix. Both works rely on the "snotty effect" recommended by Advertising Age editor Bob Garfield to appeal to teens: "If you want to reach 14-year-olds, you either have to show tits or come across as snotty." Both works relied on the latter.
The Stella Artois ads feature valuable designer furniture or vehicles that have been damaged when a beer bottle is opened. The campaign does completely without the familiar elements of beer advertising: You don't see a bottle, you don't see happy people, you don't see beer foam - you only see, very small, a beer mat and a damaged design icon. These beer drinkers must be vandals or philistines or so rich that they can afford such exclusive consumer goods as bottle openers...
By contrast, the beer-loving male friendship celebrated in the Budweiser films "Whassup" by DDB, Chicago, is quite different. The spot series turned out to be an undisputed crowd favorite among the festival community in southern France. It shows a couple of couch potatoes sitting in front of the TV, talking on the phone and greeting each other with a bawling "Whassuuuuuup" (What's up) - spoken in the broadest slang, with their tongues out. The answer is always the same: "Watching the game, having a Bud.
In the USA, the campaign with the bawling dumbasses already enjoys cult status, and "Whassuuuup" is currently said to be the most famous greeting formula between Los Angeles and New York. The spots get down to business without frills, and are filmed sec and realistically. "Whassup" director Charles Stone - it's his first commercial, by the way - has since been hailed as a shooting star of the American advertising scene. As his numerous fans in Cannes showed, his beer humor is also extremely infectious in Europe thanks to his "Whassup" phrase: everyone can adopt it in their speech.
And "Whassup" with the Swiss? Of their 120 entries, three made it onto the film shortlist. Nominated were McCann-Erickson, Zurich, with the spot "Polizeikontrolle" (see WW 22/00) for Alcoholics Anonymous (produced by Pumpkin Film, Zurich), Seiler DDB, Basel, with the stop-Aids spot "Knopf" (Wirz + Fraefel, Zurich) and AY&R with the spot "Car" (see WW 21/99) for Kuoni (Outsider, London).
The latter received a lot of applause from the audience, but it still wasn't enough to win an award. According to Feico Derschow, the jury disliked the heroic perspective from which the "Knopf" spot was filmed. The Kuoni spot, on the other hand, was considered by the majority of the jury to be too awkward - the idea seemed to have been worked out - and was therefore eliminated from the running at an early stage.
This year, the Internet companies presented themselves as extremely unimaginative and lacking in strategy. At the final press conference, jury president Marcello Serpa expressed his disappointment at the level of the dotcom commercials. As dynamic as the new economy industry is, its advertising is boring.
Closeness to life is in demand - Hollywood is out
What else could be learned from Cannes? Hollywood is out - what's needed is reality and authenticity. Very expensive spots were the absolute exception. Even if the production was elaborate, everyone tried to tell simple, straightforward stories without frills. There is humanity everywhere in the spots; it seems that with the boom in reality TV shows, human strengths and weaknesses are increasingly attractive for commercials.
The work of the jury was judged in part critically by the Swiss advertisers. They probably picked out the most interesting works from the 6,000 submissions, but unfortunately did not do enough rigorous sorting out, it was said in circles of the Swiss delegation. The fact that the jury is not infallible and awards gold to a few undeserving spots every year is accepted by most like an inevitable natural disaster. What remains annoying, however, is that this year, too, some spots figure on the Cannes roll completely unmotivated, which would have been better off in the Raspberries competition for the worst films.
WHS wins Media Lion
Weber Hodel Schmid won a Media Lion in Cannes. The Zurich agency was honored in the Special Events/ Stunts category. The fake vacation photos that WHS smuggled in for Graubünden Ferien among the snapshots of photo lab customers convinced the jurors of the advertising festival. Universal McCann, Geneva, also made it onto the shortlist with its anti-landmine campaign for the ICRC.
Futurecom wins Cyber Lion
At the 2000 Cannes Advertising Festival, Advico multimedia offshoot Futurecom Interactive won a Cyber Lion (silver) with their screensaver "Peeping Tom," which listens to search terms on Internet search engines in real time and brings them to the screen.
Press & Poster Cannes 2000
In total, the Press & Posters jury under Marcello Serpa awarded one Grand Prix, 29 Gold, 40 Silver and 63 Bronze Lions. The most creative nation in this discipline was, as last year, England, which managed to collect 22 medals, including seven gold. The other gold lions went to France (6), Brazil (5), Spain (4), USA (2), Japan, Thailand and New Zealand (1 each). As already reported (WW 24/00), Switzerland came away empty-handed. Six Swiss works made it onto the shortlist, however: Beldoro "Nose Pierced" by Ruedi Wyler Werbung, Zurich, "Das Magazin" (TA-Media) by Ruedi Wyler Werbung, Zurich; Zelo Legs "Hairstylist" by Honegger von Matt, Zurich; Sportplausch Wider "Prince Charles" by Publicis, Zurich; Suva "The Gear" by McCann-Erickson, Zurich; IKRK "Stop landmines" by McCann-Erickson, Geneva. (sh)
Scandinavians score big at Young Creatives
At the Young Creatives Contest in Cannes, the Swedish team Joakim Karlsson and Filip Lindquist from Euro RSCG Stockholm took first place, ahead of the Norwegians and the British. Switzerland's Grischa Rubinick and Mark Rinderknecht did not make it into the wreaths, but stood out at the subsequent Young Creatives party for their particular steadfastness, as WerbeWoche party animal Beat Fritsch observed.
