2009 Cannes Lions at the Winnipeg Art Gallery

Yesterday I went to the 2009 Cannes Lions presentation with Kirk and some of my fellow CreComm classmates. I'd never been before, and it was a great experience.

Here's some background: I've never been a commercial fan. When I watch tv with my Mom, she teases me because I bolt out of the room when they start playing. Therefore, I've never thought it would be something I would enjoy. But after this first term in CreComm, I've started to strongly consider majoring in Ad. I really enjoy it, and think I could be pretty good at it. So I've been trying to make more of an effort to sit through commercials because I may end up writing them for a living. They're not great most of the time, but I can recognize when they're doing an adequate job...and when there's no redeeming quality to them. I've even seen some gems on television, such as the recent Viagra ads that I'm sure we've all seen. They're brilliant.

The Viagra commercials are just a few of the ads presented at the WAG last night. There were many other gems, including a very moving condom commercial from Japan. It managed to get its message across in a nice way, without being overly preachy.

Here is another Canadian commercial for Shreddies cereal. It is in regard to the recent ad campaign concerning the "new" diamond Shreddies. Before CreComm, I under understood this campaign, after all, it's the same cereal, right? But the campaign was light hearted, generated interest, and kids especially might want a box of Shreddies to see the "new" diamond shaped cereal pieces.

So last night convinced me that really great advertising can be funny, and can really move you. What I have sworn not to do is use a bunch of cool shots or images, and make something so long, that it feels like a short film...and not make any mention of what the product being advertised actually is. I feel that is what the Grand Prix did. I thought it was visually quite compelling (though I loathe clowns), but I had no idea what it was advertising! I did a bit of looking around just now, and it is an ad for a Philips 21X9 tv, and the commercial intended to look cinematic, and show what it would look like on this television. Here is a link to the ad being played on the television being advertised, and a description from Philips: commercial. Now that I understand it a bit better, it's not as bad...but I still hate clowns, and I still believe it's a bit too difficult to understand. However, maybe it was just getting late when that ad played last night.

I'm very glad I went, because I saw some commercials from all over the world, and other countries have rather different ways of advertising than Canada and the US does. I didn't much care for the British commercials, because they were quite long, and I felt that they dragged quite a bit. I'm used to my commercials being short and sweet (or at least bearable). I'll definitely be going next year, especially if I end up majoring in Ad.