Every year, the advertising industry descend upon the south of France to meet up in Cannes over a glass of rosé to celebrate the power of creativity. So I thought it was about time that I caught up with the CEO of Lions, Simon Cook, to discuss why creativity matters.

The conversation ranges from how can you make the case for creativity in business while budgets are strained, to what you can expect this year from Cannes Lions.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Start
• 01:37 - Origins of Cannes Lions
• 03:38 - The scale of Cannes Lions
• 05:19 - Creative marketer of the year
• 07:16 - State of the Nation research
• 09:30 - Friction between agencies and clients
• 12:47 - Jon’s two Cannes Lions with Lucozade
• 15:15 - The return of humour at Cannes
• 17:46 - Trends and themes for Cannes Lions 2024
• 18:39 - Will we see an AI category at Cannes?
• 20:01 - Big names at Cannes Lions 2024
• 21:14 - Cannes for creative effectiveness, or just celebrating the craft?
• 23:56 - Cannes embracing creators
• 25:27 - Jon’s pitch for a low budget category
• 27:57 - Advice on how to win a Lion
• 30:20 - How Simon Cook got the CEO job at Cannes Lions
• 32:40 - Challenges Simon has faced as CEO
• 35:09 - Dealing with criticism of Cannes Lions
• 37:02 - The Cannes Lions legacy
• 38:06 - Simon’s proudest moment

In this episode, we talk about one of my all time favourite brands, Cadbury. They're also one of the best performers on the System1 database, consistently creating five star work. To find out more about the work I'm joined by David Boscawen from VCCP, also known as Bosco, and Gui Ferreira who's recently joined Cadbury, bringing an outside perspective on what it means to take over an iconic brand with 200 years of heritage.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:46 Gui's background
• 03:27 David's background
• 04:20 How VCCP and Cadbury started working together in 2017
• 14:24 David and Gui's favourite Cadbury ads
• 21:08 Compound creativity and consistency
• 31:30 Key to a successful client agency relationship
• 39:55 How to write a good brief
• 47:03 Cadbury business results
• 49:41 Future of the Cadbury brand

In this episode, we're talking about a very, very serious topic. Humour. It turns out humour is not just funny, but it's good for business. In fact, humour in advertising is one of the most effective things you can do to make people remember you and buy your products.

I'm catching up with someone who knows all about humour. Trevor Robinson was the creative behind some of the most iconic and funniest ads of all time, including Tango from the 1990s. And I caught up with Trevor to find out more about what makes advertising funny, how do you do it, and what are the funniest ads of all time.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Start
• 00:48 - How Trevor got into advertising
• 03:50 - Landing the Britvic client
• 05:49 - The Tango Ad
• 11:11 - Haribo kids ad
• 20:00 - You need to entertain for commercial gain
• 28:11 - The importance of talent
• 29:30 - How to direct a great ad
• 38:23 - Have we lost humour in the past few years?
• 41:48 - The funniest ads of all time