#Cannes2023: Diary of Creative Circle. Jeff Harvey: Human creativity alive and well
While the Cannes Lions just turned 70, it’s still pretty hip, and at the cutting edge of tech and culture.
No surprise then that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the hot topic at Cannes Lions 2023. But despite this, human creativity is alive and well in 2023, so don’t worry, we won’t be losing our jobs any time soon.
Another technology, Virtual Reality (VR) has come into its own. Five years ago, VR saw a resurgence, this year sees it maturing in the form of a mixed reality game, Eggscape, which features an egg character that you can view from pretty much any angle as you control it wandering around punching enemies and flying a helicopter that fires missiles at a giant robot.
Cause-driven work
There was also plenty of cause-driven work, such as 321 from Adidas, which inspired disabled athletes to compete in marathons.
The Last Photo campaign features the last picture or video of someone before committing suicide when they were all happy and smiling. It seems almost cliche that suicidal people put on a brave face, but the campaign made it abundantly and viscerally clear. The campaign resulted in a 33% increase in conversations about suicide.
Tapping into local culture
Leo Burnett explained how they took Spotify from the no. 8 music streaming service in India to no. 1 in three years.
They tapped into the local culture of 1.4 billion people by creating personalised playlists for unique circumstances that the targeted audience could relate to.
Also interesting was the creators of Saturday Night Live who gave us a glimpse into the serious pressure of being funny every week for the last 50 years, often writing through the night.
And I thought advertising was stressful.
There was funny work, such as the Marmite campaign which showed the reaction of babies to the polarising paste in utero.
Finally, this wasn’t written by AI - or was it?
