Having attended Cannes for 11 years now, he sat down with our media correspondent at Cannes, Ann Nurock, to chat about the evolution of advertising he's witnessed, creatives today and the new book he's currently working on.

Damon Stapleton

Nurock: First of all, how's New Zealand?

Stapleton: New Zealand's cool, there aren't many people there, but I think we punch above our weight in the work that we do. There's something called the 'tyranny of distance' and what's good about New Zealand is that it gives its own perspective and way of looking at the world, and because it's quite small you get stuff done quite quickly, so I think the real benefit for me going to New Zealand is that I make a lot of work, and as a creative that's the most important thing.

Nurock: And what do you miss about South Africa?

Stapleton: I miss a lot things, but ultimately I think you miss the people and the spirit. You can talk about Biltong and Mrs Ball's Chutney and all that, but at the end of the day South Africans have a certain sense of humour and way of looking at the world. A lot of people always think about moving overseas and it's a big step, you can't take it lightly cause you're stepping out into this unknown space, so South Africa gives you an identity and you have to try figure that out - what are you when you're not in South Africa? Which is a really esoteric question.

Nurock: Let's talk about the festival, what for you has been the highlight?

Stapleton: Well I think this is now my 11th time at Cannes and what's interesting to me is to see how quickly things are moving, even from year to year. The two things that I've really noticed is the huge push by media, so I think Cannes has become like a media festival if you look at all the logos festooning the Carlton.

But the other thing that I've noticed, which is a more interesting one for me, is that a lot of the things that are winning, you see things like "patent-pending" - so advertising agencies are now starting to make products and make things. I think it was Grey London that did the paint, and those are really interesting developments for me because digital and apps has now become very old-school, everybody has got technology, it's not that interesting, but when agencies start making stuff, that's how they can redefine what they are, you can start to think beyond advertising, in a real practical way, not just a "pie-in-the-sky" way.

Nurock: How do you feel about the fact that almost every single piece of work that's won a Lion really has a higher purpose. For me this Cannes is about doing good, everything is about trying to help people...

Stapleton: I don't think it's about doing good, it think it's about doing, I think yes if you look at the work you need to have a purpose and a perspective on the world, and often that perspective is a positive one when you try to make the world a better place. But I think it's just how campaigns are starting to work where consumers want to see you do something and take action as a brand. In the old days a brand was a promise, now a brand also has to have proof, so you can't just make a promise and walk way, that's why you see so many campaigns where the brand does something.

The consumer wants to see what you're going to do, talk is cheap, they want to see you spraypaint the bike, and then they'll give you a little bit of their time. There are a lot reasons why that's happened - longer forms of content, a lot of online stuff, which lends itself to causes like the bucket challenge. So I think you'll find that some of that stuff is really good, and some of it is going to be really sh*t, cause already there's this formula that's starting to happen, so someone's going to have to break that next year.

Nurock: And what is the most interesting piece of work you've seen during the awards?

Stapleton: That's a very hard question to answer, so there are some campaigns like "Like A Girl", which is interesting, but I don't know if it's new. When I start to see campaigns like "Lifepaint", cause for me growing up in a direct world when I started, I found stuff where products are being created really interesting, cause that starts to change what advertising is, you start to create your own space and medium when you start creating your own product.

Nurock: I think that goes back to one of the themes that I've picked up here, and that's huge innovation, there's just so much of it everywhere from agencies to media, everybody's innovating at a rate of knots...

Stapleton: Yes, so when you have that much innovation, you're going to have some mistakes, which is good. I think it's a race to the centre, you have media companies trying to get creative and creative companies trying to get into media, and tech companies trying to partner up as well. You're going to see a lot of these experiments happening because I don't think the current model will exist in five or 10 years.

Nurock: I find it very interesting, for the last 10 years I've always heard people say that agencies have to change, the demise of the advertising agency, it's a recurring statement, it never ever goes away, but yet we are all still existing...

Stapleton: Yes, I think that mad men never die, they just change their business card, so my view is that people mistake the label for their reality. I think that agencies will exist but they may not necessarily be doing what they're doing now. As the world becomes more complex there are a lot of clients out there that need help, you can't tell me that marketing departments know everything, they need help more than anybody else due to their proliferation of channels.

So advertising agencies will evolve, and I think they're quite underrated in their ability to adapt, because it's what they do, and we're quite susceptible to labels which is strange because we're the ones creating them. But I don't think tech companies are perfectly designed to do it either, I mean a few years ago you had digital agencies, now those agencies are trying to do a lot of other things, so the reality is how much you can do and how much you can do well. Everything is direct response, which means that everything is integrated, so it's quite a hard thing to be a specialist because it only means you're doing a little piece.

Nurock: Damon, moving away from the Cannes awards , I believe you're writing a book... tell me about it?

Stapleton: Well it's the lazy man's way of writing a book. I've been writing on a blog for about three years called damonsbrain.com, and it started as an experiment to see if anybody would read it, and now this month, actually, I've hit 50,000 people over a two-year period, which I'm very happy about. I had a lot of creatives writing to me, personally, to ask me questions, people from all over the world asking me what they should do with their careers, and I realised that nobody really speaks for the creatives, so when I write my blog, I always say "for the creatives."

Nurock: That is so interesting and so true, because if you think about all the books written about advertising, nothing is actually for the creatives...

Stapleton: Well it's sort of written around creativity and ideas, which is a more general thing, but what I think that creatives are kind of perceived as cocaine-sniffing and pony-tailed, there's this idea of what creatives are, and I think they deserve a bit more respect. If you look at an integrated campaign in 1995 it was radio, tv and print, you look at what one is now with less time, let me tell you, it takes some skill!

Nurock: I have always had an enormous amount of respect for creative people because I think one of the big issues of today, the big elephant in the room, is procurement - the fact that it can put a time and a price on a creative idea, and that is, I think, a travesty, because a creative person comes up with ideas that actually elevate the brand...

Stapleton: Well I have a good example of that: I've done a piece called Penny the Pirate, which one lots of awards, but it took two years to do, because we had to go to the University of Melbourne and other things we had to do, and there seems to be this drive now to commoditise creative ideas and turn it into a loaf of bread, and I don't think that's how creativity works. That for me has been a real problem going forward, where these guys are trying to make things fit into these little blocks, that's never going to work. So my book's about that experience.

Nurock: Is it going to be a book "book" or a collection of your blogs?

Stapleton: It's a bit of both, so there's stuff I'm writing now, and part of it will be the blog, so it's going to be cool. It's about how things don't always work out, and what I find so funny about advertising is that there are all these people that think they can explain it, and have it all figured it, but that's not how it works in the real world. I think advertising is far more about being able to hear music and having rhythm as opposed to being so locked down, that's kind of what the book's about.

Nurock: And when do you think it will be published?

Stapleton: It's probably going to come out mid next year, I have a few more things I still have to write, but I'm working on the publishing now. I don't really care if it becomes a best-seller, I did it because I think creatives should speak more.

Nurock: Well I think it sounds amazing, and I really look forward to seeing it in South Africa, and thanks very much for chatting.