#BehindtheSelfie - and Cannes Lions judging insights - with... Andy Rice

With so many things on his daily task list, it's little wonder Rice says he works, "Anywhere with good coffee, strong Wi-Fi and easy parking." And so, before we get to the standard Behind the Selfie Q&A, I caught up with Rice to find out his views on Cannes Lions and more, as the only South African judge on this year's Creative Effectiveness panel. He says he 'went wild' on being asked to judge the international work again this year by having a second rusk with his Milo. Party animal of note, clearly.

Rice also facilitated last year's 'Learning from Cannes Lions' breakfast, which helped a lot in that he got to know Philip Thomas, the CEO of Cannes Lions. So when Cinemark put his name forward as a candidate judge for the Creative Effectiveness category, he wasn't an entirely unknown quantity.

As for the Cannes Lions 2015 judging process itself, Rice said...

"It was an unexpectedly huge amount of work. We had some 160 case studies to go through, just to create a shortlist. This was before we even got to Cannes, where the serious discussions began. It's about 80 hours of concentrated judging work in total."

Rice adds that the Creative Effectiveness judging template calls for each entry to be judged on the basis of the idea, the strategy and the results. It can be tricky at times to separate these three, but the most important factor is that the entries must distinguish between correlation and causation. This means it's not enough for things to have simply happened in the market place at the same time as the campaign (correlation); the entry must show that the results were clearly driven by the campaign (causation).

Sadly, there were no South African wins in this category - click here for a reminder of the full list. But it's not all doom and gloom, as Rice suspects that SA's track record with the Apex Awards over the last 15 years or so puts us up there with the best of the countries who take the trouble to measure effectiveness.

And the accolades keep coming, as Rice has also been selected as the guest speaker at the IAS 2015 Masterclass for Marketers series, taking place on 21 July in Johannesburg and 10 September in Cape Town.

Of his upcoming speaking slot, he says: "I suspect I'll continue to beat the drum on behalf of the primacy of creativity in brand communications, and I'll encourage the delegates to be courageous in briefing and evaluating work, and to trust their instincts more than their research manager."

On that note, let's move on to Behind the Selfie...

Yours truly at the Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona a few weeks ago. Makes Cambridge United's Abbey Stadium look a little... er... modest.

1. Where do you live, work and play?

Rice: I live in Forest Town, within earshot of the Zoo's howler monkeys and lions (and a lot of other, more human creatures that howl and roar). I work all over; I don't have a desk or parking bay with my name on it anywhere so I gravitate to the nearest virtual office. I play in St James on the False Bay coast whenever I can find the time and the money for the outrageous "low-cost" (sic) airfares.

2. What's your claim to fame?

Rice: I played football at Wembley and cricket at Lord's on the same weekend. I troubled the scorers on neither occasion.

3. Describe your career so far.

Rice: Serendipity. Most decisions have been made on the basis of "why don't we..?" followed closely by "Oh, all right then". As a strategist, I apply very little strategic thinking to my own career.

4. Tell us a few of your favourite things.

Rice: Apart from family? Marmite. Would I Lie To You? Wild dogs and pangolins. Citroen 2CV. Lemon meringue pie. Early issues of Drum and Zonk magazines.

5. What do you love about your industry?

Rice: There are more clever people than idiots. There are more nice people than arseholes. But only just.

6. What are a few pain points your industry can improve on?

Rice: Recognition that creativity is a driver of effectiveness, not an alternative to it. A big idea will trump any amount of data-driven logic. Discomfort is usually a good sign, and should be both welcomed and encouraged.

7. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

Rice: Tea. School run. Coffee. Feed parrot. Put plaster on parrot bite. Chain myself to desk. Tackle a mix of tasks, some revenue-generating (strategies, conference presentations), some pro bono (RAGE, ABF), some for fun (Primedia/702). Sundowner. Newspaper. Another sundowner. Kick dogs out. Oblivion.

8. What are the tools of your trade?

Rice: Voracious reading of stuff written by clever people like Mark Ritson, Dave Trott and Jeremy Bullmore. Then adapt and combine their material to make it seem like my own wisdom and wit.

9. Who is getting it right in your industry?

Rice: Yellowwood, obviously. That's not just subjective opinion, ask their clients!
Ivan Moroke's new venture with Havas will be worth watching.
Jeremy Sampson remains most people's lodestar.

10. What are you working on right now?

Rice: Having spent a lifetime telling other people how to build brands, I thought I should see if I can do it for myself - so I'm developing a couple of new brands that are quite close to being launch-ready.

11. Tell us some of the buzzwords floating around in your industry at the moment, and some of the catchphrases you utter yourself.

Rice: Q: "What can you do for half that amount?" A: "Nothing that I would like to put my name to."

12. Where and when do you have your best ideas?

Rice: In the bath and while driving. Not at the same time.

13. What's your secret talent/party trick?

Rice: Shepherd's Pie flambé. The flambé bit wasn't entirely deliberate.

14. What would we find if we scrolled through your phone?

Rice: More apps than you can shake a (selfie?) stick at. Most put there by an unseen hand, but I have an idea that a teenager may have had a part to play. I need little more than Shazam, WhatsApp and Sasol eBirds.

15. What advice would you give to newbies hoping to crack into the industry?

Rice: Don't hold out indefinitely for the ideal position. Take any position, anywhere, and manoeuvre yourself from there.

16. Plug your contact details, punt yourself - list all the places people can find you/your work online...

Rice:

Web
Email
Facebook: Ad Feature with Andy Rice
Personal Facebook
Twitter
Skype: Andrew Graham Rice
LinkedIn
That's my lot, social media wise.

17. Are you a technophobe or a technophile?

Rice: I am doing my best in the swirling waters of the digital river, but prefer to avoid getting out of my depth too often.

You can read more about of Andy Rice by clicking here, click here for more on Yellowwood, and here for more on the IAS 2015 Masterclass for Marketers series.

*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.