The Future isn’t what it used to be.

“Ideas are the currency of the future.”

Insights from Cannes Lions 2011, Modern Creativity all amid seismic industry change.

Was the last session of Day One at Cannes 2011 the most profound?  This session consisted of Jon Wilkins, founding partner, Naked Communications, Stuart Wells, integrated creative lead, Nokia, and Casper Weller, managing partner and executive creative director, Naked Communications, Copenhagen.

The main topic at this session was the Three C’s of modern creativity: community, crowdsourcing and co-creation. The group stressed the importance of these components stating that “the mere advertisement, is not enough and it is important to not only involve the end consumers in the process, but to also have them contribute to the brand–either at the message level, or even at the sheer product level.” According to Jon Wilkins, “crowdsourcing and co-creation are changing the way we talk to our customers and the way we serve our products.”

Name change for the Cannes 2011 Festival

After being known for 50 + years as the International Advertising Film Festival, it is now the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.  So, what does this mean?   If you ask Philip Letts, Founder of the blur Group  (@PhilipLetts) as I did, he’ll  tell you “Cannes Lions changed its name and focus to reflect the new digital and social realities.  But, is the industry following this lead or is it paying lip service?  Next year will tell. Newer entrants are the disruptors – so where are they?”  Is traditional advertising fading or being replaced by a host of digital technologies?

In Bob Garfield’s (ad industry critic and columnist for AdAge) July 8th AdAge post, “Cannes Takes One Small Step Toward Catching Up With Reality”, he seemed pleased that Cannes appears to be adapting to “the digital world”.  Garfield also sees  “…genuine progress, in the universe of crowdsourcing”.  His reactions to this year’s Festival are summed up in one sentence:

“One small step for Cannes, one giant leap for Cannes-kind”

Paid media still rules amid seismic change –  Tornadic Movement

In the Fast Company, June 20th article on the Cannes Lions, we were reminded “… a lot of the clients, ad and media agencies and media owners still depend so heavily on paid media to sustain their business models.” Meanwhile, the tornadic movement continues toward user generated content, hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos, 750 million Facebook users, tweets in the billions, 300 million blogs and the hyper growth of social media — all put pressure on traditional business models.  All the while, clients’ appetite for social media projects eats into traditional ad spend, leaving agencies to search for new ways to monetize smaller activity-based projects.

The 5th Model Ecosystem

The 5th Model is Blue Focus Marketing’s view of an ecosystem rich in opportunities to create powerful business ideas. It recognizes that big ideas do not just happen. Indeed, there are many processes and methods firms use to generate creative insights that fuels innovation.

Blue Focus Marketing first introduced The 5th Model in Mark Burgess’ (@mnburgess) blog The 5th Model “Crowdsourcing” Hits Madison Ave + Crowdsourcing Infographic (Part 1).  The concept of The 5th Model was further discussed in his blog:  Crowdsourcing: Intersection of Madison Ave and The 5th Model (Part 2).

The 5th Model was born from ad agencies’ need to meet clients’ demands for increased digital and social media marketing projects.   This new model enables agencies to monetize work on social media (activity-based) projects vs. more traditional compensation models including:  1) Media Commission 2) Billable Hours 3) Flat Rate/Fixed Retainer 4) Performance-Based.

Good Karma or Bad Karma?

Brandkarma is a website dedicated to analyzing the world’s brands on the basis of their “goodness.” It recognizes that the brand choices consumers make have implications for companies, their stakeholders and the planet. Consumers would make the right choices if they knew what they were and free to find out, right?  Brandkarma uses crowdsourcing to tell us about the wellness of a brand.

I first heard about Brandkarma from Simon Mainwaring, author of We First, while attending Simon’s book signing party in New York, hosted by We First,   Ludvik + PartnersCollective Bias on June 7th.  According to Simon, Brandkarma’s mission is straightforward, “to help everyone make better brand choices and influence brand behavior for good.”

We First is a very engaging read about how brands and consumers can use social media to build a better world.  I strongly recommend We First to my readers.  Connect with Simon at @simonmainwaring #WeFirst.

We First  Book Signing Party – NYC – June 7, 2011.   Left to right: Simon Mainwaring (@simonmainwaring) Cheryl Keith Burgess (@ckburgess), Epirot Ludvik Nekaj (@Lplus)

“Ideas Culture” rules at StrawberryFrog

Scott Goodson,(@scottfrog) founder of StrawberryFrog, the world’s first Cultural Movement agency, wrote a fascinating article in Forbes with his view of the agency of the future and importance of creating a “new ideas culture.” Scott believes: “In the future, suppliers will be valued less and less and squeezed more and more. Idea generators are the ones that will be most valuable because ideas-driven people create the greatest value across every industry sector, not just our own.” To make his agency operate faster, Scott worked to eliminate review boards, hierarchies and politics.  The result: solutions are developed faster than less agile agencies, enabling StrawberryFrog to leapfrog competitors.

At Blue Focus Marketing, we agree with StrawberryFrog that strategic partnering with clients generates business value.  Business building ideas are based on a thorough understanding of the client’s business, distinctive capabilities, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It takes a unique ability to develop insights that can propel a brand forward. This is value creation that goes beyond tasks performed by more traditional ad agencies and focuses on finding new ways to achieve advantage.

“The best ‘creative ideas’ in the world have their own energy, their own means of distribution and their own collaborators that propel them into a strata that conventional paid communications can never reach.”

John Wilkins

Ideas are the currency of the future. The future starts today.

Simon Mainwaring – Book Launch at Internet Week – NYC – June 7, 2011

Ramon B. Nuez Jr. (@ramonbnuezjr) Editor,  Breakbumper.TV –  Discussing Croudsource Marketing with Epirot Ludvik Nekaj (@LPlus)– CEO of Ludvik + Partners – Featured in Huffpost Tech – July 12, 2011

Question: Good ideas are good ideas.  If they’re focused on a tight creative brief does it matter where the creative ideas come from?

Feel free to comment on my blog and/or tweet out your response to @ckburgess @BlueFocus360 .  This question was first asked in my blog,
“Innovation Gone Wild On Madison Avenue”.

Steve Peck (@stevenpeck) posted a great infographic on his site that shows US ad agency performance during the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. This infographic includes all awarded US agencies but does not include media or independent production companies. Data was based on results posted from the Cannes Lions website.   Check out the full size image here.

Infographic: US Ad Agencies at Cannes 2011

12 Trends from Cannes 2011

Suggested hashtags: #5thModel #crowdsourcing #canneslions #WEFIRST #ideas #ideation #creativity #innovation #DO100 #CMO #advertising #brands #Nifty50 #MarketerMonday #usguys

 

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