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Transformational storytelling

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Mr Nyak
Mr Nyak

This document discusses trends in transformational storytelling seen at Cannes Lions in 2019. It covers several trends including: 1. Multisensory storytelling and using all senses to engage consumers through unexpected means. 2. The power of social conscience and using storytelling and media dollars to promote equality and social issues. 3. Inclusiveness and ensuring everybody is represented in stories through more empathetic and accessible storytelling. 4. The importance of truth in storytelling as consumers demand authenticity from brands, governments and media. 5. Creating immersive experiences for consumers to interact with brands through world building and bucket list experiences.

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TRANSFORMATIONAL STORYTELLING 20 19
Introduction Overview of Insights Takeaways Trends Gather ’Round the Fire • A Sense for Storytelling • Tools for the Tale • Multisensory Storytelling • The Power of Social Conscience • Everybody In • The Importance of Truth • Experience Wins • Revisiting Our Craft • Lead with Empathy • Evolve the Narrative 2
Gather ’Round the Fire Storytelling has been our method of teaching, persuading, and communicating since man’s earliest days. Our brains are hardwired to respond to storytelling, an ageless technique tied to connection, information retention, and social loyalty. Modern storytelling takes many forms, from peer to peer, influencer to listener, and leader to tribe. As brands transform storytelling, both through the medium of new technologies and the message we experience, we find new ways to connect, persuade, and drive human emotion. Transformational Stor ytelling 3
A Sense for Storytelling Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark Some of us are visual learners. In fact, we scroll through nearly 300 feet of content—the size of a football pitch—to learn what our communities are up to each day. We absorb visual storytelling, stopping our thumbs and widening our eyes at anything that piques our interest—from something that makes us smile, turns our heads, or instigates our fear of missing out. Others learn in different ways. We listen to voices intently, highly focused on absorbing information. Instead of binge- watching, we binge-listen. We are tactile, needing to touch and interact to truly absorb an experience. Others need to be fully immersed in sights, sounds, and even smells of an experience to fully absorb the message. At Cannes this week, one thing was certain; brands are relentlessly pursuing ways to make sure their message is absorbed. 4
Tools for the Tale Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark Campaigns don’t just come in cuts anymore. They’re vertical. Horizontal. Ephemeral or permanent. Long or short form. Voice-told or voice-activated. Tactile or haptic. Real or virtual. Told one-to-one or one-to-one million. You can scratch, sniff, snap, or swipe. There is more content than can ever be consumed and more choices for ways to consume it. As brands try to predict how long they can hold your attention while you hold your phone, others are designing for what you do when you put your phone down. The one thing they all have in common? Delivering on experiences that drive emotion. So, it begs the question: Regardless of form or function, what makes good storytelling? The story must start with a purpose, a brand perspective. A way to entertain me, to teach me, to tell me something I don’t know. It needs to know about me. How I will react. Will I cry? Laugh? Roll my eyes and move on? Does my heart rate increase? Does an experience make me feel differently when I leave? It needs to excite me! To stimulate me wherever it finds me. Stories need to be delivered directly to me via technology that makes sense, in the format that best conveys the tale. This week in Cannes, we took a look at the new tools, technologies, and formats changing the art of storytelling, ushering us past the mobile and streaming era—welcome to content anywhere! Where your brand IP is the next best thing you’ve seen (or heard, or felt) all day. Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think —Jill Taylor, neuroanatomist, as quoted during Google VP Ivy Ross’s Tuesday keynote on ‘Design Feeling.’ 5
Transformational Stor ytelling 02 03 04 01 The brands that win the competition for attention will consider fresh ways of conveying their story through unexpected means that consider all the senses and lean heavily into human intuition. 05 Trends Multisensory Storytelling The industry finds itself in the unique position to push the fight for equality and the end of bias forward by using media dollars to tell pesonalised stories and create experiences that do actual good for the world. The Power of Social Conscience It’s no longer acceptable to overlook those among us who are uniquely abled, especially when there is such importance put on diversity and inclusion. Everybody In The global trust crisis has spurred an outcry for the truth from governments, media, and brands. It’s table stakes for creating lasting relationships with consumers. The Importance of Truth Brands can create bucket-list experiences and worlds in which loyalists can lose themselves when they literally put consumers in our stories. Experience Wins 6
01 Multisensory Storytelling If you’re trying to predict the future of storytelling, imagining how they might be told on screens today won’t give you the full picture. Good stories play out wherever consumers find or create them. According to Gartner, the Internet of Things will reach a predicted 25 billion connected devices next year. While astounding, that figure doesn’t capture the storytelling off-device and in person. The brands that win the competition for attention will consider fresh ways of conveying their story through unexpected means intended for all the senses and leaning heavily into human intuition. Visuals aren’t the only frontier. The multi-sensor trend is well on its way with the rise in popularity of podcasts, which command attention and build loyalty, trust, and community around a specialised topic. Borrowing the format, brands have a chance to connect with consumers in more meaningful ways, at more personal levels, with a low barrier of effort. The catch? Brands must take part in authentic stories that put people before their products. Multisensory storytelling can take a consumer on a journey in a literal second. Visa and Mastercard are exploring how to convey the story of purchase in the time it takes to process your payment, through sonic branding, haptics, and animation that tell the story of optimism, progress, and completion. Google’s design department has set out to solve, ‘how it feels to hold Google in your hand,’ as they approach product development with neuroaesthetics in mind—understanding how an experience affects an individual’s physiology on a nuanced level—to create products that are both seamless within environments, yet impactful when interfaced. New mediums and sensibilities shape our approach to brand stories and experience Neuroaesthetics makes us think about the tactility of product. We have agency over products that we surround ourselves with that can make our bodies feel better. As a society, we should look for things that help us feel better. —Ivy Ross, VP of Design, Products & Services, Google, discussing how new, nuanced biometrics can help brands build better experiences. 7
The Power of Social Conscience 02 Dream Crazy garnered tens of millions of views on YouTube—71% in its first week live. The campaign generated an 82% year-over-year sales lift, according to Edison Trends. 29.5 million views Nike’s Dream Crazy (above) collected 2 Grand Prix, a Titanium, 5 Gold, 3 Silver, and 2 Bronze Lions. The wins spanned categories, from Film to Diversity & Inclusion in Sport to Excellence in Brand Storytelling. Global consumers increasingly expect transparency in brands’ advocacy or perspective on social issues before considering a purchase. P&G Chief Brand Officer, Marc Pritchard, considers it an, ‘obligation as an industry to use our voice and advertising for good.’ It’s an expanded view of brand purpose or activism that drives this storytelling trend; at its core, it’s using value imperatives as functional drivers for creative concepts. The trend has built steam recently, markedly with 2017’s Fearless Girl for State Street Global Advisors and last year’s The Talk from P&G. This year Nike’s Dream Crazy took home 13 of Cannes Lions’ top honours across categories, celebrating steadfast personal conviction and the sacrifice required for something you believe in. Nike wasn’t just communicating its values as a brand to celebrate athletes; it needs this advocacy to authentically celebrate the adversity, sacrifice, and hard work featured athletes endure to rise to the top of their game. You can see this clearly in the Grand Prix-awarded work of The Female Company this year. German feminine hygiene products are taxed far more than ‘daily necessities.’ The Female Company outsmarted the code, packaging organic tampons within a book—The Tampon Book: A Book Against Discrimination— so that it could be taxed more affordably. It sold out its first printing in one day. While it certainly builds goodwill with women to fight the discriminatory tax, the rebellion in advocacy for women’s hygiene is imperative for The Tampon Book to fully come to life. Colleen DeCourcy, Co-President and CCO, Wieden+Kennedy, warned against borrowing equity from issues as opposed to wholly owning them as part of our creative. She advised the industry to be introspective before taking a stand; ‘Are we giving back more than we take?’ 8
Everybody In 03 Representation drove new dynamics in the makeup of our stories, especially including differently abled people in their work, with an emphasis on the needs of these communities through better, more empathetic and accessible standards, practices, and storytelling. In turn, these new consumer experiences are how brands not only tell, but show how our stories can span the spectrum of ability. Target refers to this as ‘soul at scale,’ an ethos that considers customers as muses and mentors, informing marketing and product development. Cat & Jack is an adaptive apparel children’s line developed when Target tuned into oft-ignored needs of special needs children and their families. Something as simple as removing a zipper, taking out tags, or adding hidden openings for abdominal access impacts a child’s comfort and sense of independence. As it turns out, it also impacts their ability to feel ‘just like any other kid.’ Target CCO Todd Waterbury sees it as the truest realisation of their ‘design for all’ mission. Tommy Hilfiger’s line, Tommy Adaptive, takes inclusion a step further than product development, considering accessible purchase journeys by partnering to build voice-enabled shopping experiences. Aira, an assistive service for people who are blind or have low vision, is also exploring the more human side of artificial intelligence to advance wearable computing to create the opportunity for life-changing ‘first-time’ experiences like marathons, photography, and even driving. In these examples, accessibility is a creative function that drives connectivity between the brand, concept, and new (or unaddressed) consumers. If your attempt to create work that is diverse stops at race and culture, you can do more to be truly inclusive. Caroline Wanga, Target’s Chief Diversity Officer, recommends ‘courageous listening’ and looking for moments of generosity, moments of thoughtfulness, and moments of empathy to create stories we can all see ourselves in. 9
Truth, as a core creative principle, manifested in innumerous ways across this year’s speakers and award-winning work. Some more literally, applying journalistic sensibilities to their work. Others looked inward to the truth of their mission or of their market to reveal narratives both insightful and instantly recognisable to audiences. Truth can be a driving creative force. We are in the midst of a global trust crisis. People don’t trust their governments, mass media, or brands. The lack of trust is manifesting itself in a call for authenticity, truth in what the industry is producing. Authenticity was a rallying cry heard all over the Palais, from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion who urged advertisers to ‘tell the truth’ about climate change, to Burger King’s Marcelo Pascoa’s comment ‘[consumers] can smell our bullshit.’ It’s no wonder that work focused on people and companies who are willing to stand up for the truth, and those who are driving journalistic storytelling, are coming out on top this year. New York Times’ The Truth Is Worth It, powered by Droga5, documented the intensity and rigour of journalists to emphasise the investment of discovering (and fact checking and verifying and discussing how you represent) the truth. The campaign took home the Grand Prix for Film Craft. TheImportance of Truth 04 ‘I think a brand should be as close as possible to the audience. If you do this artificial polished stuff, it just gets between yourself and the consumer. Nobody in the real world would talk like commercials talk.’ —Stefan Heinrich Henriquez, Global Head of Marketing, TikTok 10
In these ways, Haribo maintains the truth of its brand experience by harnessing frivolity and a kid’s sensibility. American recording artist Big Sean made an appearance with Puma to discuss his deep partnership with the apparel brand, from cultural insights and product development to ambassador. Their discussion focused on truth as a matter of personal identity and cultural relevance. He advised that you don’t have to be ‘the culture’ when you are being yourself. Being yourself is the culture. When applied to telling meaningful stories, it is about being comfortable being vulnerable—a difficult task for big brands and agencies because it involves risk. Oatly helmed a discussion about marketing departments at the Palais on Monday. The Swedish On the other hand, truth can be figurative or intangible—and doesn’t always require seriousness to be compelling. Haribo and Quiet Storm exemplified this during its session, How to Unleash Your Inner Child, a creative philosophy that, in name alone, feels intrinsic to Haribo as a timeless favourite of kids. Trevor Robinson, OBE, Creative Director of London-based Quiet Storm, expressed this as an evergreen consideration—one inherent to creatives—that can be exercised to develop more fun, compelling content. In a featured test commercial during Thursday’s session, Quiet Storm showcased how this can be done simply— taking ideas and discussion directly from kids and portraying it with adults to encourage everyone to remember what it was like to be a kid. oat milk was completely transparent with consumers about the legal hot seat they fell into with the Swedish dairy lobby, publishing the entire lawsuit against their ‘It’s like milk but made for humans’ campaign in print and online. Their honesty rallied fans to come to their rescue, painting them as the David that just might take down the 200x bigger dairy Goliath. John Schoolcraft, Creative Director, Oatly Department of Mind Control, says you get to this kind of work and consumer loyalty by having a point of view and asking uncomfortable questions. Radical truth in all its facets, from authenticity, vulnerability, and transparency, seems to be what people want. And, as an industry, we’ll have to deliver if we want to be at all relevant. More than ever, I think brands need to tell the truth. I believe that audiences out there have lost faith in institutions and governments and they’re looking towards brands for guidance. And it’s our responsibility to guide them, but at the same time it’s a huge business opportunity to occupy that space. —Chris Garbutt, Global Chief Creative Officer at TBWA Worldwide in his Thursday session ‘Do the Brave Thing’ on the Palais II stage. 11
Experience Wins Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark It is harder than ever to truly reach consumers in an impactful way. Millennials and Gen Z have a penchant for experiences, leading more and more brands to focus on creating immersive, interactive, and ambient stories—truly world building—for audiences to experience connectivity with brands or ideas in new ways. Tiffany & Co. turned to their history to find unique ways for people to connect to the brand through the attributes that make Tiffany. The Blue Box Cafe allows customers to literally have breakfast at Tiffany, a bucket-list experience at the Flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City showcasing Tiffany’s line of fine china and sterling with a three-course breakfast. It is almost impossible to get a reservation! For the launch of the Paper Flowers line, Tiffany wrote a ‘love letter to New York,’ with taxi and bodega takeovers drenched in Tiffany Blue. They were the first luxury brand to launch on Spotify, creating a rendition of ‘Moon River,’ featuring Elle Fanning and A$AP Ferg. It brought Tiffany & Co. to life, created passersby into surprise characters, and developed new, modern touchpoints for these consumers across digital. 02 “Doing is better than saying.” Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Burger King 12
Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark At its essence, Burger King’s ‘Whopper Detour’ is a geo- mobile campaign that incentivises burger lovers with a coupon, but it’s the outrageousness of how you unlock the coupon that makes the campaign participatory and fun. Burger King trolls competitors through their customers, sharing a laugh with fans. It creates brand connectivity outside of traditional, transactional habit and relies on tenants likely core to the Burger King consumers’ likes—namely, a little bit of fun. Its ‘Traffic Jam Whopper,’ launched in Mexico City, demonstrates Burger King’s new delivery offering with a sophisticated use of open-source technology that allows burger lovers to order a Whopper while stuck in the worst traffic in the world, and proves Global Chief Marketing Officer Fernando Machado’s stance that ‘doing is better than saying.’ 13
Takeaways Revisit the Craft of Craft to Succeed with Tech New technologies and greater data sets mean our craft is evolving rapidly. Our craft is digital; it’s artificial intelligence powering historical figures; it’s the architecture of immersive experiences; it’s texture and touchscreens. Where some see merging of big tech and creative as challenging, we’re seeing consecutive years of award-winning work that champion this marriage. To win—brand health, market performance, work you’re proud of—we need to revisit craft to help us experiment with this new depth of capability, with new ways of creating compelling narratives, and with delivering these stories in compelling ways. As we move into the next decade, creatives who only rely on tech as a means of distribution will leave powerful opportunities unaddressed. Brands and organisations must stop looking at data without an understanding of what’s behind it— people. In several sessions this week, thought-leaders espoused a level of intelligence we don’t often exercise nor reward in our profession, and that’s intuition. Empathy, leaders argued, is the crux of every great creative solution. Build this practice by integrating new qualitative language in your creative review: How did you react seeing this for the first time? How does it make you feel? What could make this experience better? This approach doesn’t mean a brand has to be serious—empathy and emotional connectivity can be driven by cheekiness or relevant humour too. Lead with Intuition and Empathy We often think of storytelling in terms of a beginning- middle-end narrative. This year, we understood how this paradigm is evolving to experiences—even those on a nuanced level—to communicate bites to consumers. Accessible tech and products, diversified e-commerce experiences, neuroaesthetics, and voice- activated AI are all proven examples of how brands and organisations can communicate outside of linear storytelling. Use concepts of macro-level experience to help consumers understand who your brand is and what your values are. Day to day, focus on micro- storytelling or indications that the brand is listening, supporting, or building room for consumers to create their own stories. Evolve the Narrative with Experience 14

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Transformational storytelling

  • 2. Introduction Overview of Insights Takeaways Trends Gather ’Round the Fire • A Sense for Storytelling • Tools for the Tale • Multisensory Storytelling • The Power of Social Conscience • Everybody In • The Importance of Truth • Experience Wins • Revisiting Our Craft • Lead with Empathy • Evolve the Narrative 2
  • 3. Gather ’Round the Fire Storytelling has been our method of teaching, persuading, and communicating since man’s earliest days. Our brains are hardwired to respond to storytelling, an ageless technique tied to connection, information retention, and social loyalty. Modern storytelling takes many forms, from peer to peer, influencer to listener, and leader to tribe. As brands transform storytelling, both through the medium of new technologies and the message we experience, we find new ways to connect, persuade, and drive human emotion. Transformational Stor ytelling 3
  • 4. A Sense for Storytelling Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark Some of us are visual learners. In fact, we scroll through nearly 300 feet of content—the size of a football pitch—to learn what our communities are up to each day. We absorb visual storytelling, stopping our thumbs and widening our eyes at anything that piques our interest—from something that makes us smile, turns our heads, or instigates our fear of missing out. Others learn in different ways. We listen to voices intently, highly focused on absorbing information. Instead of binge- watching, we binge-listen. We are tactile, needing to touch and interact to truly absorb an experience. Others need to be fully immersed in sights, sounds, and even smells of an experience to fully absorb the message. At Cannes this week, one thing was certain; brands are relentlessly pursuing ways to make sure their message is absorbed. 4
  • 5. Tools for the Tale Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark Campaigns don’t just come in cuts anymore. They’re vertical. Horizontal. Ephemeral or permanent. Long or short form. Voice-told or voice-activated. Tactile or haptic. Real or virtual. Told one-to-one or one-to-one million. You can scratch, sniff, snap, or swipe. There is more content than can ever be consumed and more choices for ways to consume it. As brands try to predict how long they can hold your attention while you hold your phone, others are designing for what you do when you put your phone down. The one thing they all have in common? Delivering on experiences that drive emotion. So, it begs the question: Regardless of form or function, what makes good storytelling? The story must start with a purpose, a brand perspective. A way to entertain me, to teach me, to tell me something I don’t know. It needs to know about me. How I will react. Will I cry? Laugh? Roll my eyes and move on? Does my heart rate increase? Does an experience make me feel differently when I leave? It needs to excite me! To stimulate me wherever it finds me. Stories need to be delivered directly to me via technology that makes sense, in the format that best conveys the tale. This week in Cannes, we took a look at the new tools, technologies, and formats changing the art of storytelling, ushering us past the mobile and streaming era—welcome to content anywhere! Where your brand IP is the next best thing you’ve seen (or heard, or felt) all day. Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think —Jill Taylor, neuroanatomist, as quoted during Google VP Ivy Ross’s Tuesday keynote on ‘Design Feeling.’ 5
  • 6. Transformational Stor ytelling 02 03 04 01 The brands that win the competition for attention will consider fresh ways of conveying their story through unexpected means that consider all the senses and lean heavily into human intuition. 05 Trends Multisensory Storytelling The industry finds itself in the unique position to push the fight for equality and the end of bias forward by using media dollars to tell pesonalised stories and create experiences that do actual good for the world. The Power of Social Conscience It’s no longer acceptable to overlook those among us who are uniquely abled, especially when there is such importance put on diversity and inclusion. Everybody In The global trust crisis has spurred an outcry for the truth from governments, media, and brands. It’s table stakes for creating lasting relationships with consumers. The Importance of Truth Brands can create bucket-list experiences and worlds in which loyalists can lose themselves when they literally put consumers in our stories. Experience Wins 6
  • 7. 01 Multisensory Storytelling If you’re trying to predict the future of storytelling, imagining how they might be told on screens today won’t give you the full picture. Good stories play out wherever consumers find or create them. According to Gartner, the Internet of Things will reach a predicted 25 billion connected devices next year. While astounding, that figure doesn’t capture the storytelling off-device and in person. The brands that win the competition for attention will consider fresh ways of conveying their story through unexpected means intended for all the senses and leaning heavily into human intuition. Visuals aren’t the only frontier. The multi-sensor trend is well on its way with the rise in popularity of podcasts, which command attention and build loyalty, trust, and community around a specialised topic. Borrowing the format, brands have a chance to connect with consumers in more meaningful ways, at more personal levels, with a low barrier of effort. The catch? Brands must take part in authentic stories that put people before their products. Multisensory storytelling can take a consumer on a journey in a literal second. Visa and Mastercard are exploring how to convey the story of purchase in the time it takes to process your payment, through sonic branding, haptics, and animation that tell the story of optimism, progress, and completion. Google’s design department has set out to solve, ‘how it feels to hold Google in your hand,’ as they approach product development with neuroaesthetics in mind—understanding how an experience affects an individual’s physiology on a nuanced level—to create products that are both seamless within environments, yet impactful when interfaced. New mediums and sensibilities shape our approach to brand stories and experience Neuroaesthetics makes us think about the tactility of product. We have agency over products that we surround ourselves with that can make our bodies feel better. As a society, we should look for things that help us feel better. —Ivy Ross, VP of Design, Products & Services, Google, discussing how new, nuanced biometrics can help brands build better experiences. 7
  • 8. The Power of Social Conscience 02 Dream Crazy garnered tens of millions of views on YouTube—71% in its first week live. The campaign generated an 82% year-over-year sales lift, according to Edison Trends. 29.5 million views Nike’s Dream Crazy (above) collected 2 Grand Prix, a Titanium, 5 Gold, 3 Silver, and 2 Bronze Lions. The wins spanned categories, from Film to Diversity & Inclusion in Sport to Excellence in Brand Storytelling. Global consumers increasingly expect transparency in brands’ advocacy or perspective on social issues before considering a purchase. P&G Chief Brand Officer, Marc Pritchard, considers it an, ‘obligation as an industry to use our voice and advertising for good.’ It’s an expanded view of brand purpose or activism that drives this storytelling trend; at its core, it’s using value imperatives as functional drivers for creative concepts. The trend has built steam recently, markedly with 2017’s Fearless Girl for State Street Global Advisors and last year’s The Talk from P&G. This year Nike’s Dream Crazy took home 13 of Cannes Lions’ top honours across categories, celebrating steadfast personal conviction and the sacrifice required for something you believe in. Nike wasn’t just communicating its values as a brand to celebrate athletes; it needs this advocacy to authentically celebrate the adversity, sacrifice, and hard work featured athletes endure to rise to the top of their game. You can see this clearly in the Grand Prix-awarded work of The Female Company this year. German feminine hygiene products are taxed far more than ‘daily necessities.’ The Female Company outsmarted the code, packaging organic tampons within a book—The Tampon Book: A Book Against Discrimination— so that it could be taxed more affordably. It sold out its first printing in one day. While it certainly builds goodwill with women to fight the discriminatory tax, the rebellion in advocacy for women’s hygiene is imperative for The Tampon Book to fully come to life. Colleen DeCourcy, Co-President and CCO, Wieden+Kennedy, warned against borrowing equity from issues as opposed to wholly owning them as part of our creative. She advised the industry to be introspective before taking a stand; ‘Are we giving back more than we take?’ 8
  • 9. Everybody In 03 Representation drove new dynamics in the makeup of our stories, especially including differently abled people in their work, with an emphasis on the needs of these communities through better, more empathetic and accessible standards, practices, and storytelling. In turn, these new consumer experiences are how brands not only tell, but show how our stories can span the spectrum of ability. Target refers to this as ‘soul at scale,’ an ethos that considers customers as muses and mentors, informing marketing and product development. Cat & Jack is an adaptive apparel children’s line developed when Target tuned into oft-ignored needs of special needs children and their families. Something as simple as removing a zipper, taking out tags, or adding hidden openings for abdominal access impacts a child’s comfort and sense of independence. As it turns out, it also impacts their ability to feel ‘just like any other kid.’ Target CCO Todd Waterbury sees it as the truest realisation of their ‘design for all’ mission. Tommy Hilfiger’s line, Tommy Adaptive, takes inclusion a step further than product development, considering accessible purchase journeys by partnering to build voice-enabled shopping experiences. Aira, an assistive service for people who are blind or have low vision, is also exploring the more human side of artificial intelligence to advance wearable computing to create the opportunity for life-changing ‘first-time’ experiences like marathons, photography, and even driving. In these examples, accessibility is a creative function that drives connectivity between the brand, concept, and new (or unaddressed) consumers. If your attempt to create work that is diverse stops at race and culture, you can do more to be truly inclusive. Caroline Wanga, Target’s Chief Diversity Officer, recommends ‘courageous listening’ and looking for moments of generosity, moments of thoughtfulness, and moments of empathy to create stories we can all see ourselves in. 9
  • 10. Truth, as a core creative principle, manifested in innumerous ways across this year’s speakers and award-winning work. Some more literally, applying journalistic sensibilities to their work. Others looked inward to the truth of their mission or of their market to reveal narratives both insightful and instantly recognisable to audiences. Truth can be a driving creative force. We are in the midst of a global trust crisis. People don’t trust their governments, mass media, or brands. The lack of trust is manifesting itself in a call for authenticity, truth in what the industry is producing. Authenticity was a rallying cry heard all over the Palais, from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion who urged advertisers to ‘tell the truth’ about climate change, to Burger King’s Marcelo Pascoa’s comment ‘[consumers] can smell our bullshit.’ It’s no wonder that work focused on people and companies who are willing to stand up for the truth, and those who are driving journalistic storytelling, are coming out on top this year. New York Times’ The Truth Is Worth It, powered by Droga5, documented the intensity and rigour of journalists to emphasise the investment of discovering (and fact checking and verifying and discussing how you represent) the truth. The campaign took home the Grand Prix for Film Craft. TheImportance of Truth 04 ‘I think a brand should be as close as possible to the audience. If you do this artificial polished stuff, it just gets between yourself and the consumer. Nobody in the real world would talk like commercials talk.’ —Stefan Heinrich Henriquez, Global Head of Marketing, TikTok 10
  • 11. In these ways, Haribo maintains the truth of its brand experience by harnessing frivolity and a kid’s sensibility. American recording artist Big Sean made an appearance with Puma to discuss his deep partnership with the apparel brand, from cultural insights and product development to ambassador. Their discussion focused on truth as a matter of personal identity and cultural relevance. He advised that you don’t have to be ‘the culture’ when you are being yourself. Being yourself is the culture. When applied to telling meaningful stories, it is about being comfortable being vulnerable—a difficult task for big brands and agencies because it involves risk. Oatly helmed a discussion about marketing departments at the Palais on Monday. The Swedish On the other hand, truth can be figurative or intangible—and doesn’t always require seriousness to be compelling. Haribo and Quiet Storm exemplified this during its session, How to Unleash Your Inner Child, a creative philosophy that, in name alone, feels intrinsic to Haribo as a timeless favourite of kids. Trevor Robinson, OBE, Creative Director of London-based Quiet Storm, expressed this as an evergreen consideration—one inherent to creatives—that can be exercised to develop more fun, compelling content. In a featured test commercial during Thursday’s session, Quiet Storm showcased how this can be done simply— taking ideas and discussion directly from kids and portraying it with adults to encourage everyone to remember what it was like to be a kid. oat milk was completely transparent with consumers about the legal hot seat they fell into with the Swedish dairy lobby, publishing the entire lawsuit against their ‘It’s like milk but made for humans’ campaign in print and online. Their honesty rallied fans to come to their rescue, painting them as the David that just might take down the 200x bigger dairy Goliath. John Schoolcraft, Creative Director, Oatly Department of Mind Control, says you get to this kind of work and consumer loyalty by having a point of view and asking uncomfortable questions. Radical truth in all its facets, from authenticity, vulnerability, and transparency, seems to be what people want. And, as an industry, we’ll have to deliver if we want to be at all relevant. More than ever, I think brands need to tell the truth. I believe that audiences out there have lost faith in institutions and governments and they’re looking towards brands for guidance. And it’s our responsibility to guide them, but at the same time it’s a huge business opportunity to occupy that space. —Chris Garbutt, Global Chief Creative Officer at TBWA Worldwide in his Thursday session ‘Do the Brave Thing’ on the Palais II stage. 11
  • 12. Experience Wins Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark It is harder than ever to truly reach consumers in an impactful way. Millennials and Gen Z have a penchant for experiences, leading more and more brands to focus on creating immersive, interactive, and ambient stories—truly world building—for audiences to experience connectivity with brands or ideas in new ways. Tiffany & Co. turned to their history to find unique ways for people to connect to the brand through the attributes that make Tiffany. The Blue Box Cafe allows customers to literally have breakfast at Tiffany, a bucket-list experience at the Flagship Fifth Avenue store in New York City showcasing Tiffany’s line of fine china and sterling with a three-course breakfast. It is almost impossible to get a reservation! For the launch of the Paper Flowers line, Tiffany wrote a ‘love letter to New York,’ with taxi and bodega takeovers drenched in Tiffany Blue. They were the first luxury brand to launch on Spotify, creating a rendition of ‘Moon River,’ featuring Elle Fanning and A$AP Ferg. It brought Tiffany & Co. to life, created passersby into surprise characters, and developed new, modern touchpoints for these consumers across digital. 02 “Doing is better than saying.” Fernando Machado, Global Chief Marketing Officer, Burger King 12
  • 13. Capitalize on low hanging fruit to identify a ballpark At its essence, Burger King’s ‘Whopper Detour’ is a geo- mobile campaign that incentivises burger lovers with a coupon, but it’s the outrageousness of how you unlock the coupon that makes the campaign participatory and fun. Burger King trolls competitors through their customers, sharing a laugh with fans. It creates brand connectivity outside of traditional, transactional habit and relies on tenants likely core to the Burger King consumers’ likes—namely, a little bit of fun. Its ‘Traffic Jam Whopper,’ launched in Mexico City, demonstrates Burger King’s new delivery offering with a sophisticated use of open-source technology that allows burger lovers to order a Whopper while stuck in the worst traffic in the world, and proves Global Chief Marketing Officer Fernando Machado’s stance that ‘doing is better than saying.’ 13
  • 14. Takeaways Revisit the Craft of Craft to Succeed with Tech New technologies and greater data sets mean our craft is evolving rapidly. Our craft is digital; it’s artificial intelligence powering historical figures; it’s the architecture of immersive experiences; it’s texture and touchscreens. Where some see merging of big tech and creative as challenging, we’re seeing consecutive years of award-winning work that champion this marriage. To win—brand health, market performance, work you’re proud of—we need to revisit craft to help us experiment with this new depth of capability, with new ways of creating compelling narratives, and with delivering these stories in compelling ways. As we move into the next decade, creatives who only rely on tech as a means of distribution will leave powerful opportunities unaddressed. Brands and organisations must stop looking at data without an understanding of what’s behind it— people. In several sessions this week, thought-leaders espoused a level of intelligence we don’t often exercise nor reward in our profession, and that’s intuition. Empathy, leaders argued, is the crux of every great creative solution. Build this practice by integrating new qualitative language in your creative review: How did you react seeing this for the first time? How does it make you feel? What could make this experience better? This approach doesn’t mean a brand has to be serious—empathy and emotional connectivity can be driven by cheekiness or relevant humour too. Lead with Intuition and Empathy We often think of storytelling in terms of a beginning- middle-end narrative. This year, we understood how this paradigm is evolving to experiences—even those on a nuanced level—to communicate bites to consumers. Accessible tech and products, diversified e-commerce experiences, neuroaesthetics, and voice- activated AI are all proven examples of how brands and organisations can communicate outside of linear storytelling. Use concepts of macro-level experience to help consumers understand who your brand is and what your values are. Day to day, focus on micro- storytelling or indications that the brand is listening, supporting, or building room for consumers to create their own stories. Evolve the Narrative with Experience 14