 For those who have yet to experience it, the annual Cannes Lions Festival is a spectacle to behold, with thousands upon thousands of ad industry people congregating on the French Riviera for an entire week of craziness. For most, the festival is an opportunity to celebrate the best of the best work from around the world, as well as a chance to schmooze on a global scale. For a select few, Cannes is a time to cross your fingers and hope your carry-on luggage is several pounds heavier on your return flight, with no chance of passing through an airport metal detector. And for some, Cannes is a time to get completely blotto, wind up in a hot tub, and pass out in a rather contorted position.
Heidi Ehlers, founder of Black Bag Cannes is also a wonderful time to take an introspective look at ones own career. Many of the people you meet here one year are working in different position or at a different agency when you meet them again a year later. It can often make you wonder if your own career path is as going as planned… if indeed you have a plan. Didn’t you say you’d have a few Gold Lions before you hit thirty? Didn’t you have hopes of challenging yourself on the other side of the globe? How is everybody else succeeding in doing what he or she wants? What are they doing that you could be doing too? Heidi Ehlers, founder of BLACK BAG Talent Attraction + Acquisition, one of ihaveanidea’s oldest –and newest – supporters, has challenged creatives and agencies to look at their own directions by showcasing the career decisions of our industry’s brightest stars in her Diary of Creative Director series. In the past she has highlighted the careers of such luminaries as David Droga and Lee Garfinkel. This year in Cannes, Heidi planned the biggest Diary to date, a live sit-down with three of the top creative directors on the planet: Tony Granger, Chief Creative Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi New York; Marcello Serpa, CEO and Creative Director of Almap/BBDO, Sao Paulo; and Erik Vervroegen, President and Executive Creative Director of TBWA\Paris.
Heidi, Tony, Marcello and Erik, discussing their careers. The event was held at the expansive Debussy Theatre in the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès and was free and open to all Festival delegates. Even so, there were a few anxious questions the morning of the event. Was there enough interest in having a panel of this calibre onstage? Were people getting the black promotional wristbands that we at ihaveanidea suggested be distributed at the festival? Was noon too early of a timeslot for hard partying ad people to be able to attend? We quickly learned that we didn’t need to worry, as the theatre filled to near capacity in a very short time span, with people from around the world, all eager to hear what these superstars had to say.
We three kings: Marcello, Tony and Erik informally chatting with the press. Since the purpose of Diary of a Creative Director is to examine the career choices and paths of best of the best, it only made sense that Heidi started at the beginning, asking the panel how they landed their first jobs in advertising. Marcello told a funny story of deception. “Yes, I had to lie to get a job,” he sheepishly replied. “I was studying in Germany, and there was this very famous agency in Munich. I knew they had hired some graphic designer to as a mechanical artist, so I called the agency, and the guy asked me ‘can you do mechanicals?’ I said ‘of course I can,’ my first lie. So I started doing the mechanicals for a very small newspaper ad. That single ad took me about nine hours. He came to me the next day and said ‘you’re still doing this ad? You lied.’ I said ‘of course I lied, it was the only way for me to get in!’ He kept me on the job, only now I also had to get him sandwiches.”
The concept of setting goals for oneself in order to be successful was discussed, and surprisingly the panel was quite divided on this issue. Tony stressed the importance of having quantifiable goals in his personal and professional life. “I have a list of goals on my computer. I have one year goals, three year goals, five year goals, ten year goals, and I read this list most mornings as I figure out what I need to do, where I need to go and what I need to achieve. As I mark them off, I add new goals. If you have very defined goals and a very defined mission, then everything you do has meaning. Every decision you make, every person you employ, every idea you create has meaning. When a ship leaves a port, it has to have a destination.” Conversely, Marcello doesn’t believe in laying out a litany of goals. “I remember as a teenager, I had a vision of myself at age 85, sitting in a rocking chair, looking out over the ocean and smiling. That’s the only goal I’ve had, to be very happy at the end of things.”  Tony Granger, clarifying a point with the media. The discussion covered a multitude of topics over the allotted hour, from reasons why Tony and Erik left certain agencies to start at new ones, to the importance of money in their careers (if you thought they’d all be saying “oh, money isn’t important” you’d be mistaken) to knowing when to concede to a bigger, better idea. As the event drew to a close, the final discussion point inquired what it took to be a great leader. Erik, easily the most soft-spoken of the trio, said a great leader is someone with ability to make those around him better. “I can’t promise anything more than trying to make you a better creative person. I’m not there to be your dad, or even to be your friend, I’m there because I want to make you a better creative person than you are now. If you can do that as a leader, then everything else will follow.”
So after months of planning, days of fine-tuning, and even the revelation that this event would mark the first time that Marcello and Erik had even met, BLACK BAG’s Diary of a Creative Director: Cannes Edition was a tremendous success. Will it make young creatives (and older ones too) take a moment to consider the direction of their own careers? Time will only tell, but I will say this: getting a full house to attend an event taking place while many still nurse their Gutter Bar hangovers means there are a lot of people out there eager to learn from the best. di Brett McKenzie Fonte: http://www.ihaveanidea.org |
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