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WARC’s words of wisdom from (partly) befuddled adfolk

Ad Effectiveness specialist WARC had a day at Cannes with three sessions and here are some of the speaker quotes it’s highlighted.

Lessons from the World’s Best Campaigns

“Think inside the box. There’s a tendency to go into a far bigger topic than what your brand can own” – Rajat Mendhi, EVP planning BBDO India.

“Context is more important to people than advertising. We realised there was something far more important to women in urban India than removing stains from their clothes. There was a purpose to remove the cultural stain of gender inequality” – Josy Paul chairman & CCO, BBDO India on Ariel ‘Share The Load’ campaign (above) ranked #1 in WARC100’s best performing ads.

(Hang on Josy, isn’t this thinking outside the box?)

“Despite changes, perceptions are hard to change” – Eric Zuncic CSO, CP+B.

Is the creative industry losing its ability to sell stuff?

“We live in an age when people are trying to define themselves with personality and personality alone” – Malcolm Poynton Global CCO Cheil

“Purpose is a good thing but it doesn’t have to be the essence of what your brand projects” – David Kolbusz CCO Droga5 London.

“I don’t think creativity has ever been more necessary than now”…”Everything’s fragmenting so people and brands are grasping for some cultural relevance” Nigel Hollis EVP & chief global analyst Kantar Millward Brown.

How to be a smart targeter

“Targeting is like salt in cooking – a little helps, too much ruins things” – Associate prof. Rachel Kennedy, associate director (Special Projects), The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.

The Future of Strategy

“People are paying money to avoid what we spend our lives doing. Planners need to have a bigger role to play in building brands that people want” … “Human relationships are rich, messy and demanding. This drives consultants mad” – Lucy Jameson former CEO Grey London.

“Not having humans involved in data is really dangerous” – Suzanne Powers, global CSO McCann Erickson

“We have to be careful not to optimise ourselves into a non-optimal position” – Sue Unerman, chief transformation officer, MediaCom.

(Explain please Sue).

The famous screenwriter (Butch Cassidy etc) once observed of Hollywood: “Nobody knows anything…… Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.”

Maybe Bill could save everybody a lot of time.

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