Laura Randall is the creative lead at Sid Lee London, the specialist sport and sponsorship office within the Sid Lee collective.
Top Tips for Cannes
Here we go again. The Cannes hype. I’ve struggled to pull my favourites together this year. It feels like sports advertising is having an identity crisis. There’s a lot to fight for, and a lot to be excited about. But we’re in a tonal shift as creatives move away from purpose-led ideas and towards pure entertainment. I think it’s taken us somewhere meaningless. The sweet spot has got to be somewhere in the middle.
So, with that in mind, here are my top picks for Entertainment Lions for Sport:
JD Sports – The Bag For Life
Is it still cool to talk about this campaign? Or Christmas? It may be half a year old but surely this is going to clean up at Cannes this year. It hit every check box for entertaining creative: culturally led, with a genuine insight, insane cameos, killer soundtrack and authentic storytelling. It’s not using loud, brash and bombastic tropes to get noticed and be cool. It’s just a beautiful piece of film that iconifies British youth culture.
Sky Sports – New Balls Please
I can just imagine the creatives as they thought this up. It’d be like recreating the Guinness Surfers ad. Paying homage to one of the most iconic ads and seeing that San Fran hill covered in fuzzy balls would be a huge point in your career. You’d be bouncing off the walls with excitement (I’m a copywriter, let me pun). It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s entertaining. It’s a perfect example of creative that doesn’t have to take itself seriously in order to be taken seriously. I must admit though, I didn’t get the OOH as a stand alone visual, until I saw the ad.
This could so easily have been a yawn-fest with eye-rolling scenes of female empowerment. But it’s not, and I’m so pleased. The soundtrack, the emotion, the line “You bring the grit, we bring the stuff” is just really nice. So not try hard. So not yawn-y.
Lidl – We’re On Your Team
This is a lovely thing from Lidl (and not just because my colleagues worked on it). Player escorts at the Euros would be a seriously cool gig and Lidl offered it up to all football-mad kids before the tournament. I love the film concept of showing broken but committed parents dealing with their kid’s insufferable obsession for the game, then Lidl offering up the ultimate experience. Anything that fuels a love for sport from a young age is a winner for me.
