Bethany Omeri’s Cannes Diary #2: What does it take to win a Cannes Lion?
Bethany Omeri, Head of Strategy, Special New Zealand, is representing New Zealand on the Cannes Creative Strategy jury. As deliberations continue into the night, Omeri shares her insights from day two inside the jury room, exclusive to CB.
What does it take to win a Cannes Lion?
This is my first time in the jury room, and before this experience, despite past wins, I don’t think I truly appreciated what an incredible achievement it is to medal at any level.
At lunch I ask our jury President, Sarah Lemairé how her own Grand Prix winner AXA ‘Three Words’ came to be. She tells me it died 10 times, and was resuscitated 11.
This is the perfect articulation of the resilience, robustness and stickiness required of an idea that is going to make it through the awarding process. It must be near bullet proof. It will have to fight for its life.
By midnight on day two, this team of strategists have pulled out the microscope, the magnifying glass, and our best arguments. People have quite literally flopped their heads on the desks and groaned in despair. Someone is sitting on the floor in the corner. The rubbish is overflowing. The smell in the room is what I imagine airport staff smell when they open long haul plane doors. The ideas that have made the final cut, have been through hell and back.
So, as I return to the question, ‘what does it take to win?’ the saying that keeps coming to mind is “he’s got that dog in him”. You’ll need that dog in you, to get that idea in the room. And that idea will need that dog in it, to stay alive. That’s the small mantra I’m taking home with me to apply to my own work.
Not today though, I’m off for a lie down.
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