Bethany Omeri’s Cannes Diary #1: A room of strategists and an unconvinced jury (on Jelly Tips, at least)
Bethany Omeri, Head of Strategy, Special New Zealand, is representing New Zealand on the Cannes Creative Strategy jury. As judging gets underway in Cannes, Omeri shares her insights from day one inside the jury room, exclusive to CB.
After many weeks scattered across the world, judging hundreds of entries alone on our laptops, today the Creative Strategy jurors arrive for day one: shortlisting day.
We are spending the day in a small windowless room. We have been considerately warned that the room’s arctic A/C will require winter dressing. However, Cannes is in throes of a heatwave here, so instead there is a nice glow in the room and I can unfortunately feel myself slowly sticking to my chair.
This jury group is uniquely made up of all strategists. You might wonder how far down the intellectual garden path we might go unsupervised. I think this is a fair accusation when you look at the work the brains in this room have instigated, like “Three Words” for AXA, “A Piece of Me” for KPN or “Lucky Yatra” for Indian Railways…the list goes on and on. But, with the exception of a brief comparison between what we’re doing and Celine Dion, we are disciplined, focused and decisive.
Prior to arriving, I was eager to see our combined long list ranking, wondering if we would be “on the same page”.
Very quickly, I discovered this is very much not the point. In fact, much of our discussion today has been about the value of being able to change others’ minds with your perspective and have your own changed by theirs.
Sometimes you won’t, as was the case with the Whittaker’s Jelly Tip I brought as a taste of New Zealand. It was unanimously disliked despite the cultural context I provided. However, Hokey Pokey has a few new converts.
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