Emily Bull’s Cannes Diary #1

Emily Bull (pictured), co-founder and managing director at Hellofuture.TV is representing Australia on the Cannes Entertainment Lions jury. Bull, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors writes exclusively for CB.

After 31 hours of flying, Pablo and I arrived in sunny Cannes with an afternoon to ourselves. After an hour rambling my tummy (and heart) is now filled with fromage and ready for a week of judging.

The prejudging has been epic for Entertainment, with some entries around the 190min mark! The Entertainment jury is the largest jury – numbering 16 in all, and there’s a divide and conquer strategy that will be happening so we can get through the vast quantity of work.

I’m looking forward to having the usual debates about what classifies entertainment, and when is something just product placement, but having had a catch-up with the judges and our esteemed jury president Scott Donaton of Digitas Global last night we’ll be looking for the Nirvana of branded entertainment. The marrying of true entertainment with a branded idea that deepens both the audiences engagement and their connection to brand. We’ll be looking for killer stories, top-shelf production values and a supporting distribution strategy.

We have an 8am start this morning and I can’t wait to get cracking!