Toby Pickford’s Cannes Diary #5

Toby Pickford, chief creative officer at Ogilvy Health is representing Australia on the Health & Wellness Lions jury at Cannes Health Lions. Pickford, along with most of the other Australian and NZ jurors writes exclusively for CB.

Meaningful Metal

Today we needed to gather all our findings and see if we have that cure.
From 1171 entries on Wednesday we now have 120 to select from.
This is the hard part as all are good but only a few have that special ingredient that can make it through and collect metal.

The mood has a definite serious tone today as we all know that we are making decisions that could make a huge difference on careers, brands and in the way the world views healthcare. Thankfully Shaheed Peera, our president, has been amazing at guiding us through some tricky discussions and keeping us on track.

So, it’s white coats on the hook and medals on the board. Tonight, we believe we have a cure for mediocre health communications. From detecting to empowering, we certainly have it all. The Cannes health & wellness and pharma awards are so important. Here is where we set the benchmark, the compass of where healthcare communications needs to go. But it’s not just pharma companies. The overall feeling is that all brands can make a stand and really make a difference to health through the power of creativity. And I hope that this year it will highlight that.

This is my last diary entry. So, I would just like to say it’s been a privilege to be judging at Cannes, thanks to all the guys back in Aus who are covering for me. It’s amazing to work in health and I really hope the winners that we have selected are the cure that will drive you to do better work in the future.

Au reviour from the health & wellness lab.