Unlike the film festival, every morning so far has been an
early one. That being said, I also haven’t
partied that much at this festival, so it’s kind of an even tradeoff.
To start off our third day, my first talk was at 10:00AM in
the Lumiere Theatre. Titled “Woman and Cinema”, the panel was a
repeat from previous years moderated by Claudia Gonzalez Romo, the Special Adviser
and Chief of Global Advocacy with UNICEF.
This year, the talk consisted of Chairwoman and Global Chief Creative
Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi, Kate Stanners, Australian film director
Gillian Armstrong, and CEO of Peral & Dean, Kathryn Jacob, OBE.
The panel was insightful, with key quotes from Mrs.
Armstrong. “There is a feminine
perspective, and it’s not just feminine products,” she said, when it came to
advertising for women. The role of women
in advertising and creative film in general was emphasized as offering a more
accurate perspective as to how women view the world.
That being said, The
Beguiled was included on a reel of upcoming films of 2017 to watch. (It’s ironic because The Beguiled is the least feminist movie of 2017. Just saying.)
Overall, the talk was amazing, if a little dominated by Mrs.
Armstrong compared to the other speakers on the panel, but everything that was
said was relevant to the changing industry of Hollywood as it struggles to
become more diverse as a business.
Following this, I took a small break to view the work up for
awards this evening. Several pieces
stood out to me, including The Unusual
Football Field campaign for the AP Thailand Public Company, which focused
on innovative urban planning as a force of community building. I also took a moment to stop by the
innovation stage, where several presentations of new technologies and ideas
were being showcased at short, ten-minute pitches.
One of these pitches, for Project Bloks, was meant to be a coding training set for children,
but which could also be applicable to adults.
The technology itself was fascinating, opening doors for creative
thinking with new products and designs.
And what’s even more impressive is that the presentation was finished in
less than ten minutes.
Finally, it came time for me to go to the MM&M,
Campaign, and Haymarket cabana for a talk on the relevance of PR in the modern
age of advertising. It seems that PR is
more important than ever, especially as consumers are starting to demand more and
more transparency from large corporations.
Consumers want to be able to trust the people they buy from, but without
good PR relations, it’s much more difficult to build this relationship.
Furthermore, I learned a lot about how the film industry
plays a large role in advertising and branding.
Branded films and film festivals are providing more and more opportunities
for upcoming filmmakers to break into the industry. All it takes is a bit more work.
Following this talk, I attended a short session at the
Discovery Stage. Design Forward: Creating for the Future, hosted by Digital McKinley
Vice President of Experience Design, Mr. Indy Saha, focused on tips that drive
innovation forward in both advertising and technology. He focused on how startups need to look ahead
before the consumer does. While I agreed
with a lot of his main points, some of the details and small biases that he
chose to represent made me uncomfortable.
I left the talk but informed, but also wanting to argue with him for a
further twenty minutes about the value of consumer privacy and trust.
As I said, PR is more important than ever, and not all entrepreneurs
understand that.
Despite the Demi Lovato talk happening, and the New Yorker
talk that followed, I decided to go to The Workshop for a new presentation on
Social Innovation. This workshop focused
on innovation to inspire social change for issues around the world, and how to
start it up yourself. Consider that I
work in Queer activism and health activism at UGA, it felt appropriate for me,
especially as our groups attempt to come up with new ideas for fundraising and
raising awareness.
In our workshop, my group focused on domestic violence. A study a few years ago showed that,
following sporting events, regardless of the outcome, the quantity of domestic
violence reports increased. We decided to use this statistic to send a message
to the abusers: find healthy, alternative outlets for excess energy. Our solution was to deliver a physical app
that allowed users to utilize augmented reality to play the sports they had
just viewed.
The workshop was fairly distracted, considering that the
majority of my table had to leave early for other talks, but I was still inspired
and impressed by the overall message of the workshop, which emphasized
simplicity in innovation.
My last talk of the day was titled Daughters of the Evolution.
Hosted by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, with specific host being
author and filmmaker Lauren Greenfield, the daughters of amazing women in the advertising
industry came on stage with their mothers to discuss. Sophie Lefebure, daughter of Pum Lefebure of
Design Army, Kia Medlock, daughter of the CCO of Leo Burnett in North America,
CEO in Canada Judy John, and Vivian McHugh, daughter Margaret Johnson of Goodby
Silverstein, were all present to talk about how their mothers’ work has
affected their lives, and how it’s affected their stances in life as young
women themselves.
The talk became a discussion on parenthood; how do we have
families and also pursue our careers? Is
it worth it? Despite the doubts that
each of the mothers admitted to, the answer was a resounding “yes”. I found myself more connected with this talk than
with any of the others today, because it reminded me of my own mother. My relationship with her is the strongest one
in my life, and even though I’m not a woman, she has inspired me to still be
strong for myself and stand for my own identity, both in gender neutrality and
in race.
To finish off the night, what better way than with the awards
show? Big winners of course included “Meet
Graham” and “Pass the Heinz” campaigns, but there were two other campaigns that
I was a little surprised by. For one, I
was surprised that “The Trafficking Exam” had received a bronze lion for
outdoor. For a campaign that is so
wrapped in secrecy due to necessity, what kind of outdoor advertising has there
been?
Secondly, I wasn’t necessarily surprised, but more resigned
to see “Fearless Girl” win the Grand Prix for both outdoor and the Glass
Lions. It’s not that I don’t like the
campaign; I love it and I think it’s brilliant.
To be one of only six statues dedicated to women in the entire city of
New York is as frustratingly sad as it is remarkable, and the campaign itself
has had a global impact.
I just wish that it didn’t erase a message of the immigrant
narrative in consequence, especially in this political climate. Immigration is already under fire. To make our story (I am a second generation)
more invisible in favor of relatively first-world feminism just seems to be a setback. Not only for the relevance of immigration to
America, but also for the world of guerilla art. To be completely fair, I still believe that
Fearless Girl is essential to the message of feminism in America (of which I consider
myself to be a part). However, it’s
important to look back and see, in hindsight, the unintentional consequences
that marketing can make to campaigns and symbols that are equally as important.
That being said, we don’t want to talk about politics while
in France. So instead, I got a giant steakburger
and milkshake from Steak n’ Shake, and we all decided to call it a night.
