Photograph by ©Nikola Krtolica used with kind permission of http://nikola-photographe.com
Last week, I was kindly invited by Cristal Festival to give a keynote presentation about VR & AR, in which I:
- Explored the ways in which these new technologies enable brands to communicate with consumers in new exciting and immersive ways.
- Shared with the audience some projects Happy Finish has created, with our clients and partners, throughout 2015.
- Discussed how VR is already maturing, developing its own storytelling and narrative styles.
- Looked at the impressive cost savings and ROI stats that brands can enjoy with VR solutions and campaigns.
It was my third Cristal Festival and Awards in five years and the event seems to go from strength to strength. Courchevel is an incredible location for this international festival where communication, advertising and creative worlds merge. The people behind the scenes, General Manager, Christian Cappe and his wonderful team, host a diverse programme of speakers, dinners, awards and parties. It’s a great opportunity to meet really interesting people and also to get insights about what is coming next in the world of advertising and media.
I wanted to share my takeaways. These are the five things that have caught my eye at Cristal:
1. Advertising is getting human
I was impressed with Samsung’s “The Last Wish Campaign”. They developed an app on their devices to help people suffering Alzheimer. Simply put, when a relative gets closer the application on their smartphone would be triggered and show life history pictures to stimulate their memory. This campaign got Cheil Worldwide an Emerald (Bronze Award).
2. Socially driven campaigns can change a country
Leo Burnett’s Beirut campaign Keep the Flame alive managed to have a great impact in Lebanon. In a context where deep pessimistic views were leading the country, Johnnie Walker wanted to drive a shift. Using their own slogan under the clever hashtag #keeplebanonwalking they communicated that “A Nation’s biggest failure is when it forgets what it is capable of” and encouraged the community spirit as you can see in the video below.
3. How powerful good communication is
KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation, a feminist, secular, Lebanese, non-profit, non-governmental civil society organization, has been fighting hard to eradicate violence against women in their country. See the video below to find out how powerful their socially driven campaign was.
4. Philanthropy is a powerful ingredient in the engagement recipe
Orange Paris “Relock Love” campaign is an example of how new horizons expand as an alternative to traditional advertising. They photographed every single padlock in Ponts des Arts in Paris, which were removed last June due to structural weakening of the bridge, and rebuilt them in CG. Then, they created a website where you could search through the bridge and eventually find yours. Cute, right?
5. I’ve also learnt one more thing or two about millennials
In 2015 The Top 4 messaging Apps overtook the Top 4 Social Media networks, in numbers of users. There are now 2.1+ Billion users of messaging apps. Feeligo shared some interesting insights backed up on data that showed how millennials use messenger apps way more than social media.
Their conclusion is that this saint grail of advertising age group “don’t search, they discover”. And a great way for brands to be ‘discovered’ is through the use of emojis or stickers. In an age of blocked banners and ignored promotional videos, Disney Pixar recently did this brilliantly using stickers of the characters from their recent smash film, ‘Inside Out’, which has the advantageous benefit, that each character in the film represents and emotion!
In a nutshell, I have seen amazing socially driven ethical campaigns that engage with audiences and make them more loyal. Brands are driving away from traditional marketing and trying to give back to society a little bit of what society has given them creating beautiful and moving campaigns that awake our human side and that ultimately, generate amazing results for the brands that invest on making them. Attending Cristal Festival has been a truly inspiring experience, I’m looking forward to coming back next year and, on top of enjoying all the advertising buzz, I’ll maybe book some extra days to enjoy the amazing French Alps!
