Goafest 2014: MEC's Melanie Varley shows what it takes to crack Cannes

MEC's Global Chief Strategy Officer shared her insights on “winnability” based on her experience of judging Cannes Lion entries on Day 2 of Goafest 2014

Sohini Sen | Goa | June 2, 2014

May 30, Day 2 of Goafest 2014, witnessed one of the most interesting Knowledge Seminars in advertising. Melanie Varley, Chief Strategy Officer, Global, at MEC, took to the podium on Friday afternoon to share her insights on what works and what doesn't at the biggest ad awards in the world, the Cannes Lion.

With 12,000 attendees from 94 countries coming to attend Cannes Lions, it is surely the biggest ad festival. This year the awards will recognise and award the best of the best in 17 creative categories – including mobile, PR, Radio, Titanium, etc. Even the media entries invite a lot of attention as more than 70 countries participate. Varley shared her experience as a juror for Media Lions at the Cannes Lions 2013.

Melanie Varley

According to Varley, most of the entries at Cannes are a collaborative effort. “This does not mean they are integrated, but rather that they are done with the help of creative directors, ideators and different specialists all working together,” she said.

Varley said that while judging around 1,000 entries, she realised that certain aspects stood out. The campaigns she chose had “one or more of the underlying themes of being inspiring, human, unexpected, transformative, experiential, unique, connected, integrated, scalable, ownable and measurable”.

“Maybe some of these worked for some categories and some did not. But the pieces I liked the most were all emotional and human, showing values that we would want to experience,” she said.

The best works were seen in the integrated human stories. She explained with the help of a Cannes Grand Prix winner for Netherlands' Dela. The example showed how the campaign had encouraged people to reach out to their dear ones to say what they usually do not say.

The next example was for a beer brand – Heineken. Taking the popular song Feliz Navidad from Puerto Rico, they decided to crowd-source the next few lines. As an end result, the world's longest Christmas themed song was written, recorded and played over the radio.

Brands, according to Varley, are also looking to do good work. The campaign for P&G's Safe Guard showed a group of schoolchildren getting germ stamps (or ink stamps shaped like a toon germ) on their hand. This served as a reminder to the kids to wash their hands with soap.

Varley also pointed out the strengths of social media usage with examples from various campaigns. One of them, the Oreo campaign, won a Grand Prix at Cannes. The 100-year-old brand was relaunched with different everyday ideas that made them stand out in the clutter.

Coca-Cola's 'small world machines' which used augmented reality to bring India and Pakistan to the same stage, was a great example of how technology is changing solutions for brands.

The session, along with being informative, was extremely engaging as she used several examples and showed how and why they worked at Cannes.

Some of the campaigns she highlighted to support her analysis are reproduced below:

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