This was the topic of some of the discussion at the recent Creative Circle Full Circle in Cape Town - the first time this event was held in the Mother City.

The sold-out event treated the audience to the valuable business insights from some of the best creatives in the country, and who served as jurors at this year’s Cannes Lions.

They included keynote speaker, Ann Nurock, Africa partner of Relationship Audits and trend insight expert, Camilla Clerke, executive creative director, Ogilvy South Africa and Outdoor judge, Jacqui Mullany, executive creative director, FCB Africa and Digital Craft judge and Keith Manning, executive creative director, TBWA Hunt Lascaris JHB and Direct Lions judge.

They quoted some of the winning brands from Heinz, Coca-Cola, Dramamine to Coors.

#Cannes2024: Insights on some of the world's best creative work

Danette Breitenbach  1 day

What does this mean

For South Africans heading into a phase of economic recovery, nation-building or nation-rebuilding will involve deploying every tool we have at our disposal.

Creativity is a powerful tool.

How to use our creative resources to ensure it is our SA brands that are among the world's best-loved, admired and most importantly valuable brands, was the general theme of the Full Circles sessions.

Nurock says we need to keep in mind that the brands that win at Cannes are some of the world’s most valuable, loved and admired brands.

Disregarding this inevitable ongoing debate around whether industry awards are even important, there is still much we can learn from the principles and approach to the award-winning thinking, imperative to business success and growth in our region.

The world’s best practice case studies can teach us a lot about harnessing this excellence for reputation, growth and job creation.

Image by Terry Levin. (L to r:) Keith Manning, executive creative director, TBWA Hunt Lascaris JHB and Direct Lions judge, keynote speaker, Ann Nurock, Africa partner of Relationship Audits and trend insight expert, Carl Willoughby, chair of the Creative Circle and the chief creative officer of TBWA/ Hunt / Lascaris, Camilla Clerke, executive creative director, Ogilvy South Africa and Outdoor judge and Jacqui Mullany, executive creative director, FCB Africa and Digital Craft judge

An emotional connection

There are an infinite number of ways in which brands can play meaningful roles in consumers' lives, from influencing societal problems or just changing the game in dull categories such as pharmaceutical, food and beverages, as we have seen repeatedly by award-winning brands such as Heinz Coca-Cola, Dramamine, Coors and so on.

Manning and indeed all the speakers had hit home that to overcome consumer indifference creative solutions should make an emotional connection - this may be by being involved, breakthrough in a category, touching, humorous or unexpected.

Unexpected and involved in the extreme is the award-winning Burger King Brazil, Bald Thru campaign.

It clearly demonstrates how breakthrough thinking in a category results.

Sure the idea is ingenious - linking from male pattern baldness to drive-through takeaway (go-figure), but as Manning points out, what impresses most is the client’s commitment to fully support the idea - to ensure the necessary organisational buy-in that will give the idea full traction is when client support, commitment and yes love, for their brands, really shows.

Manning’s advice: Find an agency that is "obsessed over your brand” adding how South Africa as a region should “be out there killing it, because we have the capability".

“You've got to make people feel something,” he says.

Cannes Outdoor jury member Clerke agrees.

“You've got to make people feel something. Make people angry. Make them sad. Make them happy. Just elicit a feeling, a reaction, something memorable,” she says.

One way to evaluate award-winning entries, says Clerke is whether the message connects emotionally with people.

“Another, of course, is whether it solves real business problems. Both and you’re in with a real chance.”

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Clerke backed this up with the stat that in the attention economy, we are exposed to something like 6,000 - 10,000 ads a day, meaning it has never been more imperative for brands to make people feel something - make them angry, make them sad, make them feel involved, interested, empowered and to find points of connection to do so, otherwise the ideas are worthless.

A stand-out case study from Heineken, solving the problem of historic Irish pubs that have survived for hundreds of years being forced to close due to financial difficulties, by turning them into museums, officially recognised as part of Ireland’s cultural heritage.

AR was used to enable visitors to access historical information about each venue via their phones, ensuring public funding for pubs.

A great example of a brand taking full commitment to be relevant in culture and society.

Mullany shared a case study which may resonate with us as multilingual South Africans.

Amidst an array of amazing digital case studies, one worth noting in the South African or even African context is that of the German federal president's Christmas address.

Germany, as the intro goes, is a diverse, multilingual country, home to 24,000,000 people with a migrant background, but for 100 years the president’s Christmas address has traditionally been broadcast in just one language.

To honor the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Day address, AI was engaged to deliver th president’s speech in the 12 most spoken languages of Germany at the same time via a real-time simultaneous translation, making Frank Walter Steinmeier the first politician in the world to deliver a speech in several languages at the same time.

What brands could make use of this kind of thinking and technology to help a country of 13 official languages understand each other better?

Humour, creativity and craft connect us

Nurock showed a case study in the Luxury and Lifestyle Lions.

In the campaign, Spanish fashion brand Loewe collaborated with a Japanese ceramic company, Suna Fujita to create a new range of apparel and accessories and in so doing a whole new way of interfacing with their brand.

I immediately thought of our untapped creative resources, such as Ardmore ceramics and the myriad of purveyors of fine crafts at which we in South Africa excel, available for collaborations with brands for promotion, global acclaim and important new revenue streams - which at the end of the day is the real point of any advertising or marketing.

To be a breakthrough, we might ask if we are looking for concepts such as humour, human truths, empathy and common causes - in all the wrong places.

Historically great and memorable ad campaigns such as the BMW Mouse and IBM’s Elephants did not directly show the product but used metaphor to capture and convey concepts.

Humour is another way to connect with consumers.

“And with humour making a comeback worldwide, and South Africans are funny, we're always laughing and having fun. But as soon as we get into the boardroom, we become hyper-analytical and over analyse everything and we're not having as much fun as we should,” says Manning.

The last word from Cannes

The last word from Cannes comes from Carl Willoughby, chair of the Creative Circle and the chief creative officer of TBWA/Hunt / Lascaris - the only agency that won at Cannes this year.

He says as South Africans we need to be doing different things.

“For example the insight that South Africa is very good at doing film, is a potential problem, causing us to do the same stuff year on year and which is potentially one of the biggest reasons for why we're not converting at awards shows”.

He adds that culture shapes advertising and marketing and the two coexist.

“We're in a place now in South Africa where we are poised for change in a good way. It will be great if we can lean into our unique South Africanness, not the same old stuff, to help shape our identity as advertisers," says Willoughby.

So, in conclusion, yes, we can learn from Loewe, from other brands embedded and relevant in their culture, like Heineken and the German Federal President that we don't have to feel the need to solve the world’s problems, we just need to use our talents to connect, to inspire, bring humanity and joy and to be custodians of the brands we are entrusted with.