Judging by Cannes, industry excess is a weighty issue
The Age
Thursday June 18, 2009
EXCESS baggage is the blight of air travel. You know the problems: it costs you an arm and a leg, you have to join another queue, your partner shouts at you for buying too many books, and, if you are as heavy as I used to be, you worry each time you go to the airport that you will be charged extra just for being yourself.Robbo once had to pay the EB fee to get himself aboard a flight back from East Timor - he was a big boy on a small plane from the land of little people.Excess baggage is also a problem for big companies. Some have made excess baggage redundant by cutting out the travel itself.We are all trying to loose excess baggage - even the Government claims to be doing it. The Opposition did its bit earlier this week.In my case, I have lost 42 kilos of excess baggage, but more about that in another column when I know Wilcox, the cartoonist, is on holidays.But travel hasn't entirely come to a halt. Ten Australian advertising executives are jetting to Cannes this weekend to judge the Cannes Lions Awards. These are the industry's international awards to show how good you are at winning awards.The dilemma we all have, including Louise, who knows the name of every town in provincial France, is how do you pronounce it? Is it CARN, as in "Carn the Blues", which is what people say who still wear corduroy jackets and listen to Philip Adams on Radio National.The other camp pronounces it Cans, but we all know that they don't know what they are talking about.The media section judge from Australia is Henry Tajer of Universal McCann (not McCarn), who I think sees himself as a bit of a young lion. Tajer's company won an award last year for the campaign for Meat (carne in neighbouring Spain, of course) and Livestock. Henry must have thought that this would have brought home the bacon, but winning international awards doesn't always guarantee success in the real world - Tajer's company dropped 21 per cent in billings last year. No bull.With that in mind, the agencies of the world seem to have got the message that staying home is a good thing. Campaign submissions this year are down 20 per cent and delegates down 40 per cent. Traditional media categories took the biggest hits. Press entries are down 32 per cent, film entries dropped 25 per cent and outdoor entries are minus 23 per cent. Promotion and Design entries increased as advertisers put more weight into this type of work.The 10 Australian judges might look a bit conspicuous given the US advertising industry is 15 times bigger than us, but they have just 27 judges on the Riviera.Charlie has been predicting for a while that we are at the beginning of an upturn in the advertising business in Australia.So being away from the office chewing the fat on the French Riviera might not be such a good look to the clients back home. Louise thinks that my worrying about the judges in Cannes might be a bit of sour grapes. I have been invited a few times over the years but never thought I would look good in bathers alongside the industry big wigs - but if I keep shedding EB, who knows?Harold Mitchell is the executive chairman of Mitchell Communication Group.
© 2009 The Age
