This is not 'Comedians in cars getting coffee' (from Netflix). And we’re no comedians. But this interview with Kris Hoet - Global Chief Innovation Officer FCB - might as well have worked like that, in a classic car type of ride. Because we do like Jerry Seinfeld. And we do like Kris. And he does collect classic cars. So, you do the math.
We could have talked about the digital communication industry, instead of comedy, but don’t worry, it would still have had something to do with impressing an audience. The formula would still be based on an insight, a concept, an interesting delivery and a punch line. It’s just that we would have measure the results in creative efficiency, not in laughs. Kris was the jury president at the 20th Internetics edition and we wanted to chat a bit about the experience.
We didn’t have the interview as described though, but then again, neither did Kris and his jury members shared any coffee breaks, as they would normally do. Let’s blame it on the pandemic, shall we? Still, we had the interview on Zoom. And we spoke about the festival and the digital industry. About cost-effective creativity, innovation processes and consumer behaviour changes. And if you're waiting for a punchline, there isn't one. But let's all remember to try and see the beauty that the other see. In everything.
The Romanian digital industry
I think more than any other market that I worked with or worked in, there is an incredible manifestation of local pride that translates into the works, even if we talk about local brands, like Rom or Rompetrol or, let`s say, Playstation, Lidl, Burger King and so on. The campaigns that did well and the jury was excited about often expressed solid local pride. And that seems to be definetely higher than, I`d say, what you see across other countries. It`s definetely bigger than I`ve noticed in my own country, in Belgium.
I`ve been in Romania a few times, I did a few talks there, so the notion of local pride from brands like Rom is not new - they have also had some international recognition on some of the work that they have done in the past. But the fact that it translated also into global brands, that was new.
Otherwise, we are all trying to figure out the same new media channels: you see the same exploration in Tik Tok, you see similar inspiration from big global breakthrough campaigns, that typycally inspires work all over the world.
Cost-effective creativity
In Romania, there is a little bit more of hesitation around what is possible with smaller budgets, with which I don`t necessarily agree. I think Belgium is also, in a way, a small market – where I used to work – and even if it compounds differences, the fact that we have to work with small budgets, in 2 languages, made us more creative. You just look harder for solutions.
Yes, I love working with more money, but less money isn`t necessarily bad, especially for creativity or in finding interesting ways in doing things. And I think if you look at some of the winning examples, like the Playstation video, it`s a global rollout, while you still have the opportunity to make a locally relevant adaptation, whick likely didn`t cost that much money, because it is choir and video, put online. And if you have money for media, put it against it, but it`s not a super complicated hi-tech or high investment sort of campaign.
The works
I think the winning work was even better than I expected it to be. If you look at awards juries in country by country, you often get into a situation where the work is judged versus the country benchmark - you see it in Belgium, you see it in Netherlands, you see it everywhere.
I don`t think that`s right, I think you need to try to be the best wherever and so the notion of that is good for France or for Belgium standards, for instance, is a silly statement and seeing the best work that is celebrated and is worthy of being celebrated at an international level was definetely really nice. And something that everybody should be proud of, I think.
Personal judging criteria
I`d like to get the idea to speak to me. You want to get a warm feeling of the idea, something that makes you smile or get emotions triggered. Because of the jury and how the categories are made, you wanna question if the idea that you like is the one you need to look at? That’s always very different.
So you can see an idea that you like a lot, but you need to judge it as part of the branded content piece. So is it the just that part that you like or is it the whole thing? And once you`ve done that, you look at it and you believe that the results are what they should have been.
But I will always first see a presentation and see if I get to like the idea, which especially in foreign languages, if it ties into a really local habit, is hard to understand it and then it`s harder to judge, because I want to feel an emotion with the idea. If I don`t feel it, it`s almost impossible to judge, that needs to come first.
Interacting with the jury members
When I preside over a jury or in my experience as a jury member, where I had the best experience, it was always the situation when we tried to spend a little bit of time outside of the jury room, just to get to know each other, because it makes for more respectful conversations on work.
I think overall we were able to judge work over Zoom really well, but the time outside the jury room was pretty much impossible to do. We were already up to 7 hours a day with each jury on a Zoom call, with maybe a 15 minute break, not more, only looking at the work. We had everybody introducing themselves, but ideally there is some time in getting to know people before, during or after.
The second thing I do is making sure everybody understands that I am not judging. Even when the votes are equal, I like to solve that more through discussion rather than making it my vote, so the introduction would everytime be around how we need to do an effort and try to understand what excited the person that made it. Sometimes it's obvious, but sometimes it can be a little bit harder.
It's like trying to see the fascination of the other person, but at the same time we still need to be ferm and fair. We still need to be severe, this is a jury`s work, we celebrate the best of the best. It`s sort of a balancing effort, because we don`t only get logical and tactical with numbers, but also try to see the beauty that the other saw.
The global digital market now
There are a few interesting observations – obviously, we see a general transformation of human behaviour and it is more and more clear that a lot of this new behaviour is here to stay and a lot of this behaviour means using more digital, more actively.
Commerce is the good exemple. With stores closed, people shop online and maybe do car pick-up or home delivery. You may have been critical and told yourself you were not doing it, but now you have to do it. But there`s a big question: if you experience it and you like it, why would you go back, right?
We see an interesting evolution in the fact that we do not want to touch things other people have touched, but one very important component is money. So we have the idea of going cashless or doing contacless payments even between friends, not just in the stores.
In the media space, spending more time at home means for many people spending time in front of the tv, computer and game consouls or streaming services, so we see people opting for a digital entertainment versus other types of entertainment or culture, as cultural events are still closed.
I am not sure how much of that is going to stay, because the traditional culture, as in classic events, concerts, going out for a beer is definetely something that is going to come back and will take their place again.
In terms of creativity, I must say that I think everybody is a little more conservative in their ideas. You see very little innovative ideas or really great creative platforms at the moment, so nobody is putting their foot out and try new things - very few brands are doing it. And I kind of understand it, because of the pandemic, but at the same time, the opportunity for creativity is bigger than ever before and this is the right time to stand out.
Trends updates
We did a trend track in January, when we actually had 12 macrotrends and then it was an update in July. I don`t think any of the macrotrends really changed – but there are some specific ones that changed, like the in-store new type of experience, involving touch screens – well, that is out of discussion, forget about that.
But the trends are also about new payment methods, a cashless society, which is definetely getting a boost. We are also talking about a boost in wellness, all together. It is probably getting a boost of importance because people are staying too much time at home, in front of their screens, with too little personal contact. There is also a thing on inclusion and diversity that becomes more important in a polarised world. Yet, I don`t think that any of the macrotrends is gone.
Innovation processes
I`ve definteley seen a slow down in innovation, in general. Partly because the first phase of the pandemic for brands was to get their act together to see what it meant for them and if people can still go to work and buy their stuff, etc. It wasn`t necessarily, for a moment, to try up new things. And on top of it, a lot of budgets got cut and the budgets for experimentation and innovation were alaso victims of that.
I surely noticed less innovation projects going on. I hope they will come back soon, because I think it is a great time to innovate. It`s a little bit of a double story, because we see a lot of forced transformations, so we witness new things happening, but more because they have to. Everybody uses Teams and Zoom, even though it was hard to convince them to do so two years ago... But innovation beyond what`s necessary? I don`t really see it.
Measures in your agency
I think the first thing we do is making sure that everybody is safe, meaning not only they can stay healhy, but also being able to work in a safe environment and make sure that as a group we can still produce things for the client.
We got some positive reactions from some of our biggest clients in the USA, saying that it is incredible how we have been able to change our production and still get things in the air for them. There are situations when there are a few people in the office and some where there is nobody in the office.
There are a lot of people working from home, from their home, but there are also people that, because of the working from home, move, travel the world – combine these things. Even when the pandemic will be over, we will never go back to the situation where everybody is in the office from 9 to 5. That situation is forever over. I am really sure that what people expect in the future when they look for a job is being able to work from home at least partly. That will be part of the demand.
