Kristal Knight’s Cannes Diary #2

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Kristal Knight’s Cannes Diary #2

Kristal Knight, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi is representing New Zealand on the Cannes Direct Lions. Knight, along with most of the other NZ and Australian jurors writes exclusively for CB.

 

Everyone has arrived in Cannes now, and the festival is suddenly in full swing. People are enjoying sunshine and rose and Spotify gigs on the Croisette.

We are drinking Nespresso in a windowless room listening to case study music. If you ever doubted the impact music has on a jury, you should know that we are currently compiling a Direct Case Study Playlist on Spotify. These songs have been in our heads for the last 3 days, and will probably stay there forever.

The shortlist came out this morning. Yesterday was a tough but rewarding day of shaking out and tightening up the final list of work that makes it into today’s metal discussions. This is where we got tough – on creativity, on results, on directness, and on whether it perpetuates objectification of women (or men…) gender stereotypes or racism. This last discussion was one of the most important. Disconcertingly, there is still work being made that does perpetuate those things, so it felt good to be able to unanimously take a stand, and drop that work.

We were also each able to nominate a piece of work that had slipped through the prejudging to be brought back for consideration. Some really wonderful ideas were rescued yesterday, so we’re all feeling good now that the work that truly deserves to be on the shortlist is there.

Today we will decide which pieces of work will move up to the legendary status of Lion Winners, and who will be ordering champagne on Wednesday night. We’ve finally made it to the really exciting bit…

Kristal Knight’s Cannes Diary #2