Au revoir Cannes. Bonjour Paris.

My time in Cannes came to an end. The four days were hectic, enjoyable, inspirational and career-defining in more ways than one.

Brian Langerfield, CD of Wunderman Toronto, happened to also be travelling to Paris for the weekend, so we decided to travel together.

And then we couldn't get out.

We heard that there may be issues with the trains due to a strike. After hauling our luggage to the SNCF train station we discovered the rumour was true. All trains had been cancelled until Tuesday, so we returned to the Hotel Gray d'Albion.

We jumped online to buy EasyJet tickets from Nice to Paris. The site appeared to be inundated with activity and was chugging, so I called my wife in Australia and had her purchase our tickets online and email me the confirmation. Done.

Since our flight was scheduled to depart in 8 hours, we took in some of Cannes' sights. After some final beers on the beach, we collected our bags from the hotel and took a cab to Nice airport.

Then all hell broke loose.

While we had been relaxing on the beach, the air traffic controllers also decided to go on strike. All flights had been cancelled until Tuesday. Hundreds of travellers were stranded and screaming for a refund. Then they realised the bigger issue. With all the inbound flights bringing travellers into Nice and Cannes earlier in the day, hotels were at capacity and many people would be without a place to sleep for four days.

While Brian waited in the queue of hundreds to find out how we claim our refund, I raced down to the arrivals terminal to book a hire car. Avis and Europcar were both closed having booked out all their vehicles already. I joined the queue for Hertz just before the masses arrived to do the same thing.

In the queue, I overheard the gentleman in front of me on his mobile phone saying he had to get back to London and the only way was to take the Chunnel train, but first he had to get to Paris. I offered he hitch with us to share the hire cost and the driving. This was a very lucky thing because it turned out Brian couldn't drive a manual, so I would have had to drive the entire trip myself if not for our new British travelling companion, Richard.

We got one of the very last cars from Hertz and hit the road at 8.30pm.

After ten-and-a-half-hours, a questionable meal at a truck stop, and a one hour nap on the side of the A8, we finally pulled into Paris at sunrise. I took the lion's share of the driving, with Richard's 3-hour stint at the wheel hauling us over the line.

Bedraggled, bewildered and bedevilled, we returned our rent-a-car, and said farewell to Richard who headed for his London-bound train. Then Brian and I parted ways to find our respective hotels and sleep off the dusk-til-dawn drive.

In Paris,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 4

Another grueling day of non-stop lectures and seminars from some of the intellectual and creative elite. Today, Gayle Troberman, CCO of Microsoft, gave an interesting look at some of the cool brand work being done for the world’s largest software company.

Anthony Di Biase, ECD of Wunderman Irvine, provided insights on pitch success with several case studies. And Lee Feldman, CEO of Blast Radius, totally inspired yours truly with some of the remarkable work they’ve created using data. I know that might sound boring – truth be told, I was skeptical going in – but I’ve been shown the light and now believe data could be the foundation for creative ideas instead of a brief.

After pumping our brains with information, we have a brief reprieve to don our Sunday best and attend the Cannes Lions ceremony for Media, Outdoor, and Radio.

In the former, Australia has picked up the Grand Prix again, this time for MEC Sydney/Leo Burnett’s Photochains campaign for Canon. Carat/GPYR Melbourne also collected a gold Lion for Its No Picnic, and Starcom/Colenso BBDO Auckland a gold for Yellow Pages’ Yellow Chocolate.

Two silvers were awarded to Starcom Melbourne, and bronzes to JWT NZ, Starcom/Colenso BBDO Auckland.

In the Outdoor category, the USA took a whopping three Grand Prix trophies, while JWT NZ took a silver, Colenso BBDO Auckland took a silver and a bronze, GPYR Melbourne took three bronze Lions for Defence Force Recruiting, and TBWA/Tequila Auckland collected a bronze.

Of the fifteen gold Lions in the Radio category, one went to DDB NZ for Sky TV. DDB NZ received four silvers, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne three, Meerkats Perth garnered three, and Leo Burnett Sydney one. DDB Sydney collected three bronze, with US Sydney and Leo Burnett Sydney each taking home one.

Later at the official Cannes Lions Festival’s Carlton Beach party, I ran into the crew from Leo Burnett Sydney on a complete high from their worthy medal haul. ECD Andy DiLallo was joined by former joint-ECD and creative partner Jay Benjamin who flew in from New York to see his old colleagues celebrate in style. Some of the work that earned trophies was created while Jay Benjamin was still with the Sydney office.

The beach soiree is easily the largest party I’ve ever attended, extending out onto a pier and in both directions along the beach from the front of the majestic Carlton Hotel. Unsure of exact numbers, I’d have to guess there were several thousand people at the “black tie (optional)” event, most dressing in the black tie, some choosing the “optional”.

Of course, as soon as Cannes security closed down the party at 2am, presumably for noise and safety reasons, over a thousand people continued the party only 100m along La Croisette at the infamous Gutter Bar. The noise and safety remained the same, but you can’t argue with the logic of an armed Frenchman with a very large muzzled dog.

I awoke surprisingly well after only three-and-a-half hours sleep, ready to tackle another day of seminars, the least of which was my very own to the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit. My colleagues have been eagerly anticipating my lecture on the topic of “Why Does Australia Always Win?” especially after the Aus/NZ medal haul on day one of the festival. Having taken out eight of the total 19 gold Lions awarded and the prized Grand Prix, they were all hoping I would have the magical answers to help them improve the standards of their own countries.

I’m pleased to say the presentation went extremely well, and I’ve even been invited to deliver it to Wunderman London while there next week.

For now, the 57th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival closer to its finale, with the Press, Design and Cyber Lions categories being awarded tonight.

in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 3

Forget the blue skies and the azure sea. There’s gold in Cannes. And Aussies and Kiwis are taking a lot of it home so far.

Last night saw the 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival ceremony award the PR, Direct, and Promo & Activation categories in the Palais de Festival. A capacity audience watched as the Lions were handed out, and it certainly felt like Australia and New Zealand took a lot of stage time.

Our region usually does well in the Direct category, but last night the Grand Prix, 8 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze Lions were awarded to us by the biggest jury ever to preside over the direct category. Of the 19 gold Lions awarded in total, Australia/NZ have taken a staggering 42% of them.

The coveted Grand Prix went to Special Group NZ for their brilliant Orcon + Iggy Pop campaign for Orcon Broadband. The campaign also collected gold. Pablo Alzugaray, CEO of Shackleton and president of the Direct jury, recognised the campaign as a winner as soon as he saw it.

“The idea of having Iggy Pop re-record The Passenger in real time, using a band in New Zealand chosen via online auditions with Iggy Pop in Miami, was one of the very best uses of celebrity I have ever seen,” said Pablo. “It’s intelligent, experiential and response-driven.”

Three of the gold Lions went to Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney’s Nothing Soft Gets In for Toyota, spearheaded by ECD Steve Back and then-CD Dave Bowman with creative heavyweights Steve Jackson and Vince Lagana.

DDB NZ’s Live Rescue for Coastguard NZ collected one gold and one silver. Leo Burnett Sydney received a gold, a silver and a bronze for Canon’s Photochains, and a bronze for Canon’s Photo5. Droga5 Australia picked up a gold and a silver with their 4320 LA/SYD Twitter-based campaign for V Australia, while a gold Lion went to Clemenger BBDO for Support Scent for Guide Dogs Australia.

A silver each went to GPYR Melbourne for It’s No Picnic, and 3 Drunk Monkeys for Sunsound, with a bronze each for BMF’s 6 Beers of Separation, DDB Sydney’s AWARD Call-for-entries, and AIM Proximity NZ’s Missing Pictures.

For Promo & Activation, Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney took two more golds for Toyota, Clemenger BBDO collected a silver and a bronze, Leo Burnett another silver, with Special Group NZ and BMF taking a bronze each.

In the PR category, 3 Drunk Monkeys and Leo Burnett were each awarded a silver Lion.

In today’s issue of Lions 2010 Daily News, the finalist list has been announced for the Design and Cyber Lions that hope to be awarded tonight.

For Australia, GPYR Brisbane and Landor Sydney each have a Design nomination, with Droga 5, Visual Jazz and Longtail Perth each earning a nomination for the Cyber category.

New Zealand’s Colenso BBDO and Alt Group are nominated for Design, and Tribal DDB, Colenso BBDO and TBWA/Tequila are the kiwi hopefuls for Cyber.

Congratulations to all, and good luck for the coming ceremonies.

And on a final note, today (June 22) is the birthday of Lester Wunderman, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Wunderman, father of Direct Marketing, and advertising legend. From everyone at the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit in Cannes, happy birthday Lester.

in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Day 2

On day two, the clouds have passed and Cannes has unveiled a beautiful blue sky. As some of my colleagues know, I am immune to jetlag. Unfortunately, I have discovered I am not immune to the infamous Gutter Bar. The festival hadn’t technically started, but the advertising crowd was out in force last night.

Most interesting is the Gutter Bar (its real name Croisette 72) has been ad-bombed. Global brand Yahoo! has recognised this establishment as the central hub for our industry and bought out the entire front façade in an obvious attempt to rebrand the place as the Yahoo! bar.

I don’t think the name will take.

Today, the long-awaited shortlist of Cannes Lions finalists has been published.

Our plot of land has once again competed well, and possibly dominated, along with our friends across the ditch, New Zealand. In fact, if I was to take the viewpoint the Sydney Morning Herald took recently in their front page report of the Kiwis in their first World Cup match, I would simply say Australiasia scored 106.

At my count, Australia has racked up 69 finalists and New Zealand 37 – very impressive effort.

In Oz, the standout agencies at this point appear to be Leo Burnett Sydney (10), Clemenger Melbourne (9), GPYR Melbourne (7), Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney (7), DDB Sydney (5), and BMF (5). Leo Burnett’s finalists are for their work on Canon’s Photo5, PhotoChain, Earth Hour, and Bundaberg Rum. Chum and Guide Dogs account for most of Clemenger’s finalists. GPYR have earned their spot for their work on the Australian Navy and their renowned It’s No Picnic campaign, while Saatchi & Saatchi have scored the highest finalist haul for a single campaign with Toyota’s Nothing Soft Gets In being given 5 finalists across the categories.

For the Kiwis, Colenso BBDO has listed 12 with the rest shared across a swag of agencies.

With luck, many of these will be converted to metal tonight, and many more the following night at the awards ceremonies in the Palais de Festival.

Featured on the cover of today’s Lions 2010 Daily News is Wunderman London’s Executive Creative Director, David Harris, whose lecture today to a packed auditorium was on the source of inspiration. He said, “ideas are neither common nor sensible”. Does that mean today’s list shows Australia and New Zealand have no common sense? Apparently that’s a good thing for generating inspirational ideas, and we’ve certainly shown that to the world thus far.

Given that I’ve been invited to give a presentation to my international colleagues on Wednesday at the Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit on the topic of “Why Do Aussies Always Win?” I’m hoping to make some quick adjustments to my talk to include some stellar 2010 Cannes Lions results for Australia and New Zealand.

Good luck everyone.

Live in Cannes,
Matt Batten
Creative Director
Wunderman, Sydney

Cannes. Day 1. Base Camp.

Matt Batten, Creative Director of Wunderman Sydney, reports from Cannes.


Bienvenue á Cannes magnifique.

It is my pleasure to attend two great events: the 57th Cannes International Advertising Festival, and the annual Wunderman Creative Directors’ Summit held in an exclusive marquis on the rooftop of the Palais de Festival.

For the first, approximately 12,000 people from every advertising nook and cranny will attend to hear internationally renowned speakers and find out who has earned the coveted Lions trophies. For the second, 35 Creative Directors from 27 Wunderman offices in 18 countries have been gathered to share their experience, knowledge and ideas to keep the network strong and innovative.

Those attending the Cannes Lions have come to hear from such luminaries as Patrick Collister, Editor of Directory magazine, Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group (UK), Bob Jeffrey, Worldwide Chairman and CEO of JWT, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, and Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Worldwide (and my ultimate boss).

Having touched down in Nice aboard a plane-load of accents from around the world, it hasn’t been hard to spot some of the adlanders in their designer jeans, branded T-shirts and black dinner jackets. We all make the pilgrimage to Cannes and I’ve already bumped into some fellow Aussies, including Eardrum’s Ralph Van Dyke (to whom I already owe 25 Euro), DDB’s Adam Rose, and BMF’s Jeremy Nicholas.

My primary goal today was to slowly advance in the long queue of delegates to obtain my festival pass, then locate my hotel to wash off the 28-hour journey.

As angry French clouds roll in from the North, thundering over the distant hilltops, I prepare to attend Wunderman’s Opening Cocktail party and meet my internatinal colleagues, then hopefully find that infamous Aussie haunt – the ‘Gutter Bar’ – despite the threatening rain.

Room For Improvement

Last night, the interior decoration gnomes worked their pointed hats off preparing a surprise for all the Sydney Wunderkids.


This morning, when the troops stepped out of the lifts on level 11, they thought they were on the wrong floor. When they had left the Wunderman office the nght before, it was the same old place it has been for years. Upon arrival this morning, they stepped into a brand new reception area decked out like an eccentric bourgeois parlour - in Wunderman purple.

A high-back purple Victorian sofa with tailored Wunderman cushions rests beneath the purple deer heads mounted on the walls in ornate frames. On a locked bank safe (its contents a complete mystery), a purple television set bears a Wunderman logo amid a sea of static fuzz. Past the freshly-branded glass door is a library of books and curious purple objects. Whose squash racquet is that? Why is the happy cat waving at me? Who spilled the purple paint tin frozen in time?


Atop the bookshelves stands a small army of purple gnomes, each bearing a placard with our clients' logos. A rustic French reception desk is adorned with a vase of purple flowers, a purple laptop and a customer service bell. Beyond, an inviting window seat with purple drapes framing the magnificent city view.

More changes are yet to unfold in Wunderman Sydney's rejuvenation. Come in, sit. Stay a while.

Sydney Goes Looney

On Friday 28 May, Wunderman Sydney’s monthly all-staff meeting went looney. Or Luna rather.

Having won the Lester Wunderman Social Marketing Award for WWF’s Earth in Your Hands, the Sydney office decided to share the prize money amongst the entire agency, treating everyone to the afternoon at Sydney’s Luna Park.


The theme park’s conference room hosted our meeting with drinks and Following the regular monthly wrap-up on the agency’s recent creative work, successes, news, birthdays, and so on, everyone was champing at the bit to get onto the rides.

The agency divided randomly into four teams, each charged with a treasure hunt list to complete, featuring questions, challenges, and photos to collect. But for most, this team-building exercise lasted only 15 minutes. The Rotor, Mousetrap, Coney Island, and dodgems were just begging for thirty crazed adults to regress to their childhood after getting hopped up at the bar on ‘mummy’s red cordial.’ Which is a far better team-building experience anyway, as you can see in the photos.




A couple of true personalities came to the fore throughout the day. Some of the big men of the agency being reduced to whimpering babies – “I have to give this one a miss. I don’t think my stomach can take it” – and a couple of the more reserved Wunderkids exposing their inner adrenalin-junkie, bolting from one ride to the next while jabbering incoherently about how “THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!”

Clearly, it was a well-deserved reward for a hard working team.

Gingerbread Men

Every once in a while our data man Dan Wilson brings in a sweet treat lovingly prepared by his wife Cass. Last time round it was a superb carrot cake.

Yesterday he brought in something just as good but a lot more fun - gingerbread men. The stash pictured went pretty quickly, unlike Stan's tales of his Dad making gingerbread men, which seemed to go on forever.