Cannes: predictions
The Cannes advertising festival is upon us again.
Although I shan’t be attending (again) I’m pretty sure the following will occur:
1) A bottle of Carlton Terrace rosé will now cost more than the flight most people took to drink it.
2) World Cup Cannes: the venue ‘everyone’ is going to will be the venue no one is going to.
3) Conveniently, The Gutter Bar crowd will now spread far enough to encompass at least 75% of Cannes hotels.
4) At least 1000 advertising people will take taxis to a party in the hills, hosted by a production company they’ve never heard of. After 45 minutes they’ll wonder if they’ve just been on one long circuitous route to a house five minutes away from where they got the cab. After an hour they’ll wonder if they’re being abducted to a slave ship in Marseilles. After an hour and fifteen they’ll arrive to find most of the buffet has been eaten and the beer is now warm.
5) The organisers will have invented at least 276 more categories to (pay to) enter.
6) British and French people will discover that it’s possible to recreate the effects of jet lag in the South of France by following the waking hours of Peru for five days. Delegates from Peru will return home as if they never crossed a time zone.
7) The rumours regarding the possible arrival of the ‘dealer’ to whichever agency party is on that night will be discussed 135% more than the winners of the Lions.
8) Those leopard skin-clad mother and daughter hookers will not be employed by anyone – until the last night, when a sad, wealthy client delegate from a valve company in Micronesia will decide to take the plunge. He will then bring a fascinating, virulent and hitherto unknown STD back to his tiny island community.
9) 14% of all lies to spouses via mobile phones in 2014 will be told in the next five days in the Cannes area.
10) This will win all the Grands Prix for which it eligible (12? 13?):
May I add 11) German agency will win Lion with case video for social cause. Celebrates by racking up a Champagne bill about 3 times higher than the money it actually helped bring to the charity.
Yes you may.
All other predictions are welcome.
Judges will whittle down 1387 print and poster entries advertising audio books and award them the meagre sum of only 46 lions.
Post it notes, really sharp knives and ads for a variety of Hasbro games will make up the rest of the lions.
Oh, and a few for Lego. Because every agency in the world has Lego as a client.
I was going to add: ‘Someone like Kanye West will make an appearance and tell industry doyens what they’re doing wrong, and starstruck doyens will take him seriously,’ but I think it already happened.
A superannuated ECD will be spotted sitting at the front of the Terrace on Thursday morning, ostentatiously reading a copy of this week’s Campaign – flown down at vast expense by his PA. Same ECD will be fired before the end of the month. Then divorced by his wife who found out about his sordid affair with the PA.
A senior creative will get so drunk at the Gutter Bar that he is only able to stagger as far as the beach before collapsing and passing out face down on the sand. He will wake up to find his phone, wallet and passport have gone. And his achingly cool £300 jeans have vanished. His Calvin Klein thong is around his ankles.
A Production Company head will host a dinner where the bill is so savage it will wipe out all the profit his company made this year. And most of last year.
Jean Claude Van Damme will turn up and shag the leopard skin hookers as he guzzles Coors Ice and bestrides a couple of Volvos.
Or not.
a coke vending machine idea about sharing will win a grand prix…