Conscience

Last week Cannes welcomed the 54st International Advertising Festival. Seems like 2007 will go into history as the year that advertising found a conscience. Amongst winners, we see a lot of 'advertising with a message'. Think about Dove, Nike, Coca-Cola, Nedbank (see earlier post below) or the Belgian film winner from Zijkant. See the movies below en read all about it in this week's column.

Cannes Grand Prix in Film category is ...

"Evolution" from Dove, made by O&M Toronto (see movie below)

3 Grand Prix in Cyber category

The Cyber contest awarded 3 Grand Prix for online advertising, viral and websites. Best website went to "Heidies", Diesel's spoof takeover of its site by two girls who supposedly hold a Diesel exec hostage. Other winners are Nike Plus and Evolution of Dove, which you can see below.

Cannes Grand Prix Winner Outdoor

BBDO Johannesburg and Nedbank with an inventive and useful use of outdoor

Cannes Grand Prix Winner Press

This year's winner in press category goes to Tide campaign made by Saatchi&Saatchi NY.

Here come the Chinese!

Prince Filip and Princess Mathilde are currently visiting China, together with some 250 representatives of Belgian companies, 3 ministers and more than 30 journalists. China has been a potential growth market for Western companies for years, but the inverse movement is also happening now. We see Chinese or Eastern companies entering our market. Most recent examples are the Indian airline company Jet Airways and the Chinese car brand Brilliance. Remarkably, these companies no longer limit themselves to the bottom of the market, but try to position themselves in the middle or top range. Read all about it in this week's column.

Pirates

The newest 'Pirates of the Carribean' is thé movie hit of the moment. In this third movie, we meet again with Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann and Jack Sparrow. How come the movie is such as success? Why do pirates appeal to our imagination? Not only on the big screen, pirates are hot. Also in the brand landscape, we see interesting pirates! Think about Apple and Virgin or Skype. What is their common denominator? Read all about it in this week's column.

Worlwide advertising code to be born soon

During a conference of the World Federation of Advertisers top advertising, media and marketing people agreed to write down an international and worldwide advertising code. Objective is to stimulate 'responsible marketing'. Amongst the proposals are a more transparent and faster handling of complaints, and a practice of honest and responsible advertising in all aspects of marketing communications.

Fair and honest

The new trendbook MOOD 07 made by Trendslator describes 7 core values: taste, feel, care, share, stay, heal and trust. Common factor between the different values is a decreasing need for the safe and known,and an increasing urge for honest, conscious and open interaction with ourselves, each other and the environment. Softer and more feminin values will become more important, feel good and fair are key! Care, connect and share are other important proverbs of our time. Read more about it on Trendslator .

Sgt. Peppers

One of the best known symbols of the Swinging Sixties and the Summer of Love, the yellow smiley, already celebrates its 40th birthday! This smiley know covers the new book of Mark Elchardus and Wendy Smits, "Het grootste geluk". The book tries to figure out how happy Belgians are and what influences our state of happiness. One important finding is that the more we experience time pressure, the less happy we are. Also, people living together or married, are more happy than others. Social integration and social contacts continu to make us happy, today just like 40 years ago!

Read all about it in this week's column.