The first is Google's presence at the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival which takes place June 19th - June 25th in Cannes, France. Similar to the Cannes Film Festival, this event brings together an average of 10,000 ad agency executives and directors from across the world each year, with media awards, workshops, lectures, keynotes and plenty of media presence. In past years, Google have not had a strong presence apart from their YouTube area inside the Palais because Microsoft are the official partners of the festival. This year, however, they will occupy a beach just outside the Palais along the Croisette for the entire week with a Creative Sandbox. The Creative Sandbox idea is not new and has been used in several spaces across the world as an interactive marketing tool. The official description that we've tweaked for our agencies for Cannes reads:
"Creative Sandbox is an interactive and immersive event designed to open the creative agency community’s eyes to the possibilities afforded by Google’s various platforms and tools. The program combines product awareness and education with socializing, networking, and experimentation. Creative Sandbox has a very distinct look and feel, relying little on formal presentations and heavily on hands-on demonstrations and exhibits. The program treats a raw space as a museum, in which several areas are curated as individual galleries, tailored to highlight Google product innovation. Attendees to Creative Sandbox represent some of the most influential names in the agency industry, along with up and comers who are continuously pushing the digital edge. They come to the event to learn about new technology developments at Google, make new relationships, and rub elbows with the industry’s elite."
Needless to say, its very difficult to visualize what these demos will look like on a beach, which is what I will focus on this week. We need to narrow down those demos that we will use with our external production agency and focus on mapping of visuals for the build, which will begin in London next week.
My role for Cannes will be two-fold. I am responsible for entertainment and run of show for the client party on the Thursday evening which means booking the artist and executing the night on site. Its a lot of responsibility but I'm confident I can handle it - these are they types of events I've done in PR and Music and I know that the skills I've gained over the years will prove extremely useful. I really do believe that the skills needed in events are the same across the board and can be applied to any type of conference, gathering, party or off-site. Ability to deal with pressure, patience, team work, thinking and acting quickly but not in a rash manor, and a certain level of decorum are all essential.
I've also been briefed very quickly on the Summit Against Violent Extremism which is an event in Dublin on June 27th and 28th. First thought of by Google Ideas head Jared Cohen, SAVE will bring together over 70 former violent extremists from across the globe, in addition to survivors of violent attacks (including 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings), politicians, NGOs and small businesses to foster conversation and action against violence. I will be handling the demo area which will be rather small in comparison to our Cannes undertaking, and we will bring most of the demos with us from Cannes to Dublin so the transfer should run smoothly.
More details on these events to follow shortly as I'm looped into meetings, etc!
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