• by Lee Doyle , June 28, 2011

It goes without saying that being on the Media jury at this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a fantastic experience. What is less known is just how much the jury has to evaluate. There were over 2,800 entries in the Media Lions, up more than 30% a year ago.

So what can I share from my experience as a juror?

The good news, crucially, is that the success criteria in the Media Lions category is the same as the success criteria we set ourselves for our clients every day.

Insights are critical to success. Real insights, beyond universal truths, such as: "men like football and beer (except in Canada where they like hockey)" and "youth are obsessed with music and technology" were in short supply.

In those cases, where there were real, unique insights that guided the communications strategy, they stood out and were instantly strong candidates for the short list.

And even more importantly, to win, you must have tangible results.

It's in our DNA to be accountable, and everyone on the jury agreed that it was hard, if not impossible, to consider an entry for a Lion if there were no results in the submission. Media delivery or "number of fans on Facebook" do not constitute results. We expect to see business results or improvement in attitudes and brand health metrics. And we need to see how they are linked to the communications strategy and idea.

On a personal note, I was really pleased to see so many fully integrated media campaigns -- it was very difficult to isolate individual components of a program. In general, the more seamlessly integrated the media elements were, the more successful the campaign was, both in driving results and competing for awards.

Interestingly, we didn't award a Lion in the Online category. This led to serious debate among the jurors as to what kind of a signal we are sending to the industry. Conversely, I can't recall a signal serious contender for an award where online and other digital media weren't a significant component of the entry.

What that says to me is that online is no longer an afterthought. It's at the center of successful communication plans in virtually all markets.

My final thought on what it takes to succeed in Cannes (as well as in the real world) is that you must be brave.

All things being equal, the jury wanted to recognize and praise work that took risks and succeeded. Even in the real marketing and media world, there is no "safe" path. There are no obvious choices.

The only way to truly drive breakthrough results is to take prudent risks, have a measurement plan in place, and course correct as you go. If I was inspired by one thing, it was seeing how being bold and brave really paid off, both at Cannes and on the bottom line.