Okay, so that's not exactly what people have been uttering in the streets of Cannes this week. But that hasn't stopped the folks from the Effie Awards and WARC to release some new research showing who the most effective advertiser, brand, holding company and agency in the world are. And the winners (drumroll please) are: Procter & Gamble, McDonald's, Omnicom and BBDO. The findings, which are based on the results of an index compiled by WARC, and based on the Effie Awards results, are drawn from 40 worldwide Effie competitions. (In case you didn't get it, Effies are named …

Tod Machover gets credit for inventing the wildly popular "Guitar Hero" game platform, but he actually credits a faulty electrical glitch. Machover, speaking on a panel about creativity hosted by McCann Worldwide and MRM Worldwide at the Cannes Lions Festival, said the inspiration that led to the creation of "Guitar Hero" came when he was developing a "hyperbow" for renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma, and the apparatus created unusual feedback, because Ma's body was actually absorbing electricity and acting like a human antenna. "We had a mistake in the lab," he said, which got Machover thinking about how …

That's my assessment of the battle between the two hip-hop stars/music produces featured on panels during this week's Canes Lions Festival. That's just my perspective, mind you. And it's not because will.i.am isn't really smart, and didn't say some important things on today's "creativity" panel moderated by McCann WorldGroup chief Nick Brien and co-hosted with MRM Worldwide. I just think Pharrell Williams did a better job of authentically communicating is views of the role of media, marketing and creativity during the panel he did with Digitas and Vevo earlier in the week. will.i.am was a bit slicker, and, well, …

JWT North America CEO and Worldwide Digital Director David Eastman is doing his best to draw a connection between the human drama of the Arab Spring uprisings and Madison Avenue, but it is an awkward and tenuous one. Eastman, who is moderating the "power to the people" panel at the Cannes Lions Festival, just asked Egyptian filmmaker Amr Salama if he would ever consider producing an ad campaign, and Salama's response, surprisingly, sounded as like that of any top Madison Avenue creative: "First of all, I have to say what I want to say. I want creative control," though …

So far, the only surprising thing I've learned during JWT's "power of the people" panel at the Cannes Lions Festival this morning, is that actor and filmmaker Fischer Stevens has only been arrested once in his life, and it was for a traffic violation in North Carolina. Stevens described his single misdemeanor "sadly," because he was throwing a nod to his fellow panelsits, Kuwaiti filmmaker Jehane Noujaim ("The Control Room") and Egyptian Filmmaker Amr Salama, who literally risked their lives filming the power taken by people during the "Arab Spring" revolutions. Stevens, whose film "The Cove" nonetheless shed …

I’m confused by the ad industry talent crisis panel discussion organized by Havas' Arnold Worldwide during this morning’s session of the Cannes Media Lions. The talent management gurus from places like McKinsey and Spencer Stuart are saying that things like paying higher compensation and spending more money on training people are actually antithetical to retaining good talent and motivating them to be better. That’s a problem for agencies, they say, because Madison Avenue historically has spent too much energy focusing on compensation and training as methods for motivating and retaining talent. Moreover, Spencer Stuart media chief Grant Duncan …

Actually, it owns the top paid search ranking for on Google for the term "Cannes Media Lions." The search ad gave some clues when I landed on the results page: "Hire me now/malinoski.com/br. Check out my work and then meet me at the Cannes Festival Palais. Now." Turns out that when you click on the search ad you get to the portfolio and resume page for Vinicus Malinoski, an enterprising Brazilian creative director who is looking for work at the Cannes Media Lions advertising festival. He got my attention, but I'm not looking ot hire an enterprising creative …

R/GA chief Bob Greenberg and his chief growth officer Barry Wacksman just painted a portrait of the digital agency of the future during a presentation to attendees at the Cannes Lions Festival, and not surprisingly, it looks a lot like what R/GA will look like two years from now. Actually, Greenberg said it will be the culmination of an initiative the agency began back in 2004. “There is no really global, digitally-centered agency out there,” Greenberg asserted, offering that to get there will “require a different organizational structure” than any major digital shop has today, including R/GA, which will …

Wow. That's a stat to get your mind around for sure. And Google brand chief Andy Berndt just asked Eric Schmidt what he makes of it. It's a true projection, Schmidt said, but it's not the kind of information we historically thing about. It's mostly user-generated stuff – people sending texts, emails, photos to each other, etc. – not the kind of info you might get from a book, a library or even the professional media. Now that's a good thing for Google, because it makes search and navigation even more critical, but it isn't necessarily a good …

That's what chairman Eric Schmidt just explained to the Cannes Lions attendees. He did so at the prompting of Google brand chief Andy Berndt, who was then at BBH, the agency that created Google's Super Bowl spot. "And hell has frozen over," Schmidt said when he was presented with the concept, because Google had resisted the idea of brand advertising in lieu of practicing what it preaches: performance-based marketing. But that's not the end of the story. Schmidt said even after he and Sergei Brin and Larry Page signed off on it, they needed to get the Google …