Last night was a late one. We were out past 2 a.m. and discovered the infamous Gutter Bar here at Cannes. As noobs to the scene we were walking around looking for a sign for The Gutter Bar, which we heard was THE late- night scene. Our President, Jay, finally asked someone and we discovered we were standing in it. The Gutter Bar opens when the bars around the Hotel Martinez overflow their banks and spill drinkers into the streets. Now you know.

I’m actually embarrassed to even say how late I slept in, but we did manage to get our butts back into the ad fest before noon. My highlight of the day was a session by Coca-Cola and Wieden+Kennedy focused on the art of storytelling and the story of its “Happiness Factory“. Ivan Wicksteed, Global Creative Director of Coca-Cola, shed light on how the company turned a 30-second ad into a marketing platform that is expected to last for 30 years. Now that’s something gutsy to put in your creative brief.

Wicksteed spent time teaching the audience about what makes a good story. Stories need to be timeless, reveal deep characters, have multiple access points, and show us the truth. Further, he spoke about why storytelling should be embraced by brands. He used the rapidly spreading phrase: “It’s not what they buy, it’s what they buy into,” and he spoke about the enduring success of the Coke Santa and Polar Bears, which have lasted 70 years and 30 years, respectively, because they hold storytelling elements.

The Happiness Factory ad was the best tested ad in Coke’s history and has enjoyed more than 100 million views since December 2007. Why? Because it created a meaningful experience for the viewer. Especially when they chose to view it online, or were ready for a movie-like experience at the theater, people laughed, smiled, and developed a closer connection to the brand. Laughs or smiles is really a higher-level benefit that the Coca-Cola product itself aims for. It’s syrup-water, after all, so the brand must deliver something more.

Wicksteed ended his session by promising that much more was to come from the Happiness Factory. He is setting the next stage of its development with a challenge to “become income generating at some point… if people will pay to enter it, you’ve got a pretty good story.” His team is looking at feature-length films, merchandising, and video games, for example. Bottom line: Marketing that people are willing to pay for is another good test for meaning.

Bonus insight: New Directors Shine

We also caught the last half of The New Director’s Showcase, hosted by Saatchi & Saatchi. I really wish I had gotten there a few minutes earlier for the entire show. It spotlighted short films (mostly non-commercials) by several up-and-coming directors. One of my favorites is below. It left me wondering, though, why we don’t have an economy where this kind of talent can make a living just making art - rather than having to find ways to merge an advertisement into it….

I’ve been here at the Cannes advertising festival less than 10 hours and what I have seen and heard so far has blown away my expectations in terms of meaningful marketing. Of course my going-in impression was that Cannes is a tribute to navel-gazing creative work that desperately wants to be considered artwork. I pictured a lot of people in too-school-for-cool outfits smoking cigarettes and exchanging cynicisms. Instead, I find Cannes to be a more egalitarian environment of people anxious to break our careers into something more meaningful. Net, the epicenter of advertising is ready for meaningful marketing.

There were two sessions that really got me charged up and had me wearing through a notebook. First was a session featuring Nike’s Stefan Olander, Global Director for Brand Connections. As you might have guessed, Nike is a leading brand in the move to create more meaningful marketing, and Stefan presented several killer insights. For example:

• Nike added a design studio with consultants to its Nike Stores to help people better design their Nike ID shoes.
• They created “The Ballers Network” after noticing that a big issue with playing basketball is organizing the dates and times among friends. It’s an application in Facebook that makes it easy for friends to coordinate. On top of this useful tool it adds locations and info from 1,700 courts around the world, player reviews and scouting reports, score recordings, and a mobile version for courtside.
• Nike is promoting its Nike+ service with “The Human Race 10k,” which will have races in 25 cities and including people running and uploading from their homes. The hope is to have 1 million participants on one day around the world.
• Finally, Nike announced the launch of a new avatar tool called the “Nike+ Mini” (example above). It’s like a Nintendo Mii that you design as you like and post to your blog or Facebook page. Further, it actually reacts according to how much you’re running in the real world, i.e., run a lot, and it goes faster, slack off and it, too, loses pace. It’s a great way to create fun, deepen the community, and add a little more motivation (”I don’t want to make my Mini look like he’s slacking!”).

Nike continues to blow me away with its wholehearted dive into meaningful marketing. Stefan also shared data, such as the fact that “30% of Nike+ users come to the site three or more times per week.” He said that people who don’t have their Nike+ sensors with them will simply skip running “because they want credit for their achievements.” Overall, Stefan summed up Nike’s approach as follows:

“If we can do something good for somebody, they will repay us with sales.”

My second interesting session came from Contagious Magazine and Leo Burnett Worldwide. Leo is driving a meaningful-marketing-type quote around “moving from ads to acts,” and Contagious has “been tracking the branded utility space for three years.” (In fact, a reporter from the magazine interviewed me two weeks ago for a big upcoming piece.) The two shared several examples of meaningful marketing, some new, some old. I was struck, though, by how the examples they shared touched so few people - especially compared to traditional advertising’s reach into the tens of millions. For example:

• 7,900 people downloaded a widget for Nike+.
• Guinness created a mobile tour guide in Catonese for the 20,000 people who visited Hong Kong for a rugby tournament.
• 5,000 people in Australia uploaded photos for a Canon promotion.
• Big brands are running product placement on a webiseries called “Kate Modern” that 1.5 million people view each week around the world.

These are small numbers. So small that I’d have a hard time telling a client these looked good, much less bragging in front of thousands of people at Cannes. I’m personally a big fan of much deeper engagement with fewer people, rather than a massive reach play with millions of interruptions. But we also need to take a hard look at the numbers behind these amazingly creative (and meaningful) programs, and ensure that they are achieving enough scale to actually move the needle on revenues.

OK, time to cat nap before my first night on the town at Cannes. We’ll see if the cocktail conversation is as meaningful as the work we saw today.

After several days working on a huge new business pitch, I’m headed to the beach. Nope, not your typical drive to the coast with the family. I’ve still got to work on this trip. Instead, I’m catching a flight to France to experience the biggest annual advertising event in the world: The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

There are a few reasons why we’re going this year. First, we’ve grown to a size now where we need to be in the mix at such events. Second, as part of WPP, this is a great opportunity to network with our network and connect with partners from around the world. Third, one of our biggest clients, P&G, is receiving an award as advertiser of the year.

Aside from these reasons, I’m also excited to attend so that I can measure the best in the business against the Marketing with Meaning concept. The Cannes Lions awards are often considered a distraction from both business and meaning building. It’s the most edgy, beautiful, or artistic work… that is often more about the advertising agency’s self-expression than work that is supposed to drive sales. But in recent years the Lions seem to be moving toward meaning. Last year, for example, the show’s overall Grand Prix winner was Dove’s Evolution viral video.

So I’m going into the event with as a kind of unbiased reporter, and I promise to blog daily on what I see and hear from the shows - not only the work on display, but the cocktail conversations as well. Au revoir!