In previous decades it would have been easy to name the six agencies – generally from the UK and the US – that were producing the best campaigns. But in the era of connected devices and big data, the rules for creating media campaigns no longer exist. And agencies from the emerging markets that've never lived by those rules have begun to steal the show from their more established counterparts.
In 2013 we saw magnificent work from Brazil (and LatAm continues to impress) and a significant creative presence from China. This year no single market is dominating, indicating an industry globalising at lightning pace.
With mass diffusion of ideas now happening on a global scale, the key differentiator is deploying it well.
The best work comes where brilliant ideas apply with sensitivity and relevancy to their local market. I was shocked recently by the reaction of two of our team from our Endeavour program to Microsoft's view on tomorrow's joined-up technology. Our New Yorker instantly imagined the technology assisting her daily life. Our planner from Mexico, however, could only see it being relevant if it served up real-time traffic information to help people tackle Mexico City's infamous gridlock. One piece of tech; one core idea; two entirely different interpretations.
To underpin this shift, at this year's Cannes the judges were looking for the best decisions, the scary ones and those who broke the rules to create an experience. Ogilvy Brasil's Bald Cartoons for Brazilian Cancer Hospital Graacc was built on a powerful creative idea – take 40 of the world's best-loved animated characters and shave their heads to raise awareness of children experiencing cancer.
Garfield never looked so cool and the campaign reached 230 million people and 91% of Brazil's social media population. The result was a perfect merging of communication and media – brave, innovative and entirely relevant. And when a country's president tweets a campaign, you know the work has made an impact.
The theme of fearlessness rippled through the festival's content. Spike Jonze inspired us to put forward that one idea that might get us fired. Jared Leto encouraged us to fail, fail and fail again before getting it right. The writers of HBO's Game of Thrones dared us to think far outside the box.
But what are media agencies to make of this creative call to arms? What strikes me is that the winning work no longer fits into the dyed-in wool approach to advertising creativity. The agency process that we developed and then perfected 10 years or so ago doesn't deliver work that's surprising anymore.
So it's a new world with as yet undefined rules, where agility is paramount. In this world, it's often the markets without the baggage of the past who are best able to create work that's genuinely surprising, work that I look at and think 'where the hell did that come from?'.
Nick Vale is global head of planning at Maxus.
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