So Cannes is over for another year. As you know, the top film prize went to two candidates: Jean-Claude Van Damme's Epic Split for Volvo, from Forsman & Bodenfors, which we expected all along - and the rather less anticipated Sorry I Spent It on Myself, for the British store Harvey Nichols, from Adam&EveDDB.
It was almost as if the jury felt forced into a corner. They knew they had to give the prize to Epic Split, because, as someone put it, millions of members of the public can't be wrong. But the Volvo spot was essentially a brilliantly directed product demonstration, while the Harvey Nichols campaign was a sharp and original idea (people give cheap gifts at Christmas, like toothpicks, because they bought luxury items for themselves). It was a deserving winner because it actually moved the concept of advertising along a bit.
But here's the interesting part: perhaps the internet has made the Cannes jury more humble. In the past, I'm pretty sure they didn't care about the opinion of the general public. They were judging the creative idea, not how many people watched it. But confronted with a film that absolutely everybody loved, with clear online viewing figures to prove it, they felt compelled to give it a prize - even if, deep in their advertising hearts, they may have felt that the Harvey Nichols campaign was the more groundbreaking piece of work.
