GLOBAL – FRANCE, FEBRUARY 2012: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has appointed David Jones, global CEO of Havas, global CEO of Euro RSCG Worldwide and co-founder of One Young World; Mainardo de Nardis, CEO of OMD Worldwide; and Iain Tait, global interactive executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy as the respective jury heads of the Creative Effectiveness, Media, and Cyber Lions in this year’s festival.
“We are honored to welcome such eminent authorities as David, Mainardo and Iain to steer their juries to debate and award the most ground-breaking work in their respective categories,” Philip Thomas, CEO of Cannes Lions, said bout the appointments.
Jones is at forefront of the next generation advertising leaders, being the youngest global CEO in the history of the industry. His role at Havas includes managing all creative, marketing, media and design companies throughout the network of more than 16,000 people.
His team was behind the “Tck Tck Tck” campaign for Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan for the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. Jones also worked closely with David Cameron and the UK Conservative Party from 2007 to 2010, finally concluding with Cameron’s win as prime minister.
“Over the past decade creativity has emerged as one of the most significant competitive advantages in business,” said Jones. "Today you can no longer buy attention, you have to earn it. And in a world of more and more messages, shorter and shorter attention spans, and smaller and smaller screens, powerful creative ideas that cut through have never been more important,” he added regarding the category that he is about to judge.
de Nardis, meanwhile, led OMD’s two-time recognition as Global Media Agency of the Year by Adweek, and US Agency of the Year by Advertising Age, even as the agency’s local offices won top local honors in their own turfs. In 2011, OMD was crowned as the world’s top ranked media agency by RECMA, for the third year running, and a record five-year streak as the world’s most creative media agency by The Gunn Report for Media.
Before joining the Omnicom Media group, de Nardis headed Aegis Media and, previously, ran Mediaedge:cia worldwide. Commenting on the value of awards in today’s challenging business environment, de Nardis said that awards are critical performance indicators for agencies because these can measure the ability to deliver creative and innovative works that can bring in demand transactions for the brand.
Fans of the Old Spice “Responses” campaign, where the “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” created real-time video responses to questions sent in by users should thank Iain Tait for driving the Old Spice Guy to unprecedented success. The campaign has been recognized around the world both for innovation and effectiveness.
Tait has also worked on international brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Target, and P&G. He has received metals from different awards shows, including Cannes, The One Show, the Clio Awards, Art Directors Club, D&AD, Creative Circle and the Andy Awards. Tait’s most recent laurel is his induction to the AAF Hall of Achievement.
“I’m excited to guide a Cyber Jury that brings together the best talent from around the globe to recognize the greatest work in the world. There’s so much change taking place so rapidly in our space that it’s going to be tough to make sense of it all,” said Tait.
The Creative Effectiveness Lions is open for entries until February 17; all other categories will receive entries until March 9.
