Ever wondered how to go about building a killer portfolio? To celebrate ADC’s 13th annual Portfolio Night, Shutterstock have gathered tips from some of the world’s leading creative directors.

Maximise your portfolio here

AdNews and Neuro Insight have teamed up to take a closer look at some of this year’s Cannes Advertising Festival winners, exploring the question, ‘How does creativity really work?’

Follow the case studies on AdNews

Bob Greenberg, founder and CEO of R/GA, speaks on taking risks, and what actually goes into being a great creative.

Originally published in The Drum’s Cannes issue on 24 June, guest edited by Maurice Lévy.

As Cannes Lions kicks off, Publicis Groupe boss and guest editor Maurice Lévy shares his obsession with creativity in the leader article of The Drum’s special Cannes issue.

My first Cannes Festival was back in 1972. Over 40 years ago, can you imagine! This was the time when, mimicking the great festivals of the Grand Film, we were swinging between Cannes and Venice, and its splendid Mostra, obviously. I have vivid memories of the numerous festivals I attended: tensions, passions, rants, and even punches sometimes, to support an idea, a campaign, a commercial…

I have never strayed from this passion for creativity and it would be ill-timed to fall, out of nostalgia, into the ‘these were good old days’ pitfall. Of course, things have changed. However, we must greet this new world with enthusiasm. Today like yesterday, we shall beat the drum and hail every new era.

I am genuinely delighted to be here today, in these very pages. Not because of a tendency for egotism or self-centredness – a widely shared leaning within our industry. Rather, quite simply, to offer a perspective and an idea.

The perspective is the one I never departed from; that of the marvelled child – that of painters and poets, from Baudelaire to Picasso – who constantly wonders at a beautiful campaign. These images, those words do touch me as they should move our consumers. Marcel Bleustein- Blanchet, the founder of Publicis, used to refer to collective intimacy, and this is what advertising is all about: collective emotions that appeal to intimacy and sensitivity.

The idea is that creativity is very simply the newest imaginable idea. Another old trick, some might say, with yet another rambling on the methods of advertising that have done the job for ages. Alas, no! This is precisely the mindset that opens you up to the world, with curiosity, intelligence and sensitivity. This is about gaining a new perspective, seeing through a new prism, thus looking at the product, the brand or the consumer differently. Out of this discrepancy, a freshness arises that will once again give birth to beautiful stories that will change the brand’s tale.

Then of course, the variations are countless: movies, ads, digital, technology, illustrations, etc. Yet all remain a mean, a medium – serving the idea and the brand. Therefore, the medium is not the message (sorry McLuhan), since the idea will always be alpha and omega. Don’t misunderstand what I am trying to convey: creative ideas are what we find for our clients. I would never discount the media or other indispensable means of communication. I simply believe that the reason we succeed is creativity. In everything we do. From thinking to execution; from planning to media; from digital to POS.

Cannes Lions, here we go, once again. And the passion is still there; vibrant, powerful, although occasionally too commercial, I reckon (to top it all off, for an Ad Man! or a Mad Man as we put it nowadays). This year I will be looking for that discovery that will catch me by surprise, move me, marvel the child inside of me, and make me say with sparkling eyes, ‘I wish I had done this’.

This recent piece by Charlotte McEleny of UK publishers Brand Republic is great as it highlights that there is still room in marketing for ‘experience’ and ‘gut feeling…

William Hill CMO Kristof Fahy urged brands not to over-complicate content and measurement by “disappearing up their own arse” during a panel discussion at BrandMAX event in London recently.

Both William Hill and fellow panelist Just Eat admitted that they found the majority of content measurement to be irrelevant and over-complicated, suggesting that it’s better to get content “out there” and to measure later.

Kristof Fahy, CMO at William Hill, argued that betting companies are well placed to comment on the issue because as a business they have always had to create content to encourage betting.

“For the ROI big picture, we are the prime case study. What I do know is that it works, but one question is measuring,” he said, “Do it first and measure it later. You’ll never do the right thing otherwise. If you understand your brand and customers, content should be relatively easy.”

Fahy explained that William Hill doesn’t run a brand tracker because asking someone whether they liked the brand would depend on whether they’d recently won £20 or lost £20. He said the brand focused on two key metrics; new account growth and turnover, and directed all content and marketing KPIs to them.

“[WIlliam Hill is] horrifically focused on the numbers; new account growth and turnover. Once you start disappearing up your own arse as a brand, you have to come back to the fundamentals; who is our audience and what are they doing?” he said.

He referenced his time at Orange, which he believed fell foul to this mistake. “At Orange we did disappear up our arses, we forgot the point; how many phones are we selling?” He urged marketers to remember that customers were ultimately paying their wages.

He also cited William Hill’s World Cup success, claiming that they were the number one betting brand across the tournament earlier this year. However, he said that it was difficult to attribute that success to its investment in content. The brand launched an online TV show with James Richardson that featured famous footballers, but he also questioned whether it was down to its odds slashing for key games which was essentially “giving money away”.

Just Eat CMO Mat Braddy supported Fahy’s views on using brand and customer knowledge to power content decisions. He said: “Content is not king, it’s the context. The context of how I use Vine versus Snapchat, for example, they all have completely different contexts in my digital life. Context is forgotten in a lot in conversations about content.”

This article plus more from Brand Republic at: http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1326294/

Hey guys, if you are interested in subscribing to “Business Insider”, you can check out this presentation on the future on Mobile.

The future of mobile is being redefined. The smartphone and tablet markets are nearing saturation. The days of heady hardware growth are long gone.

Mobile growth is moving into media, advertising, software, and services. Meanwhile, new devices are expanding the meaning of “mobile.”

Click here for the link to “Business Insider”