Before attending this seminar, I was unaware of who Jared Leto was. During the lecture, I became well acquainted with Leto's grand personality. I feel that he really took control of the session and made it his own. Leto helped make this an enjoyable seminar to attend. He was down to earth, articulate, and actually had qualifying things to say about the media industry. I was intruiged by his description of the role radio plays in people's everyday life. He spoke of how powerful the words in songs can be to a listener and how it can actually elicit an emotional response from the hearer. He also reflected on the anomaly of radio connecting people locally. Leto spoke of radio taking "choice out of the equation". As musicians make the decisions about what they will sing and what their music will sound like as radio stations choose what music is played, the audience really becomes the compliant listener on the other side of the radio box. This concept was positively framed by Leto during the seminar, but after considering the situation, I realized that listeners' inability to choose the music they want to hear on classic radio formats is what has propelled the success of online radio formats such as Pandora and Spotify. Traditional radio settings should find ways to combat this or face loosing more of their audience because honestly, most people say they hate listening to the radio and prefer choosing their own playlists.
Time Warner: The Power of Story
The forum between Jeff Bewkes, David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Armando Iannucci and Frank Rich was not as memorable as the exclusive meeting we had with HBO's Veep creator, Armando Iannucci, right after. An interesting point Iannucci brought up during the UGA meeting with him is how involved American actors become with their character and script. He mentioned that many American actors suggest changes they would like to make to the script in order for their character to be more accurately portrayed. I found Iannucci's discussion on the freedom he finds while working at HBO as opposed to working elsewhere profound. I think that a company's openness to their employees' creativity is an important characteristic to consider when looking for a job, and I plan to keep it in mind for the future. Iannucci advised us to write for ourselves and not for anyone else. I think this is a great takeaway because I find that writing for yourself and writing what really inspires you will come off as more genuine than anything else. Iannucci told of how one of the actors, Julia, can make a scene funny five different ways. This made me realize that everyone has their own special type of genius. It is when you are able to determine what your personal area of genius is and apply it to your work, that you will find the most success.
R/GA: Building a Billion Dollar Brand
This seminar began with a speaker editing the title to: R/GA: Building a 3 Billion Dollar Brand. The first thing that struck me about this presentation was that it was presented by a professional, African American man. I hadn't noticed previously, but no other session I know of was led by an African American period. This realization began to gnaw at me as I remembered things I've heard in the past about the lack of African American men graduating from college and even a lack of their presence at The University of Georgia, and to go one step further - the absence of any African American male students on this trip. I began to think about what this speaker, Omar Johnson, was representing and how so many Black men's success stem from their relationship with sports or music and how even in Johnson's position as EVP of Global Marketing at Beats Electronic, his success is still somehow tied to music and sports. As a young African American woman, I would like to see more leading African Americans in the advertising industry because it shouldn't have been such a surprise for me to see one lead a seminar at the festival. This conundrum concerning the lack of diversity in the industry really moves me to want to create something that can help make a difference. It saddens me to think that there are probably many young, African American boys growing up seeing people that look most like them gaining most success in a select few professions. The reality of this is of course inaccurate, seeing how there are many successful people of color. I simply hope to see more representation of professional leaders of all races. Beyond the color of Johnson's skin, the Beat's presentation was phenomenal. I was intrigued by the diversity of those who founded the brand. I was under the impression that it was strictly a hip-hop brand, but it has in fact been cultivated by people of different backgrounds. The Beats brand's emphasis on remaining relevant to popular culture was an interesting concept presented during the seminar as well. The commercial they played in response to Miley Cyrus's performance right after it actually happened was funny and provided perfect timing to the eye opening spectacle at hand. The Beats commercials using athletes were quite moving and will be discussed in greater detail in the commercial critique section of my blog.
Ben Silberman: Why adventure is more important than success
I found Mr. Silberman extremely humble to be the Co-founder and CEO of Pinterest. He provided some great tips for finding the best team of employees to work for your company. Silberman said to tell applicants that the job will be hard and risky in the beginning because the people worth hiring will be up for the challenge. He also said that in order to be successful, you have to get out of your comfort zone. This was in response to the interviewer asking how he manages his business as he seems so introverted.
Gyro: From religion to marketing: How to master the art of creating iconic brands
This was an unusual workshop in that it connected two seemingly juxtaposed topics - religion and marketing. The workshop began with the six principles of both: 1) Be wherever your values are 2) Build temples for worship 3) Create shared rituals 4) Reduce the badge so others can take it on 5) Educate and be useful 6) Define your friends and enemies. Using these six principles, we were split into teams to create a catchy tagline for one of two mainstays in Cannes - Gutterbar and The Carlton Bar. The taglines with the most votes won. Needless to say, UGA took home a trophy.
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