It’s just an idea, but…

strategy may be obvious and come through the front door, via a great TV spot or print

execution, or it might slip in the back way, without the fanfare, through an amazingly

simple insight which delights and engages consumers around a shared experience.

An excellent example of this was the Titanium Lion winner, at last month's Cannes

Lions advertising festival, Design Barcode.The insight is so simple: that barcodes have

always been an unsightly smudge on packaging and don't need to be. The solution is even simpler:

design attractive barcodes that enhance the packaging and make them a feature rather than

something to hide.

The Tokyo based company Design Barcode, created a series of graphical designs that, without

compromising the data contained within each barcode, turned the space into a tiny canvass to do

creative graphical executions. More than 60 companies now use Design Barcodes on their packaging.

You will find a Quicktime clip on the Cannes Lions site which showcases the barcode art Design

Barcode have created.This is a truly inspiring piece of thinking but you can't call it advertising, you can't

call it marketing, you can't even really call it promotion -- it's just an idea and it's what our business is

all about.

It is always at this time of year I feel most inspired by the power of ideas and a blind admiration for

what advertising, at its best, can be. Last month I attended Leo Burnett's Cannes predictions party

where the Lions shortlist reel was shown as part of a good natured tipping competition to see who could

predict the most winners. Watching the reel made me feel a real nostalgia for what truly great

advertising is. Often theatrical, just as often simplistic, sometimes raunchy and regularly bizarre (check

out some of the excellent offbeat work that continues to be produced out of Bangkok), but always built

around a great idea.

In this vein I was very glad to see Fallon London's Sony Bravia TVC with the thousands of coloured

rubber balls bouncing sublimely down a San Francisco street, made the cut this year and won a gold

Lion. It is such a visually engaging and emotive execution based on one simple, delightfully childish

idea, put to a nice piece of music. It makes you stare in awe at the tele when it comes on and guess

what they are trying to sell you?

I like to imagine what the pitch was for this spot:

Fallon: We are going to release 250,000 rubber balls down a steep street and film it in one take.

Sony: Great, what else happens?

Fallon:...ahh nothing, that's it.

Sony: Oh?...Ok, let's do it.

As for Singapore we might not have set the world, or the Palais des Festivals, on fire this year, but

next year is another year. Have a good look at the winners, think about why they won, I guarantee most,

if not all, were based on a profound insight into the brand and then expressed through a great and often

simple idea. The trick is to rally the client and the agency around that same idea and then worry about

the execution later.

So what are you waiting for?

Tony Kelly

Publisher