By Ben Lambert

Cannes You Feel It.

Everywhere around the world, students are entering Cannes future lions competition.

Over 1,600 student teams a year enter, but there is a problem.

Only 5 will win.

So we were thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we would be one of those lucky teams?

Introducing Cannes deadline day.

Well it was, up until midday when they extended the deadline. This means one more week of crafting case study videos, excellent.

I’ve been watching some of the entries on Vimeo. Seeing where our ideas fit in relation, seeing whether we are in with a shot.

But after having watched 10 entries my intrigue turned to sympathy for the judges. Not because the entries are bad, but because they have to watch 1600 of them.

Our world revolves around these 2-minute videos. We dissect every element, every word and frame so that they’ll the story of our idea as clearly as possible.

But I think we forget the context of the judging process. Imagine if you had to watch case study after case study. It’s inevitable that all the videos begin to blur into one.

(It doesn’t help that most follow the same format, use the same VO artist from Fiverr and are backed by the same jaunty, royalty-free song ripped from Youtube).

Whilst of course they’re looking for the best idea, they need to be surprised. Half the battle is showing something different, something that wakes them up and holds their attention.

That’s why together, with just a small amount of thought, we can help protect these judges from vanilla videos grab their attention.