Cannes Diary Pt. 3 – Simon Hayes & Giles Clayton

Simon Hayes (Art Director) and Giles Clayton (Copywriter) from J. Walter Thompson Sydney, earned themselves a spot in the Print category of the Cannes Young Lions competition. Their campaign for The White Ribbon Foundation raises awareness about domestic violence and calls attention to the fact that one Australian woman is killed every week by a previous or current partner.

Hayes and Clayton came up with the idea to change the name of The Australian Women’s Weekly – one of the Australia’s most prominent magazine titles – to One Australian Woman Killed Weekly.

The creative duo wrote a “Cannes Diary” about their inaugural experience on the French Riviera, originally published in Campaign Brief.

We’re on a mother f@*#ing boat

Yesterday, the lovely people at Finch were nice enough to invite us out on their yacht for what was easily the best day of the trip. Great banter, pink wine and a brief break from the craziness was definitely good for the soul. Not for the body though, we’re both weathering Grand Prix worthy hangovers as we attempt to write this blog.

Speaking of the blog, we’ve been asked to write 500 words each day on our time here, whilst also getting amongst it and soaking up as much of the festival as possible. It’s hard work (especially with a hangover) and there’s just not enough hours in the day. So to make it a little easier for ourselves (and easier on the eye) we’d like to cite a loophole. Fact: a picture tells a thousand words. So technically half a photograph and a snappy headline and we’re overdelivering. No, but all jokes aside, we’d like to transition this blog into more of a visual diary with lots of photos and a couple of witty observations along the way. Trust us, it’ll be better for everyone.

So, back to the boat. The sun sets at about 9:30 at night here and the location was an Art Director’s wet dream. As the sun went down the amateur photographers jumped up. Selfies, slow mo’s and awkwardly posed team shots ensued. I mean if you’re not winning a Lion at least you can get 100 likes to feed your ego (it’s actually 119 at the time of writing this but who’s counting, am I right?).