The Pride of Lions
Warning: This article includes humble and not so humble bragging.
As I partied with my colleagues last Wednesday night in Cannes, celebrating Mindshare being named Media Network of the Year at Cannes for the second time in four years, my feeling was what I assume you may feel at the end of a marathon (I have never run one) …immense satisfaction in the accomplishment, coupled with an overwhelming sense of exhaustion at the effort that went into achieving it.
After a few days to get over it all, what I realise now, is that Cannes is above all, about pride.
Strip away the parties, the beaches, the terraces, Rihanna on the balcony, and the endless ‘content’ and you’ll find the most genuine Cannes moments of emotion - the moments of pride - are on that stage in the Palais each night, as team after team goes up to pick up their Lions.
Many of my colleagues had never been to an awards show at Cannes before and were genuinely touched by it - if you’ve never been and you have the chance, I urge you to go. The ‘feel good’ vibe is quite infectious.
It’s the pinnacle of achievement in our respective fields. The ultimate accolade. The sign that you are literally ‘the best’. It’s our World Cup, Super Bowl or IPL final.
Winning as they say, ‘is everything’. But that winning moment on stage sits at the top of a huge pyramid of effort across the world, and my feeling of pride isn’t for one campaign or one team or confined to one moment. It is pride in an entire system, an engine, that we have built specifically to achieve this moment.
It is pride in the teams that have the ideas and do the work and their clients that back them.
It is pride in the database of best work we created so everyone can ‘see what good looks like’ so we can strive to do better.
It is pride in the monthly awards competitions we run to surface, reward, celebrate and enhance the best work across the network.
It is pride in the judges of those internal awards, our creative council, and all the judges we place onto juries for external awards, so we understand that judging process better.
It is pride in my creative excellence colleagues across WPP, and the support we have been given by our holding company, to be better connected, better co-ordinated and a better community, so that we can maximise our chances of success in awards shows.
It is pride that what we achieved last week, we achieved together, not through serendipity, but through intentional effort.
It is pride in what we do, how we do it and what we can achieve together.
And above all it is pride in my team. They are there in the good moments and in the tough spots. They have tirelessly worked to create a winning culture at Mindshare and I could not be more proud of them.
Well done to everyone who won a Lion this year…let’s take the weekend and then go again!
PS. I forgot to tell my mum we won, because I didn’t think she would care, turns out she was really proud of me. 🦁 💜
#TeamMindshare
Wow! What an amazing opportunity for a behind the scenes look at the judging process for outstanding creativity from all across the globe!