Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

This year, it seems that the predominant taste on the British sunloungers on the beaches at Cannes is that of sour grapes.

Unimpressed that the rest of the world remained largely unimpressed by the best of British, our advertising community has responded by saying that it never wanted to play anyway.

My favourite comment came from a UK guru (I won't embarrass him but he has what my granny used to describe as 'a lovely head of hair'. He was moved to complain that much of the work from outside the UK was a little 'crude', and that our own product was so subtle that Johnny Foreigner would never get it.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that. Much of the work I saw at Cannes was very sophisticated indeed. And built around some wonderful ideas. 

What is crude about the hundreds of films made by 'Old Spice Guy' in response to comments about the campaign on the internet?

What is crude about the Jay-Z campaign for Microsoft Bing? Epic maybe, but crude? Really?

What is crude about the installation at Grand Central to protest against the illegal detention of political prisoners in Burma? Nothing. It's one of the most delicate and elegant pieces I have ever seen. Each person who wishes to sign a petition removes a bar from a prison cell that is also a pen, 'freeing' the prisoner behind.

The other argument I heard was that our best work here is so complicated and subtle and data driven that the judges can't understand the entry forms. 

Setting aside the blatant latent racism involved in such an argument, if that's really the problem, then who is to blame? It's not the judges who complete the entry forms, is it?

And I have a simple comment to make about that. If you're entering work in more than one category at Cannes, then you need to complete more than one form. (Or make more than one film).

Otherwise, even judges who speak English as a mother tongue might struggle to see why the entry is in a particular category. And that probably won't help their chances of success.

Entering Cannes is really very simple, even if winning it isn't.

The work is judged on strategy, creativity, execution and results. The judges like to see what the marketing problem is and know the insight that drove the creative thinking. That's about it.

They tend to speak rather good English, and understand a fair bit about marketing. 

It feels a bit like the World Cup. Until we realise that we're not better than the rest of the world any more, we're never going to work out how to catch up. I for one am going to try to do that, rather than savour the flavour of sour grapes. Who is going to join me?