London-based founding father of Havas-owned PR agency One Inexperienced Bean, Kat Thomas, is having fun with her third tour judging on the Cannes Lions Worldwide Pageant of Creativity, this time as jury chair of the PR Lions.
Her first time as a choose was in 2013 on the PR jury, representing Australia, the place One Inexperienced Bean was based.
In 2022, she was a part of the Glass Lions jury, which she remembers as an “extraordinary expertise” judging work that delivered real impression at scale and left the world a greater place.
PRWeek VP, editorial director Steve Barrett caught up with Thomas in London to seek out out what she needs to realize with this yr’s PR Lions class and successful work.
Q: What are your most important priorities as jury chair for the 2024 PR Lions?
I view the function as chair of jury as being answerable for the guardrails, to not dictate a standpoint. Somebody likened it to being the conductor of an orchestra, ensuring each part is heard.
Having sat on juries when the chair was extra energetic, I’m much less involved in listening to my very own voice, which is tempting for anybody within the comms business – none of us are shy in coming ahead. The great thing about the Cannes Lions jury is how worldwide it’s, and it’s important to be reviewing work from all corners of the world and the place we don’t have first-hand familiarity to lean on the individuals who do.
Inform us about this yr’s jury.
Cannes has made massive commitments to inclusivity and making certain there’s illustration from a really vast world spectrum, not over-leaning to a Western, U.S. or U.Ok. spectrum. They’re very motivated on that entrance.
PR Lions awarding jury – onsite in Cannes:
Chair: Kat Thomas, founder and world chief artistic officer, One Inexperienced Bean
Fenella Gray, MD and chair, EMEA, Porter Novelli
Ian Black, CEO, New Vegas, Brazil
Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, CMO, DoorDash
Lerato Songelwa, MD, Hill & Knowlton Methods, South Africa
Marie Claire Maalouf, chief artistic officer EMEA, Edelman
Sama Al Naib, MD, digital innovation, EMEA, BCW
Sebastian Stępak, CEO Central and Jap Europe, MSL
Tomoko Tagami, chief company communication officer, Shiseido
Vanessa Ho Nikolovski, chief shopper and progress officer, Asia-Pacific, Weber Shandwick
In our opening dialog, we leveled up round three areas after we have been discussing the standards the jury can be utilizing, and function didn’t come up within the dialog till the third standards.
How is the jury defining “PR” in a contemporary context?
We talked about defining what a PR thought is on this world of concepts coming from anyplace and getting momentum from areas purists would say are outdoors the PR channel. We talked lots about whether or not the concept would earn its consideration when you stripped every thing else out. Should you stripped out paid media, wouldn’t it nonetheless ship on that worth alternate between the model and the buyer as a result of it’s genuinely fascinating and entertaining?
The jury is motivated to lean into earned-first even additional to scrutinize the techniques. What was achieved within the execution of the marketing campaign that reinforces executionally an actual degree of craft that feels very earned first from a PR perspective? What would outline a PR marketing campaign in 2024 understanding that concepts can come from anyplace and understanding they’re not purely the remit of PR businesses, as they could have been in a long time prior?
Inform us in regards to the jury’s method to cultural relevance and authenticity.
We requested, does it make sense for the model? Generally you take a look at these case research and you possibly can not piece collectively the artistic and the model behind it. Does it make sense for the viewers they’re making an attempt to attach with? Does it make sense for the world we dwell in in 2023/2024? That led us to, is it genuine? Does it have a real sense of credibility and authenticity? And is it related in tradition?
How is the jury measuring success?
We mentioned measurement and all galvanized fairly rapidly round work above and past vainness metrics resembling attain, we blew the web up, the world stopped spinning over this marketing campaign, and actually scrutinized the impression. What did it do and what did it obtain past column inches and going viral?
Goal has traditionally been a robust driver of the judging course of at Cannes, particularly within the PR class. How are you and the jury approaching that this yr?
There was a collective sense that only a few points now simply want consciousness. For essentially the most half, campaigns within the function house must do greater than increase consciousness, consideration and drive eyeballs. They should have an effect on actual world change and do it at scale, not simply we dipped a toe in and this piece of expertise will help a various neighborhood and it labored. It’s extra, “what’s the size of the impression of that?”
Goal crept into our dialog round how genuinely impactful campaigns might be, not prefer it has in earlier years when function has been within the first 20 seconds of debate. I’ve been very open that I’m motivated by business creativity. That’s the world I’ve labored in since I used to be 21.
A few years again it felt business creativity had change into a little bit of a grimy phrase, whereas I feel it’s the lifeblood of our business. Manufacturers and organizations have a accountability to do good enterprise, we shouldn’t draw back from celebrating the creativity of the business, so I’m fairly relaxed about that piece.
PR Lions digital jury:
Ciro Sarmiento, chief artistic officer, Colle McVoy
Danni Pinch, government artistic director, Accenture Track South Africa
EJ Yi-Chieh Chiang, government artistic director and head of social, Ogilvy Taiwan
James Wright, world chair and world CEO, Havas PR World Community and Havas Purple
Jenn Duggan, president, Citizen Relations
Julia Petryk, co-founder, PR Military, Ukraine
Layla Poveda, COO, CCK, Costa Rica
Levan Lepsveridze, co-founder and artistic chairman, Leavingstone, Georgia
Nitin Mantri, regional government MD (APAC), WE Communications, and group CEO, Avian WE
Orlando Álvarez, chief artistic officer, Publicidad Comercial MullenLowe, LatAm
Polka Yu, deputy APAC president, BCW
Ricardo Avilés, chief artistic officer, Le Pub, Mexico
Sean Brown, MD, Mango Communications Aotearoa, New Zealand
Shafaq Tariq, director – PR, social media and influencer advertising and marketing, MKV Digital, UAE
Sylvester Chauke, founder and chief architect, DNA Model Architects, South Africa
Terry Chiang, MD, Golin Taiwan
Tokunboh George-Taylor, founder/CEO, SKOT Communications, Nigeria
How a lot will AI be represented within the PR Lions this yr?
I’m in my first batch of judging, the primary third, however I’ve already seen two or three items of very fascinating artistic work primarily based round concepts that harnessed the facility of each generative and predictive AI in methods we haven’t seen earlier than. AI will come via as one of many artistic levers this yr.
How are influencers and content material creators that includes within the work?
These are actually commonplace and also you see them being performed via as a mainstream channel and genuine collaborators. You see this being performed via as a mainstream tactic.
Inform us in regards to the new PR Lions Humor class
I’m actually excited by the primary ever humor class. I’m an enormous advocate of economic creativity and my private leaning when it comes to my work and the manufacturers I work with and campaigns I work on very a lot have a DNA of leisure, high quality and humor and I like that that is being pulled out to be celebrated.
It displays the world we dwell in: meme tradition, social, and TikTok, five-second memes about every thing from the Sunday scaries to having interviews. Humor is so embedded in our tradition now and it’s a shorthand means for people to work together. We should always acknowledge and take a look at the methods manufacturers are doing that too.
How necessary is it for PR corporations to win within the PR Lions?
I’m fairly relaxed about the place concepts come from. Rising up within the U.Ok., promoting had talkability and intrinsic information worth, definitely within the 80s – I may sing you the Cornetto advert, I may recite the Tango advert phrase for phrase, I adopted the Nescafé [coffee] saga, Yellow Pages saga or the Bisto household, and that at all times crossed over into mainstream media.
That reveals the DNA of excellent promoting has at all times had talkability and presumably it grew to become slightly unstuck alongside the way in which and now it’s again. Individuals perceive the elements of a standout built-in marketing campaign are making certain it has actually robust parts of talkability, be that participating or helpful.
I’m fairly relaxed in regards to the debate between PR businesses and artistic businesses. I sit inside an promoting community, so I don’t lose sleep about it. I definitely received’t be steering the jury towards a PR company successful the Grand Prix.
A few of the work is so well-known by the point you get to the medaling stage that you simply’re conversant in it. And anybody who’s affiliated with the work has to step out of the room, so there are at all times a few of these. I’m very single-minded round world-class creativity and awarding that versus some other agendas. Community alliances or agendas should be left on the door. That is larger than that.
Inform us how the judging works.
We’ve had two calls with the awarding jury who will likely be within the room and I can already inform everybody’s up for leaning into and having fun with the method, getting caught in. It’s a privilege to take a look at nice work from around the globe.
For many who don’t know your company, inform us about One Inexperienced Bean.
I began it up in 2007 in Sydney, Australia with Anthony Freedman. We loved unbelievable momentum for a decade till 2017, company of the yr for eight-plus years, content material company of the yr for five-plus years. It’s a small market however we have been in a position to punch above our weight in a short time. I replicate on it being the fitting place, proper time, proper proposition and we went for it, younger, naïve, high-energy staff as we have been.
How did you find yourself again within the U.Ok.?
I relocated residence eight years in the past to open the London workplace of One Inexperienced Bean. Probably the most constant model relationship is Virgin, so our founding shopper in 2007 was Virgin Atlantic and over the previous 15 years Virgin has at all times been a part of our shopper portfolio: Virgin Atlantic; Virgin Voyages out of Miami; Virgin Energetic, the health club chain; Virgin Purple, its loyalty program.
Virgin has been an enormous a part of our story for the final 15 or so years, which says lots for a just about aligned DNA when it comes to power, solutions-oriented, creative-first, identified for small-budget, big-impact activations with a thread of humor and leisure.
How have you ever achieved at Cannes over time?
One Inexperienced Bean has been shortlisted within the Cannes Lions for Virgin Atlantic and Domino’s, and received a lot of medals for Virgin Cellular and we have been the primary PR company in Australia to ever deliver residence a Lion, for a model referred to as Dunlop Volley, which is an iconic Australian coach model.
We’ve received 5 Lions for lead company, together with a Titanium Lion for Artistic Effectiveness, plus two shortlists, which for a small bunch of us looks like we’re punching above our weight. And we’ve had a lot of PR credit as properly.
How did the Havas connection come about?
Anthony ran a really profitable advert company in Australia referred to as Host and was approached by Havas. I opted in for One Inexperienced Bean as a result of I had aspirations of increasing globally, which Havas was in a position to assist with. I used to be additionally very drawn to a communications community that can also be an leisure group when it comes to Vivendi, Canal+, Common Music and so forth.
These partnerships are a very fascinating proposition in unlocking tradition and offering a thread of leisure. I felt Havas may fulfil on that versus a conventional advertising and marketing community and it definitely has.
They helped us on a lot of concepts, resembling getting the band UB40 out to the Caribbean after a hurricane and demonstrating it was nonetheless open for enterprise. It needed to occur actually rapidly and Common Music did the entire thing from thought to idea to doing the deal to getting the blokes on the bottom in Antigua in 17 days. That was all because of folks dotted throughout this community who rolled up their sleeves and made it occur.
What presence does One Inexperienced Bean have within the U.S.?
We’re adjoining to, and aligned with, Havas Purple within the U.S., which is overseen by [Havas PR Global Network CEO] James Wright. There’s nonetheless a bracket of impartial, creatively led businesses within the U.Ok. We straddle each, as a result of we’re independently spirited however we have now the facility of the holding firm behind us. It helps us greater than hinders us.