Post-Cannes notes: The mattress

Have you been a passerby on the Croisette near Palais de Festival in Cannes on Tuesday, the 23rd of June 2015, around 4:30 in the morning, you would have seen a couple enjoying some time together (really really close together) on the red carpet – this is already history.

But have  you been a passerby through that very spot a few days later, after the Cannes Lions Festival’s final awards ceremony, you would have seen us: a group of hyped people, “walking” the red carpet in quite a different style: horizontally, on a mattress.

“If it’s you last night in Cannes, better make it comfortable” – was our invite.

Capitalizing on the heavily mediatized sex picture, people got the pun and joined us in taking pictures.

This was, of course, a rose-inspired idea sprung from Valeriy Volchetsky, Group Creative Director for Moscow-based agency Hungry Boys and our Romanian group: Razvan Ghilencea, Anca Wirdy (Ifrim), Robert Capraru and Bianca Dumitrascu. We met each other through The Alternative School and have grown friends together really fast over the past year, despite working in different parts of the industry.

While debating the stunt, we were actually having a real good laugh. I personally though the discussion was going to end as one of those “it would have been cool if” moments – but I underestimated the guys’ drive in execution. We discussed having the idea tailored for a brand such as IKEA or Mi Colhon – who knows, maybe it can win inside the Palais too by next year.

It was simple, low budget, timely, in context, engaging for the audience – all the things you learn an idea should be inside those seminar rooms. We just applied it with a drop of fun. As such, we ended up in the international media with “sex” in the title, by using our brains and not our bodies, proving that creativity is celebrated all around Cannes, not just inside the Awards Gala.