Counting my blessings I am able to be back again for the inspiring experience of Cannes.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed so far this year is that the digital companies are ruling the world: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook are everywhere. If they haven’t brought guests, they are dominating the speaker circuit and the dinner/cocktail calendar.

Our illustrious leader, Laura Desmond, is jury chair this year and found the jury to be of great calibre. It’s so important to ensure the right work gets recognized.

The shortlist has been released and we are pleased with having two of our entries on it. We worked very closely with creative partners on both – which is usually imperative to getting strong work. We are shortlisted with P&G for Cover Girl (working with Saatchi) for a subway case and the TD Financial Group (working with Draft/FCB) for newspaper. The partners on the vendor side were also crucial – Viacom and The Star, respectively. Congrats all! The medal winners will be announced tomorrow, so we are very much looking forward to that.

And finally, the media work seems to be catching up – there’s a huge increase in the calibre of the digital entries, across multiple channels, as evidenced by the number of shortlists. Stay tuned to see some very exciting examples!

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