Cannes State of Mind

TWELVE Mail: What are you most curious to experience in Cannes?
Michael: I have never been to a place before where so many creative people are in one spot. I can’t wait to soak it all in – and of course, I’m excited for the parties too ;) 
 
TWELVE Mail: How do you prepare for a brief you haven’t seen yet?
Michael: I’ll check out the winners of the previous years. Other than that, I like to stay up to date with new creative campaigns and analyze what makes them successful. 

TWELVE Mail: What’s your personal definition of a winning idea?
Michael: A concept so simple yet great that you’re annoyed you didn’t come up with it yourself.  
 
TWELVE Mail: If Cannes had a theme this year, what should it be and why?
Michael: Tinned fish. I just really love tinned fish.

TWELVE Mail: What are you most curious to experience in Cannes? 
Burcu & Andreas: Of course the big thing for us is the international competition, we're definitely the most excited about going all out for a gold medal. Also the idea of meeting the great minds that are shaping the advertising culture is exciting us. 
 
TWELVE Mail: How do you prepare for a brief you haven’t seen yet? 
Burcu & Andreas: We keep the chemistry alive through working together often, and have regular check-in meetings about new trends and our opinions on current live work! 
 
TWELVE Mail: What’s your personal definition of a winning idea? 
Burcu & Andreas: For us, winning ideas shouldn't just live in jury rooms, but start a conversation on the street. It should be the one that stops being an 'ad' and starts being a piece of culture. 
 
TWELVE Mail: If Cannes had a theme this year, what should it be and why? 
Burcu & Andreas: The theme should be "The human factor" because as time passes, we see that AI isn't a 'creative' and it is a tool for the creatives. It can refine the execution, but at the end of the day, humans create for humans. 

TWELVE Mail: What kind of thinking are you personally rooting for in the judging room?
Azhar: Thinking that respects the data without being imprisoned by it. I love the famous quote “not everything that counts can be counted” – and the work I want to champion is work where you can feel a human decision behind the numbers. From a Middle East lens, I am also rooting for work that originated from different regions on its own terms, not work that translated a global idea into the region.

TWELVE Mail: What do most people misunderstand about how juries actually decide?
Azhar: Juries are made of human beings and humans are emotional creatures. With all the science behind audience data, optimization statistics and ROI – ultimately, ideas that stir the most powerful emotions are the ones that stand out – with audiences and with jury members. 

TWELVE Mail: What's something you've been missing in recent work and hope to see again this year?
Azhar: Conviction. Too much recent work feels de-risked – beautifully crafted, perfectly targeted, commercially justified. I miss the kind of media idea that makes you uncomfortable for a second before it makes sense. I also hope to see more genuinely regional work make the cut – from the Middle East, from Africa, from places where the problems look different and the solutions don't fit a globally approved template.

TWELVE Mail: One piece of advice you'd give your younger self before their first Cannes?
Azhar: Cannes can be overwhelming. The first time, I attended as a delegate and tried to absorb every panel, every party, every conversation – and realized I didn’t go deep into anything. The Cannes that matters is smaller: fewer conversations with people who think differently than you, few pieces of work that genuinely shifts how you see your craft. Feel and absorb the energy versus trying to check the boxes. 

TWELVE Mail: If Cannes had a theme this year, what should it be and why?
Azhar: The theme should be the Wave-Particle Duality. I think about media the way a physicist thinks about light. The particle is the computable half – the targeting, the attribution, the optimisation – and machines are now better at it than we are. The wave is everything else: human insight, instinct, emotion, conviction, the magical force that moves an audience long after the campaign ends. The best work has always been both. Cannes should reward teams who mastered the particle and were brave enough to trust the wave.

TWELVE Mail: What kind of thinking are you personally rooting for in the judging room?
Micha: Out of the box works usually on the first level. Personally I want to resonate with the piece of work on a crafting level. An idea for copywriting, for photography and over to typography: there are so many ingredients that need to be conceptionally answered. 

TWELVE Mail: What do most people misunderstand about how juries actually decide?
Micha: If you win, the jury decided well. If you lose, they screwed it. Like with a referee in football. My take: Love the game – not the referee. 

TWELVE Mail: What’s something you’ve been missing in recent work and hope to see again this year?
Micha: Basically the “I-wish-I-would-have-thought-about-that”-moment is something I am looking for. Bittersweet. Every year.

TWELVE Mail: One piece of advice you’d give your younger self before their first Cannes?
Micha: Cannes is a lottery. If you want to win something you need to have a ticket for that lottery. So find potential, convince clients and execute on the highest possible level. Don’t fall for any compromise while doing so. Every compromise takes you from a lion away down to the shortlist only. And that’s not what you want. You want to win!

TWELVE Mail: If Cannes had a theme this year, what should it be and why?
Micha: Keep it real.