Saturday - June 23, 2007

Cannes presents its first Green Lion to Al Gore. 

From left to right: Kevin Wall, Hamish McLennan, Al Gore, Terry Savage

After a stirring speech that received the only standing ovation at Cannes I've seen, Al Gore received Cannes' only Green Lion.

We had blue dots on our Cannes delegate IDs that identified us as "Y&R Seminar VIPs," but we were treated like tennis balls. Go to this entrance. No, go to this entrance. Line up here and then, oh wait, it's the other entrance. After a while I think we all went into a herd trance of resignation. The arrival of the French Premier broke the trance. Wait, no, the paparazzi shoving to get a good shot from behind us broke the trance.

That was our inconvenient truth for the day. Not that it was of any significance to the world's survival. Or to us, once we had our seats and were listening to Al Gore tell the advertising industry that we could do something to save the planet with our messaging skills. (He kept saying messaging, and I kept thinking texting.)

After the talk, we went to a room within the complex, with a balcony. There we had cocktails with Al and Tipper and Kevin Wall and Hamish McLennan, Y&R's global CEO.




That's Mary and I getting to shake hands with Al. What a great moment. I was starstruck! Which in hindsight does not seem a bad thing at all, not even goofy.