Last week, the entire advertising industry — and not only it — watched the main event taking place in Cannes, and we were no exception. But beyond the interesting case studies, what caught our attention most was the story of two students. Oscar Girep and Kristina Samsonova (by the way, the young woman is from Russia), students at the Miami Ad School, came up with an interesting project. Since they were in their final year and would soon be looking for jobs, they decided to do it in style and placed an ad in Cannes without even being there. The duo created a series of sponsored Facebook ads and configured them very cleverly. The ads used geotargeting so they would appear only in Cannes on the dates of the Cannes festival. The students also set filters specifically for people working in advertising, marketing, and related fields. Who would see them? People who had come to the festival and worked at the world’s best advertising agencies! The best part of the stunt was that the ads matched the audience’s expectations — the students guessed how festival attendees would feel. The ad read: “Didn’t win an award? We’ll bring you a whole zoo!” Provocative? But Adweek has already written about them. That may be even better than a student finding a job. To learn more about the two students and their fascinating project, follow this link.
