Nikita Yermolayev, the creative director of RA Kombinat, has become the first representative of Kazakhstan on the board of the Cannes Lions 2024 jury. Kursiv LifeStyle discovered how someone can find themselves in that position and how well Kazakhstani creative projects performed at the festival.
Yermolayev shared his impression of the festival’s work in an interview with Tribune, which is also available on the Instagram account of his advertising agency. As Yermolayev highlighted, he didn’t apply to be included in the jury, as the organizers chose judges themselves based on their experience and achievements in the industry.
«I was lucky this year as they decided to choose me. I was very delighted about this. I think they probably learned that I had some experience being on the jury for several other big creative festivals and that our agency won a Webby (an Oscar award in the sphere of internet projects) this year. We made it to the shortlist out of 13,000 applications.»
Yermolayev was a member of the jury in the category of Brand Experience & Activation. This category was designed for various projects promoting branding style. The jury relied on four criteria: idea (20%), strategy (20%), implementation (30%), and result (30%). Each project could score one to nine points.
«Even though many consider the festival a contest for creative ideas, that’s not the point. Theoretically, even a very simple idea can win the contest if its authors are good at its implementation and have an interesting result.»
Kazakhstani creators also presented their projects at Cannes and for the first time in history have won the gold award: the National Sport of Kazakhstan project by the GForce advertising agency has won in the Social & Influencer category. Kazakhstani creators Adel Yermakova and Zharkyn Murad have also achieved success in the Young Lions Competitions, winning silver in the Digital category.
According to Yermolayev, projects presented by Kazakhstanis were strong but not always perfect.
«Projects are strong. However, the problem with many Kazakhstani cases is not that we can’t make something good but a lack of attention to promotion and marketing. This scheme is very simple: you produce a nice advertisement and then you make a good promotion for your ads.»
At the end of his interview, Yermolayev offered some pieces of advice to those advertising agencies that want to win at creative festivals. First, they have to apply a lot of projects in several categories all at once. Secondly, before applying to Cannes Lions, they may want to test their skills at other festivals, constantly improving internal processes within their teams, as the jury pays attention not only to the final result but the implementation nuances as well.