Cannes Contenders 2015: Guga Ketzer on Mobile

What’s your definition of what this category means in 2015?

To me, Mobile is simply any work that wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t portable. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on a mobile phone or tablet.

What, for you, makes a great Mobile entry and what, from the last 12 months, has impressed you in this category?

It’s got to be pertinent to the user and to the brand. Never technology just for technology’s sake. Anything using simple technology that is easy to use and with a powerful concept behind it makes a great entry.

There’s a piece that I particularly like because it’s not an app, not a mobile site, nothing techy really. It’s a campaign to let people know how they can use their mobile phones to spot eye cancer just by snapping a picture with the flash on. So simple. Not one line of code. Still mobile.

How important has Mobile advertising become to brands over the past few years?

Our job is to understand people. So, the more people using mobile devices, the more important mobile becomes to advertising.

With recent statistics showing that there are now more mobile devices in the world than there are people, is a successful mobile campaign now the best way to reach consumers?

Not necessarily. It depends on your target, your brand, what you want to communicate. But definitely you have always to think about mobile. At least as an important tool in most of the campaigns.

How do you think this area of the business will evolve in the coming years?

All we know is that everything is changing very fast. So, more than ever, we need to keep our focus on people and how they relate to technology, regardless of what we’ll be using over the coming years. It’s always about human behaviour in a digital world. 

Will you be attending this year’s festival and, if so, what are you most looking forward to about it?

Not this year. A first miss in a decade.