Geoff Edwards' nebulous art of entertainment

When he’s not in session with his Jury as they sift through the world of branded entertainment to locate the gold from the glittery, you may well spot Geoff Edwards partaking of coffee on the Carlton Terrace, or perhaps perusing chef Sébastien Broda’s menu at the Hotel du Cap. 

“I love Antibes,” he says, “so if I have time, you'll find me there. Also, almost everyday, I'll have a coffee on the Carlton Terrace, and I will go every year for one dinner at Hotel du Cap. Those are the three things I make sure I do when I’m there. The rest of the time I’ll be locked in a room being a responsible jury president...”

Apple and Media Arts Lab is the best collection of creatives in the industry. It’s a soccer team that has all the best players.

Edwards has developed a 360-degree panoramic view of the creative industries in his journey from being a kid from Detroit who was into the arts – “it was a way of keeping me off the streets and safe, and it ended up being my career path.” He went on to study in Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, which, like his career, emphasised the balancing of practical skills with an artistic vision in hopes of improving the world.

Edwards entered the profession at Chiat/Day in New York where he worked on the likes of adidas’s 2004 epic, Impossible is Nothing, then moved to the world’s biggest talent agency, CAA Marketing. Following that he joined Apple’s Media Arts Lab (MAL), under CCO Brent Anderson. Working there was, he says, “one of the best professional experiences I had. I was services, so all over Apple TV Plus, Apple Card, Apple Pay, Apple Music. I loved it.” 

Above: The Impossible is Nothing campaign was developed by 180/TBWA, the partnership between Amsterdam-based 180 and TBWA\Chiat\Day and launched in 2004 with the legendery spot starring Muhammad Ali and his daughter Laila Ali. 

It must have been a true eye-opener, given how Apple has long been a byword, or password, for the all-enveloping 21st-century techo-cultural medium in which we all swim. “It defines technological innovation and culture,” he says of Apple, and MAL. “They do it all, and the company itself is the best collection of creatives in the industry. It’s a soccer team that has all the best players. But they do it in a way that was more traditional, and for me, I wanted to define where the next ten years were going. 

Everything I’ve done and everywhere I’ve been has led to this journey into a better understanding of how modern entertainment through brands can be executed.

Now at Gale, where he is MD of Creative, he describes a silo-free creative landscape in which the design, story, data, strategy and media teams are all in the same room together to solve a brief, and all executed “at the speed of culture”, powered by data and analytics. 

“But now we’re on to the next thing,” he adds. Can he say what that is? No, he can’t – not without casting a binding spell of non-disclosure. But he will say of Gale, “It’s allowed me to venture into everything from conventional marketing to digital entertainment and now data. So I feel I’ve spanned the gamut. If everything is a chapter leading up to where you are, it feels like everything I’ve done and everywhere I’ve been has led to this journey into a better understanding of how modern entertainment through brands can be executed.

There is something about the category of branded entertainment that I find compelling, because it is nebulous, because it is ill defined.

“I’m able to flex into data,” he adds, “and into traditional and digital, but entertainment is all-encompassing when done well. And I love puzzles, and there is something about the category of branded entertainment that I find compelling, because it is nebulous, because it is ill defined, because it will ultimately be defined by the winners of that category.”

Above: Edwards was one of the CD's at McCann Worldgroup who worked on the double Grands Prix-winning 2007 spot Halo 3: Believe, directed by MJZ's Rupert Sanders.  

He points to a recent episodic series tailored for and told entirely on WhatsApp – as an example of branded entertainment’s protean core. “Entertainment is a reflection of culture,” he says, “so as culture changes and moves, so entertainment changes and progresses, and the category evolves as well. So it’s not only nebulous, it’s ever-changing – and I like that.” 

We owe them the honour and responsibility of going through all the work, and we’ll watch the piece from top to bottom.

Given that the Entertainment Lions category can comprise feature-length movies and multiple-episode serials, preparing juries for the festival is no mean feat. Which is why Entertainment has two juries, a shortlist jury to boil done the thousands of initial entries, and an awards jury to simmer the final section down to Merit, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Grand Prix.

“We need to see it all,” he says. “We owe them the honour and responsibility of going through all the work, and we’ll watch the piece from top to bottom, because from a storytelling standpoint there is a middle beginning and end, it’s a three-act play.”

Having won a couple of Grands Prix himself, both for Halo 3: Believe in 2008, Edwards knows full well what kind of impact that experience will have. “There are two things that are amazing,” he says. “Being in the environment of winning that major award – there’s nothing else like it. And what it does for you personally, your team, your agency, your career, and what it does for the market you’re in – it can make front-page news in small countries – it impacts you in so many ways. It was a milestone of my career.”