Revitalize our Cities? Yes We Cannes!

Last week my family and I took in the 2011 Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity (more commonly referred to as the Cannes
Commercials), the annual celebration of the best in filmed advertising. The
winning ads were, as usual, an entertaining mix of the hilarious, risqué and
the moving, and afforded the viewer the chance to be exposed to diverse film
styles (and unfamiliar products) from around the world.

One theme in this year's exhibition seemed particularly
potent owing to its repetition: the power of people to transform their cities. Three
award-winning commercials from Levi's, Chrysler and the paint company Dulux all
utilized clever film-making, stirring scores and inspirational ad copy to convey
hope and the need for collective action in the face of urban deterioration.

The Dulux "Let's Colour" project combined the free
distribution of paint with a dedicated social media campaign utilizing blogs,
Youtube, Twitter and Facebook to bring communities together to cover up their
drab or graffiti-covered buildings and streetscapes with bright, fresh hues. The first images are of people striding purposively down their streets, while
others watch from their windows, followed swiftly by sequences of frenetic
action as dozens of painters in four cities swiftly transform walls, interiors
and entire neighborhoods, all captured by graceful and sweeping time-lapse
cinematography. The results are astonishing. As the marketing magazine Contagion puts it, 

"When you see the result, you're flabbergasted. Just by
covering graffiti, old paint and human-less concrete, they revive everything;
entire rows of buildings and tracts, entire areas are visually lifted out of
despair. What was once depressing becomes delightful. What was once dark
becomes bright. What was once scary becomes welcoming. The grey is out, the
gloom is literally gone."

What's so interesting about the project too is that real and
lasting changes were made to these cities – as far as one can tell – without
the traditional apparatus of public sector planning. Furthermore, this ad
campaign was more than just marketing – it produced a global phenomenon. What
started in the spring of 2010 in cities in Brazil,
France, India and the UK has now inspired cities in more
than 14 countries to join the project.

Another major marketing campaign centred on urban
revitalization is Levi's Go Forth films which focuses on Braddock, Pennsylvania. Once home to the massive Edgar Thomson Steel works, Braddock now epitomizes
the Rust Belt, having lost 90% of its population and suffered a major epidemic
of crack abuse. However, the
town's fortunes have been boosted by the creativity of its energetic mayor,
John Fetterman, whose "do-it-yourself" revitalization efforts made him a media
favourite and caught the attention of the Levi Strauss company. In 2010, Levi's
made the town and its mayor the subject of a multimillion dollar "Ready to Work" series of short films, which focused on the town's resilience.

In the Go Forth ad,
we hear the voice of a young girl describing how Braddock is a place that was
broken, where people became sad, and left. But, she intones, "maybe the world
breaks on purpose, so we can have work to do." The message is that Braddock –
as well as communities like it all around the world – are the new frontier, and we all need to contribute to their well-being.

The other ad set in the Rust Belt is Chrysler's Superbowl Born of Fire spot ("Chrysler -- Imported
from Detroit"), and features Eminem driving a sleek black Chrysler 200 down Detroit's streets, past
factories, abandoned homes and skyscrapers – as well as ice-skaters, joggers
and other residents. The rugged voice-over reminds the viewer that Detroit has been "to hell
and back" yet knows "more than most" about luxury and the "finer things in
life." Hot fires, hard work and conviction, he says, are the Detroit
story – not the one that we've been reading in the papers (i.e., the one of
perpetual decline and decay) told by people who have never been to Detroit. The music swells
as Eminem stops in front of and walks into a theatre, where a chorus raises its
voices to the strains of the rap star's "Lose Yourself," and he concludes,
"This is the Motor
City, and this is what we
do."

Unlike the first two spots, the Chrysler piece is pure
advertising: it doesn't profile anything the corporation is actually doing in
or for Detroit
– instead, it offers the city as a metaphor for its own resurgence. But this in
itself is significant: it is an emotionally compelling piece of film-making
that challenges us to rethink our preconceptions about Detroit. 

These ad campaigns demonstrate the innovative and important
ways in which businesses can contribute to positive urban change, and argue the
case that companies have a responsibility to give back to their cities. The
heightened profile that these films have given to cities and efforts to
revitalize them is indeed impressive and inspiring. The fact that these ads are
being seen around the world courtesy of the Cannes Festival will surely contribute
to generating more positive attitudes towards urban life by showing that, even
when cities are troubled and facing crises, people can come together to make a
difference – albeit with a little support from the private sector.