On December 16th at the Business venue of the IV St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum held a discussion and screening of videos titled "Advertising as a New Most Important Art. "Cannes Lions" in St. Petersburg." The event in the Russian Ethnographic Museum was visited by the experts in the field of advertising, filmmakers from Russia and abroad, including the producer of animated films studio "Se-ma-for" (Poland), winner of the "Oscar" Zbginev Zhmudski, president of the Russian branch of the International Advertising Association, a former player of the club "What? Where? When?" Boris Yeremin and others. Discussion was moderated by spokesman Night of AD eaters in Russia Daniel Kostinsky and creative director of the agency SPN Communications Alexey Skvortsov.
Experts and audience watched the commercials that over the years won prizes at international creative festival "Cannes Lions", and tried to answer the question whether the advertising has independent artistic value? Opinions varied. "It's hard to imagine a man who comes home in the evening, sits in the chair and watches his favorite commercials!" - Ironically director Sergei Osipyan. However, most of the speakers insisted that the advertising - it is, after all, art. "Advertising works on our minds, our thoughts, desires and emotions, and does it in a very short period of time, - said Valentin Smolyakov, Director General of the International Advertising Festival Red Apple and CEO of the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia. - We just saw a series of ads. We laughed, thought, felt sadness and felt inspired. And all of this in just thirty seconds! What other kind of art is capable of this?"
Advertising is also able to bring aesthetic pleasure, and even to develop other forms of art. For example, representatives of the film industry borrow from video advertising cutting techniques. In the advertising purposes are composed beautiful pieces of music, and even innovative architectural structures, such as once Eiffel Tower or the pavilion of "MegaFon" in the Olympic Park Sochi - 2014. Then specifically for this purpose technology has been developed that allows broadcasting on giant wall 3D- selfies of Russian fans. (Pavilion "MegaFon" is the first Russian project, which received the Grand Prix of the festival "Cannes Lions").
At the same time, said Boris Eremin, advertising could not be a masterpiece, but still carry out its task: to sell the product - the best industry professionals are able to combine both. Executive director of global communications agency OgilvyOne in the direction of Content & Social Robert Davis agreed: "We want to do any advertising work of art, but that art should have a purpose." And, most importantly, this goal can be socially significant: as well as the works of traditional arts, advertising (primarily social) can change the world for the better - and sometimes even more successful than the first, due to the brevity format, readability, speed and cheapness of production and increased presence in our daily lives.