Listen up! Babinet on the gentle art of persuasion

ENGAGEMENT must be more than just a buzzword for creative agencies, warned BETC co-founder Rémi Babinet in his Cannes Lions ‘Pas de Publicité Merci – No Ads Please’ session yesterday.

“Engagement is something anybody who works in a good agency knows about. It means really analysing things deeply. Really hearing people,” Babinet said.

Rémi Babinet

“People sometimes think of ads as just about hammering things into people, but actually it’s a listening profession. It’s an analysing profession. If we don’t listen correctly and if we don’t understand well, we cannot really address people properly.” Babinet was recounting anecdotes from his book, No Ads Please, which is published this month. It documents the history of the agency he co-founded in 1994, and the lessons he has learned along the way. “It is important to remind people that advertising has a central role in so- ciety. But that doesn’t mean we have to bombard people with advertising every day,” he said.

Babinet showed the audience some of his favourite work for clients including Lacoste, EDF and Canal+, while also talking about the cause that is currently close to his heart: encouraging people to explore and respect “Greater Paris” as the French capital continues to expand outwards.

“For me, it’s a battle to wage. Everybody loves Paris; Americans love Paris, Chinese adore Paris, the whole world loves Paris. But people love Paris only if Paris never changes,” he said.

“There is a huge risk for the city in becoming fossilised in a kind of cliché. That would be fatal.” Babinet’s book — and his Lions session — celebrate the creative thinking within agencies. “Persuasion is not a science, it’s an art. That’s important. Because particularly nowadays we’re very into instant gratification, and we love technology,” he said. “We tend to forget that it’s the art of persuasion that is at the heart of this.”