 live from Cannes. I am the 2014 PR jury president and I'm going to be doing a series of videos to help educate you all on what is Cannes and how to win a Cannes Lion at this amazing festival. Within the PR industry we do some incredible work and it's really important that we are here representing all that we do for our clients and rightfully take our place within the communications and marketing mix. So today kicked off the first day of the jury procedures. I had a meeting with the Cannes organizers to go over the rules and the policies that govern this whole festival and then we had a reception with all the PR jury representing a variety of countries. It was great to meet the panel of jurors this year. It's going to be terrific a really great representation from countries around the world as well as PR agencies, some ad agencies, as well as some media buying firms. And although I'm not allowed to share with you specifics about the entries that we are judging, I can give you some general findings, some some observations and how the whole jury process works behind the scenes. So I thought that what I would do for this first video is actually share with you almost what is like in a video infographic because I have a lot of statistics. I can tell you that this year in 2014 there were an increase in entries from PR agencies. In the past it was pretty much 70% ad agencies, 30% PR firms and what the organizers feel is that this year it may be more of a 60-40 split. So about 40% of the entries were from PR agencies but still 60% are coming from other types of agencies. So the goal will be to have a better representation from PR firms. Another key metric is that this year there were close to 1900 entries in the PR category and I can tell you that for us jurors who were were judging all throughout the month of May we all went through 400 entries each and it was a quite an undertaking but really really exciting stuff. Some of the digital work is absolutely amazing but I can tell you as one juror I logged my time and before actually getting here I can I spent 29 hours and 45 minutes going through entries. I went through 22 food and nutrition entries, 23 financial service entries, 147 charity and not for profit entries, 40 public affairs and lobbying entries, 21 environmental affairs entries, 11 internal communications entries, 83 digital platforms. There's a different types of digital entries this was just digital platforms and 47 influencer entries. What I found was that the entries with the human element really stood out the most. In the story they were telling there was always this this essence of like the what what it meant for the human element and you can tell which entries were from PR firms and which ones weren't. You know as a juror you really don't want to see and the results we got a lot of free PR. I mean that just doesn't go over very well so it's really important that as you enter you give really strong results but you guys know that already. And I have to say that I sat through the entries and it really was an amazing process in that I found myself you know dancing to the music of some of the entries actually crying because the the emotion evoked from the entry was so powerful. It's really really incredible. I think that we're going to see some really really astounding winners based on the work that I've seen so far this year and it should be a great great process. So I will come back to you again throughout the week with some more observations from the next couple of days of judging. The next three days is when the jury is working on the short list and one of the goals as an agency that has contributed an entry is that you want to be on that short list. The short list gets recognized and if you're on the short list that means that you are a contender for either a bronze silver gold lion or the big grand pre-winner and for those of you who are not familiar with how can works the grand pre-winner is the best of the best so it's like the best of show. Okay so I will talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye bye.