By Danilo Boer, FCB Global Creative Partner

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is nearly here, and with it, the discussion around what creative excellence truly means — and what it takes to achieve it.

For as long as I’ve been in advertising, people have said the same thing: “We need to make work people want to watch.”

But let’s be honest: most ads still feel like interruptions. The industry has talked about merging advertising and entertainment for decades, and while the ambition is noble, the results often land somewhere between a glorified pre-roll and a client-approved compromise.

That’s why I’m so proud of what we’ve quietly built at FCB over the last three years: a body of work that doesn’t just talk about being entertaining — it is. Work that goes toe-to-toe with actual entertainment properties. Work that earns the same cultural stage, the same awards, and the same attention.

We didn’t set out to win a Sports Emmy or screen at Tribeca. We set out to make things people seek out, not skip. But here we are, with two Sports Emmys and recognition from The Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences that live proudly next to our Effies.

Let’s rewind a bit.

In 2022, FCB New York teamed up with Michelob ULTRA to do something totally bizarre: Stage a tennis match between John McEnroe and... John McEnroe. One version of him was real. The others were AI-generated avatars based on actual match data from his prime. It aired on prime time on ESPN in over 50 countries. It was cinematic. It was technically ridiculous. And it was pure fun. “McEnroe vs. McEnroe” went on to not only win several Cannes Lions — but an actual Sports Emmy. And this wasn’t niche recognition — we beat global broadcast legends like the Winter Olympics and the NFL.

The following year, the team helped a blind sports fan live out his dream of broadcasting an NBA playoff game using custom haptic, audio, and AI tech. The project, “Dreamcaster,” also won a Sports Emmy. And this year, “Lap of Legends” — the first ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race — was nominated for two more. That puts us in the strange position of being an ad agency competing against, and occasionally beating, the literal “big leagues” of sports entertainment. 

Not long after, Dramamine — yes, the motion sickness medicine — let our team in Chicago create an entire museum dedicated to the history and (hilarious) decline of the barf bag. At the center was a 13-minute comedy documentary that explored this niche world in all its oddball glory. “The Last Barf Bag” premiered at Tribeca and was awarded a “Health & Wellness” Grand Prix at Cannes last year, along with a Silver Lion in “Outdoor - Use of Humour” — a reminder that entertainment isn’t limited to beer and sneakers. Even pharma can make you laugh.

And then there’s “Spreadbeats” — arguably our most famous piece of the year. Spotify needed to change media planners’ perception that it was just an audio platform. So, FCB New York decided to meet media planners where they live: Inside spreadsheets. We built a fully functioning music video — complete with character animation, storytelling, and a full original soundtrack by John Summit — entirely inside Excel. Yes, Excel. Using nothing but ASCII, Unicode, and conditional formatting, we turned a dry media plan into a 4-minute animated experience. The story followed a data cell named E7 on her journey of transformation and discovery. It was funny, weird, emotional, and nerdy as hell. And it was wildly effective. “Spreadbeats” won the Grand Prix in “Digital Craft” at Cannes last year, and most recently, picked up “Best of Show” at The One Show, the coveted Black Pencil for “Digital Design” at the D&AD Awards, and several Effies. But more than win awards, it was wildly effective, proving that if you can make Excel entertaining, you can make anything entertaining.

Another project that pushed entertainment more than ever is FCB Chicago’s “Caption with Intention,” a new design system that has revolutionized captioning in film and TV, so they communicate how things are said — not just what’s being said. Using a single variable typeface that adapts to pitch, tone, and speaker, it gives Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing audiences access to something captions never captured before: Emotion. The system is already being embraced by major studios and streamers, and earlier this year, the technology was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in support of a new industry standard. An ad agency being recognized with an Oscar is... bananas. But this project doesn’t just participate in entertainment. It’s literally reshaping it, opening up the wonderful world of storytelling in a way that’s never been done before.

And because not every brief calls for a doc or a tech stunt, I’d be remiss not to mention “First Delivery,” FCB New York’s Budweiser Super Bowl spot. It was just an ad — a 90-second film about a young Clydesdale foal who delivers a fallen keg across town to save the day. But it was made with the same lens: Will people care? Will they want to watch? Turns out, they did. It was voted the #1 spot of the year on the USA Today Ad Meter — the one time of year America gets to choose its favorite commercial. And they chose ours.

So yes, I’m proud. But this isn’t about bragging rights.

It’s about proof. Proof that people still care about stories. That technology isn’t the idea — it’s what lets the idea punch through. That if we treat audiences with respect — and maybe even delight them — they’ll choose us, not just tolerate us.

If there’s one thing I’d offer to anyone trying to break out of the advertising echo chamber, it’s this: Stop thinking like an advertiser. Start thinking like a showrunner. A director. A game designer. A museum curator. An engineer. And when in doubt, ask yourself a simple question: Would anyone actually want to watch this?

Because in the end, that’s what separates content from culture. One is skippable. The other earns its place in people’s lives. That’s what creative excellence really means.

At FCB, we’re not trying to make ads feel less like ads. We’re trying to make them feel more like entertainment. And it turns out, when you aim for that — when you really aim for that — you not only get recognized by The Emmys and The Academy, but by audiences that have the ability to move businesses, and culture, forward. 

And honestly? That feels like the best metric we’ve got.