Kaktus 2018

Karolina Mirdita
Karolina Mirdita
November 28, 2018

“Idea is nothing without execution” was the slogan of the fourth festival of integrated communications – KAKTUS 2018 held on November 12th and 13th in Belgrade.

The idea and execution are two inseparable things, one cannot exist without the other, which means that without execution we remain only with an idea.

At this year’s Kaktus festival, art director Nikola Kalezić and I met some of the world’s renown agencies, took part in various lectures, which hardly left us indifferent.

We admit that Kaktus 2018 had managed to plant an idea or two to mull over.

In just two days, this year’s festival offered an exceptional program: interesting lectures, during which we listened to numerous creatives from different parts of the world. Creative director Marcel Padoco (David & Goliath), opened Kaktus 2018 with the lecture “What we can unlearn from Michael Bay”. We also had the opportunity to listen to the “Creative Conference” lecture held in an engaging way by the creative director of the Georgian agency Leavingstone. His message to the audience was an incentive to come out of our comfort zone, which, more often than not, we trick ourselves into thinking that it is lovely.

Other talks were presented by creative directors such as Chad Warner (McCann London), Gabriela Lungu (Wings Creative Leadership Lab), the directors of We are Social (Stefano Maggi and Ottavio Nava), Fabien Aufrechter, Michael Maslov, Roxana Marin, and Diana Nedelea. There is no doubt that the regional creatives also made a positive impression on the audience with their lectures. Among them were Sanja Lalević Cvetković and Igor Černiševski (Direkt Media), Nenad Šljivić (Microsoft CEE) and many others. 

Considering that the cactus lives in difficult conditions, requiring very little water and basic incentive to develop, no wonder it was chosen as a symbol of the festival, sending a message to foster ideas that survive.

What was missing at the festival was the interactivity during the lectures. We would be keen to see the increase of the audience participation during lectures in the following years, not to risk planting a seed of boredom where there is only a place for creativity to grow. :)

Festival’s advice?

It’s not only important to cultivate ideas, but it is important that each brand aims at solving a problem and transmitting various messages to the audience. The most successful brands are not just a “brand”. Same as humans, brands have character, personality and are designed to inspire us.

It was emphasized that the creatives can’t do the same things and expect different results. Rather, we should find additional sources to enrich the ideas we’re pondering over because something new can always pop up. 

Kaktus offers an exchange of views on commonly known ideas. Fair warning – do not expect mind-boggling concepts. Nevertheless, our team came back with a little more inspiration to work with.

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