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Matt Bird, Host, ESG News, & Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP & Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC live at Cannes Lions Festival | SAWA – UNDP “Don’t Choose Extinction” Campaign

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Matt Bird, Host, ESG News, & Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP & Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC live at Cannes Lions Festival | SAWA – UNDP “Don’t Choose Extinction” Campaign

Public-Private Partners convene at Cannes for launch of SDG Lounge at International Creative Festival hosted by SAWA, UNDP, PVBLIC and ESG News

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: 

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News, & Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP & Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (00:00):

The week of the 2022 SDG lounge at Cannes gentlemen, we’ve had some, some amazing highlights I’d like to take a minute moment reflect back on them. Uh, some of your big takeaways highlights your favorite moments, uh, Boaz, uh, from the U N DP. You, uh, have been on the main event. Um, you’ve, uh, you’ve hosted number of fireside chats. Uh, you’ve had your people here. What are some of your, your, your top takeaways and, and highlights?

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (00:27):

So we, uh, we hosted a seminar here at the, at the Cannes Lion, um, on Wednesday, uh, we had a full house. We had, uh, incredible engagement from the audience at some point, every single phone in the audience where was up and filming us while we were on stage. That was the, the moment where Frankie The dinosaur came on stage and had a little, you know, little chat with me. Um, and, uh, so that was definitely a highlight of like seeing that excitement and engagement from the audience. And that then translated into some, some form of action because, uh, later that night I was, you know, about to go to bed and I opened my LinkedIn and there was 36 messages that offered support to the campaign and to UNDP after the talk and from the creative community that we’d come here to speak to. And that’s, you know, that’s you that’s, they made incredible. So some of them might not come true. You know, I haven’t answered any of them if anyone’s watching, I will <laugh>, but, but I get it. But, uh, but it’s, it’s incredible engagement that we’ve, we’ve managed to have and the impact that we’ve managed to have to the creative community here in Canne the heart of creativity,

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (01:35):

This, you know, seeing those phones up, does that fuel, does that fuel you? Does it get you motivated?

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (01:40):

What gets me motivated is getting the, the message out there. You know, it’s super important, uh, at this late stage in the climate emergency that we inform every single human being on the planet of what’s going on and the need to take urgent action. And if we do that, if we manage to inform as many people as possible, and that can only be done through creativity and media, we, we stand a fighting chance because as a, as you know, as a collective humanity, I truly believe can solve any issue. It faces.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (02:17):

I agree. Thank you, Boaz. Excellent. Sergio, um, you you’ve led a lot of thought leadership in strategy and the programming for the SDG lounge for, for the don’t, uh, don’t choose extinction campaign, uh, logistics, everything, fireside chats. What are some of your, your highlights?

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (02:38):

Well, I think that the, uh, the highlights to me, when I think about it, like just the first thing that comes to mind is the partnerships, right? I think it’s important to make sure that, you know, if it wasn’t for everyone Boaz our partners at Sawa your self ESG news, our team at public and everyone, it’s not, you know, I’m just the crazy guy that says yes, and let’s do it, but really it’s a team behind and all the team that’s here. Um, what, but to me is a highlight to make sure that this is seamless, right? And I think that, you know, what’s really exciting about today and really important here in Canne is the launching of the SDG lounge, having Frankie in person, right? The journey behind all of this is, is, is it’s a book on, on its own, right. And, uh, probably a chapter right.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (03:24):

Chapter chapter. And, and you know, that in itself, you know, is, is, is a incredible feat. And I think that what’s really exciting has been, is the engagement that we receive. Like, like Boaz said, I think that, you know, I attended a lot of the events in the in the, uh, the bos, the bos, the Boss theater, and there might have been 50, 60 people. Like he, there was a full house, they opened up the upstairs, they were letting people in. And I think that it just goes to show you that people are looking for creative ways. We’re here creative, international festival creativity. They’re looking for creative ways to engage, right. And as well, I said, we have all the intelligence to solve every problem. And clearly we have all the creativity create trillion dollar companies, right. We just have to kind of shift the perspective and shift the priorities. And I think that, you know, having this SDG lounge here for years to come having, you know, this sort of, uh, uh, SDG lounge, that’s gonna travel with the strategic partners like yourselves with ESG news is kind of that sort of convergence of saying, okay, we need private sector engagement, right? We need private sector innovation into these conversations to take them forward. So I mean, that to me is the exciting part of what we’re seeing here today, what we saw here this entire week and what we hope to see going forward.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (04:40):

Well, you can certainly see what the guests, uh, I mean, everybody, every showed up, everybody was present. Everybody was happy to be here. It was appreciative was fantastic. You guys did a really good job, which brings us to the most important thing is, um, every CG on stage, every sees the, the front, the frontline Boaz and, and Sergio. But I guess looking back at the journey to get here to Cannes, there’s a lot obstacles, a lot of hurdles you guys had to overcome on both sides. Can you tell us a little bit about those?

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (05:13):

So, uh, don’t choose extinction was built over a year and a half, uh, period. It was almost constant battle to get it done. Uh, it was like a, you know, daytime soap, like every episode we were like on a cliff hanger with will, will it continue? And then the next day we kind of managed to pull it through and somehow we, we continued fighting. Um, but it was definitely a journey. Um, you know, uh, there was a lot of, um, lot, a lot, a lot of different struggles, uh, that, that we had to go through, but I just wanna reflect on what, what, what Sergio just said before. What got us through it is the partnerships, what got us through it is the fact that we had an incredible creative team across five time zones across the world, including in Australia and Europe and the United States and Los Angeles United States that we all talk together almost every single day, including Sergio and his team.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (06:08):

Um, and you know, and that was for a year and a half sustained all the time. So we had this incredible support from, from these incredible partners from activist in Los Angeles, who are the creative directors, Wunderman Thompson in, in, in, uh, in Australia. Um, so many partners, pub public foundation just gave us the full support. At all times. We were had an, we had incredible engagement with EarthX, um, and that partnership just flourished and, um, and, and just became so, so, uh, valid. And you know, now the latest version of this is that we have this incredible partnership with SAWA and the, and the global cinema medium across 30 languages and 16, sorry, across 30 countries and 16 languages. We are showing Frankie, we’re making a movie star, um, and millions, more people are coming to the cinemas and are, and are talking about it.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (07:04):

I’ll give you one little tiny example of that. There’s a media company that I’ve been trying to reach for, uh, for a while. And they haven’t really taken my calls, big media company. Um, and, uh, and, uh, the guy went to in Amsterdam with his family to, uh, to watch a film. He happens to be a high executive of that, uh, marketing department in that, in that company. And he got reached out to me after watching the film in the cinema on LinkedIn and said, Hey, we’d like to partner with you guys. How can we do that? And this is someone, no, not him personally, but their company wasn’t really taking our calls before. And that’s the power of it. And that’s the power of these partnerships. So there was adversity, but because we stood together because we have this incredible support and we still do it, it, it, we made it,

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (07:51):

The messaging reached the right, right people. It’s fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (07:58):

Um, you know, I think that the, the, uh, going back to what I said, I think it’s, it’s all about the partnerships, right? I mean, look, any, any project of this capacity is gonna have a lot of adversity. It’s gonna have a lot of, you know, push, pull a lot of, you know, sort of personalities agendas. And everybody wants to be the hero inside of, uh, of the movie. Everybody wants to be the star, the celebrity they’re the cameo, whatever that is. Right. And like, when you look at so many different partners, I think that what’s exciting also here, what’s really a great case study of sort of the multi stakeholder sort of mechanism and engagement. And, you know, as Boaz has said, you know, cuz you know, I was hearing it from him like, you know, the soap, right? Like today, do we live tomorrow, tune in tomorrow.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (08:42):

Right. And, and you know, so I, I think that, but, but no, that’s also part in parcel with the space that we’re in, when you’re bringing, you know, governmental agency into governmental multi lateral groups, all the way across to private sector, to NGOs, to donors, and everybody has their own desires of how they want to engage. And I think that’s part of what, you know, we’ve all been sitting here negotiating, if you will, or, you know, talking and discussing and wanting to keep every partner happy and everybody and all the personalities. And I look, it comes with the territory, but I think what, what the greatest part about that, you know, sort of call it adversity and or challenge and, or, you know, uphill battle is the success is knowing that, Hey, today it’s 1.8 billion views right. Tomorrow as I was talking with my and one of the things that he was saying, he’s like, well, it’d be good to see how this transition from government.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (09:36):

And I said to him, I was like, well, it’s going to, because the people are the ones that are driving their governments to make decisions. This isn’t a governmental conversation. This is a conversation about every human, every single person has a different perspective on what climate means to them. Right. And I think that even what a lot of people don’t see and don’t realize what the brilliance of don’t choose extinction, although it’s gotta cover never judge, the book by the cover, right. It’s got a lot of depth and the depth is data driven, information driven, right? It’s gonna be solutions based is gonna be architected around what we do with that information. Right. You’re a data guy, what we do with that information and repurpose it back out because unless we listen, we’re not gonna be able to do anything. Right. So I think that that’s the, to me, you know, call me sadistic.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (10:24):

I, I enjoy the adversity, right. I love the challenges and, and, and, and just making impossible possible. And, and that’s, to me, you know, why I’m excited, you know, partnering with Boaz and, and, and really bringing, you know, as many shovels as we can, you know, and, uh, you know, to, to, uh, to, to just, you know, keep working. And I, and I think that, you know, that we’re only, as I said, you know, the other day I was like, this is just the beginning. It’s not the end, right. This, we’re already having a conversation today about the refreshing of the creative, where are we going for next year? And, and this could be over the next couple years, probably one of the most monumental historic campaigns that will create the most amount of change ever done.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (11:09):

There are a lot of people who, who are not here today that, uh, made today possible. We want to put a couple shouts out to them on both sides of the team. I know on my side, my crew, my team and New York worked for tirelessly to get everything coordinated with the wonderful People of Cannes. In fact, we’ve got, uh, the act responsible, which I don’t think we’ve really had a chance to give them a shout out as, as much as we probably should, as we sit inside the act responsible, uh, activation. It’s fantastic. Um, I know we, we were able to, uh, do a little mini mini series on, on them and get a, get a walkthrough, um, people at UNDP Boaz anybody you would like to, uh,

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (11:52):

You know, there’s an incredible team that, uh, that, uh, that, that sits behind this campaign at UNDP. Um, they’ve put in tireless amount of work, uh, over, over many, many, many months. Um, all of them are like, absolutely, you could not do this with less caliber of people. And they are the top of the top. They really are. They’re committed. They, they are, they are smart, they are creative. And I’m very, very, very lucky and honored to be part of that team. Um, so absolutely. And then there’s the, you know, there’s the others, uh, the other partnerships that have just been so, you know, influential in keeping us going and, and letting us, and letting us do this. And so, so lots like it takes me really literally took an army.

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (12:39):

I, I, I think what’s important to add to Boaz. I said, is the human capital, right? Really it’s about the humans and the people behind it, because the brands of the brand, you know, the partners of the partners, but it’s who steps up. And, and, and as Boaz I said, I mean, we’ve had that pleasure and honor keep working with this team on a weekly basis. And, and it’s exciting. It’s exciting when people actually care. It’s exciting when you have a really good team. And it’s exciting when you’re starting to see gratification vis Avi, how this campaign is growing and how people react to it here at Canne people are talking about it. There was a half page article inside the Lion today, right. The publication talking about the impact that this conversation is having here at Canne yeah. Where there’s so much noise. Yeah. We’re cutting through the fat.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (13:30):

All right, guys, what’s next?

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (13:33):

I think sleep. No. Yeah, exactly.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (13:36):

<laugh> that’s okay.

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (13:40):

I’ll, you know, we’ve got so many activations coming up. Uh, we are, we are in London next week with, uh, with an event in, uh, in London together with SAWA, um, and, uh, and, and, uh, Pearl Dean, uh, and the UN, uh, U uh, UK U a United nations association of the UK. We’re, we’re again, kind going be talking about the campaign in London. What’s gonna be special is that we are bringing back the substance of the campaign because we’re putting out a media brief. That’s gonna tell us about what happened since last year when the subsidies were 423 billion this year, because of the rise in fuel prices. And the more in Ukraine, we’re gonna be close to 800 billion. And so the, so the issue is to become so much more urgent and we need to solve it so much more urgently. And that’s what we’ll be talking about next week in London, then, you know, all into the future general assembly looks like it’s far away, but Sergio, we know that it’s not far away, that’s

Sergio Fernandez De Cordova, Chairman, PVBLIC (14:35):

Around corner,

Boaz Paldi, Chief Creative Officer, UNDP (14:37):

So you’ve got a lot to do.

Matt Bird, Host, ESG News (14:38):

Yeah. Fantastic guys. Well, and I’d like special shout out to Frankie the dinosaur. I think he’s, uh, he needs to be mentioned, uh, and a wonderful team behind the camera. Listen, guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I appreciate being part, part of the SDG lounge. Thank, thank you for having me, my team. Uh, I’m looking forward to the next one that we do, um, to everybody else out there. It’s been a fantastic week here at cans lions. Um, you’re watching ESG news special, thanks to our affiliate network partners, ABC NBC Fox, CBS. This concludes our programming here. Thank you.

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