Hispanics named as Cannes judges

Cannes Names First Judges From U.S. Hispanic Market
La Comunidad's Molla and SMG's Gadsby on Juries
By Laurel Wentz Ad Age March 06, 2009

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- La Comunidad's Jose Molla and Monica Gadsby, CEO of SMG Multicultural, will be the first judges from the U.S. Hispanic market at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. They will serve as U.S. judges on the outdoor and media juries, respectively, at this year's festival, held the week of June 21 in the south of France.

Mr. Molla is creative director of La Comunidad, an independent agency he co-founded in 2001 with his brother Joaquin. It is based in Miami and Buenos Aires. Mr. Molla is based in the Miami office, where he has built one of the most creative and award-winning U.S. Hispanic agencies, helping to raise the bar for creative work in the Hispanic market.

As head of Publicis Group's SMG Multicultural, Ms. Gadsby oversees more than $1 billion in media business at the two biggest U.S. multicultural media-buying units, Starcom MediaVest Group's Tapestry and 42 Degrees at MediaVest. A pioneer in Hispanic media buying and a former Ad Age Media Maven, Ms. Gadsby shapes the way major marketers target Hispanic consumers in the U.S.

No specific recruiting effort
Susan Lilley, marketing manager-Cannes Lions at USA Today, the Cannes festival's U.S. representative, said Mr. Molla and Ms. Gadsby were chosen as judges based on great credentials rather than a specific effort to recruit judges who work in the U.S. Hispanic market. She said the Cannes festival has been talking to Mr. Molla for a couple years about judging, but his brother Joaquin was on the film jury last year, so it didn't happen immediately.

Mr. Molla will be the only U.S. judge on the outdoor jury this year. Ms. Gadsby will be one of six U.S. judges on the media jury, including jury president Nick Brien, president-CEO of Interpublic Group of Cos.' Mediabrands. That's a larger number than usual because many senior global media executives are based in the U.S.

In total, the U.S. has five jury presidents this year and at least 19 other judges (one jury is still being finalized), including Mr. Molla and Ms. Gadsby. The five jury presidents are Mr. Brien; David Lubars, chairman-chief creative officer of BBDO North America (film/press); Droga5 Creative Chairman David Droga (titanium/integrated); David Sable, vice chairman-chief operating officer of Wunderman (direct); and William Rosen, chief creative officer-North America of Arc Worldwide (promo).

In another first, the outdoor jury will be headed by Akira Kagami, Dentsu's global executive creative director, the first Cannes jury president from Japan.