Two years ago, as I sat in the over-conditioned Palais awaiting the medal-winning work to be presented, I readied myself for what I call the ‘ping pong’. That is a technical term.

The ‘ping pong’ is the constant highs and lows, all the emotions flinging back and forth. Before you’ve had a chance to stop crying from one film (ping), you’re giggling through the next (pong). It’s a feeling you can only get from watching all of the world’s best work back to back. 

I waited and waited. I pinged, but I didn’t… pong.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the industry’s reaction to a few dark and depressing chapters in our global history reflected work that was… well, dark and depressing. Stunning, and deeply visceral, but without the juxtaposition of other human emotions that I was used to seeing on the big Festival stages.

They say art reflects life, and they are likely right. Or juries felt hesitant to celebrate joy in a year of profound suffering. No one wants to be seen as insensitive.

On the other hand, I look at our jobs as advertisers. At a very basic level, we’re meant to reflect the truths of the human experience. Joy - humor, even - is a critical part of that experience. Maybe, arguably, one of the more motivating and persuasive parts, something that shouldn’t be forgotten in our job of building brands and businesses through this very work.

It’s time to fully embrace humor again, along with the tragic, maddening, inspiring work, too. Humor in its best form (which means a million things to a million people, the beauty of it) is not insensitive. It is not a cop out. It definitely is not easy - particularly in difficult global times. It’s a part of our experience that is needed to create depth, nuance and appreciation of all the emotions we’re looking to dig out of our hardened, tired audiences.

There’s no better American example of this than Saturday Night Live’s cold open to its September 29, 2001 show. It was the first after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That opening featured NYC police officers, firefighters, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels. Michaels asks Giuliani, "Can we be funny?". Giuliani responded, "Why start now?" And Americans exhaled.

It was brave, like the best work we recognize. There are many ways to be creatively brave, and humor is one of them. It’s time to embrace our need to laugh in the darkest times and really have humor represented at the creative table. So that one day, it’s not brave anymore, it just is.