Notes from a Cannes Lions outsider
I’m on my way back from my first Cannes Lions festival, having attended as a student of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.
As an interloper from the TV industry, I found the exuberant celebration of creativity and (mostly) optimistic embrace of change refreshing. It was a welcome change to see the Palais Des Festivals in creative mode rather than sales mode which you see at MIPCOM.
It’s been a week of contrasts. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon lined up with the CEOs of the “big 6” media groups to announce their partnership in combating the new Sustainable Development Goals. Meanwhile environmental stunts of debatable merit took big prizes (Brewtroleum), and dubious apps (I Sea) and misogynistic ads (Aspirin) also won.
REI’s adventurous anti-shopping campaign deservedly took plaudits for encouraging people to skip the Black Friday sales for the outdoors. I was taken aback by the scale and ambition of the biggest projects such as Burger King’s McWhopper campaign, which now measure their media impressions in the billions.
It was heartening to see a few small projects beating the behemoths though, especially the amazing and moving Dear Daddy film which was made for just a couple of thousand euros.
None of this got in the way of a party though, with Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter proclaiming in his talk that “Y’all party harder than the rock stars”. The number of pop stars and celebrities appearing attempted to rival Glastonbury, which soldiered on through the mud as we baked in the sun (sorry guys!)
The Daily Mail won the prize for most ostentatious boat in the harbour, lit up on the outside like an inside out disco. I partied over on the beach along with everyone else, though it felt a little like the last days of Gomorrah at times – albeit one that comes with a live soundtrack from Shaggy.
Those recovering from the previous night’s excesses were pampered on the beach by two potential future threats to the advertising industry’s party, Facebook and Google. More than one commentator pointed out that these two companies are taking the lion’s share of digital ad revenues.
There were two parallel Cannes Lions going on, the debauched night time Cannes and the more respectable daytime creative conference.
Artificial intelligence was talked about everywhere by creatives concerned about being replaced by algorithms, as a very cute robot named Jibo joined Dentsu on stage. Samsung, Google and Sony fought to show off their VR tech with mixed success – demoing it in the Lumiere Theatre without headsets was an underwhelming experience. In a fashion first, IDEO’s Neil Stevenson spotted someone wandering around on the street with a VR headset on top of their head like it was a pair of sunglasses.
Droga5 and the rapidly expanding RG/A are among the agencies to watch. As a slightly blinkered Brit I was taken aback by the quality of work now coming from all around the world. Brazil is doing especially well despite economic problems, and who knew that the greatest concentration of awards for its size is now generated by New Zealand?
Other talks ranged from the inspirational director Alejandro González Iñárritu to the less earth-shattering “5 Most Famous Dogs on the internet”.
Our group was lucky enough to get an hour and a half with Sir Martin Sorrell, and I got a chance to ask him on the day after the UK referendum for his views of the mess we are now in. He was intimidatingly knowledgeable and typically forthright, and didn’t see any easy solutions to the situation.
So, would I go back to this brash meeting place of creativity and commerce? If anyone fancies buying me a ticket then most definitely.
