What Advertising's Top Leaders Are Saying About Cannes Lions Going Online-Only for 2021

Most years, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France attracts the world's most prominent advertising leaders to meet their clients in the sunshine and network with—and poach—industry talent. It’s an event where a lot of business happens, connections get forged and deals get made. But this year, for the second time in a row, the annual creative festival won't be held in Cannes, instead going all-virtual. News of the digital-only event didn't necessarily surprise many in the marketing industry, but it did spark reflections on what's gained and lost by spending another year socially distant from the Croisette. Without having to even navigate the obstacles of the Nice airport, Adweek approached some of the industry’s top brass to get their reactions. Return of the trophies Mark Read, CEO of WPP Mark Read, CEO of holding company WPP, led with his lack of surprise, describing the decision to go virtual as “inevitable." "That doesn’t mean that creativity has been canceled,” he said, before adding that he still looked forward to celebrating the work of the industry, albeit online. This year's awards will cover a two-year period. The last in-person festival, in 2019, was the first year for Read in his role leading the world’s largest collection of agencies. It was also the first year WPP took a branded space on the beachfront to host its own events throughout the week. Is it time to revisit the point system? John Wren, CEO of Omnicom Omnicom CEO John Wren told Adweek that many in the industry had felt a virtual event would be the only way to go this year. “If you consider the safety of our people and the pain and loss many have endured this year, traveling and gathering in person in a couple of months just wasn’t in tune with the times,” he said, adding that he was relieved to see the festival organizers adapt to the realities of the ongoing pandemic. Wren hopes that Cannes Lions will revisit its points-based process of naming agencies "of the year." These honors, for agencies, networks and holding companies are determined by a point system that rewards entrants based on shortlisted work and Lion wins, with gold Lions and Grand Prix wins being worth the most points. Some have argued the system gives too much value to shortlisted campaigns that don't actually win Lions. “We are ready to work with them to execute the virtual event successfully,” Wren said. “With the financial strains of 2020, we also hope to ensure the honor of winning a Lion is held to the highest regard and the process of submitting work just to accumulate shortlist points toward categories like Agency, Network and Holding Company of the Year would be eliminated. The prestige of Cannes Lions can certainly be upheld in this new format, and we’re ready to celebrate the creativity of our industry in a modified, fair and equitable way.” A more accessible festival? Annette King, CEO of Publicis U.K. Despite admitting that the prospect of attending the event in-person to seeing colleagues and clients again had been an “appealing one” after the past year, Publicis U.K. CEO Annette King felt the pragmatic approach had been reached. “Plowing ahead with such a large physical event in France in two months’ time is clearly not the right thing to do,” she said, adding the need for a slow return when it came to “building back better.” She continued: “That requires us to look at how we’ve always done things and think about how we can make them better and more inclusive in the future. Cannes is a wonderful event, full of fun, learning and connecting but this year the only option really is to do it digitally. This should also hopefully mean that, to some extent, we can open these wonders to everyone.” "A wider audience than ever" Also welcoming the news and describing it as “understandable” was Stephen Woodford, CEO of the U.K.'s Advertising Association. “Cannes Lions is the leading celebration of global creative excellence, and the need for our industry to demonstrate its contribution to business growth and societal change is timely, as the recovery strengthens in 2021. No doubt we will see outstanding and inspiring creativity and content in the virtual Cannes Lions, and I am sure this will reach a wider audience than ever by being online,” Woodford said. Previously, in an effort to explain how the decision was reached internally to go online-only was Cannes Lions managing director Simon Cook. “We have been realistic that it might be an eventuality, but it has been really tough because we always want to do things in consultation with our customers.” Cannes Lions 2021 Will Be an Online-Only Event. Here’s What We Know So Far