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Cannes used to be the annual procession of Adland’s finest to a privileged corner of the Riviera to recognize the best work and strongest ideas of an industry with the potential to affect huge societal change. In recent years, it has become mostly associated with too much wine and too little actual effect on the wider ad and tech industries. It’s now a couple weeks since we all flew back to reality, giving us the necessary time to process what was actually important at this year’s event.
After a brief absence owing to the pandemic, there was a noticeable focus on the industry trying to be the change it wants to see from the world. It was hugely encouraging to see so many positive conversations and meaningful, data-driven, results-oriented campaigns being shared.
The International Festival of Creativity is now also a bedfellow of tech businesses along the Croisette, and while that relationship has been awkward, this year it looked like there may be signs of real progress. Of course, there’s always more to do, but there was a strong Cannes-do attitude. Here are five positives we can take away from this year’s Cannes Lions.
No hiding behind PowerPoint or Teams
The last time I attended Cannes was back in 2018. For many people, it was 2019, the last time it was held before the pandemic hit. That’s a fairly long time ago now, and there’s no question that the world has changed. So is Cannes still relevant?
For most of us, me included, we were simply excited to go back there, catch up with old friends, make new ones, learn something new from the panels, socialize well into the evenings (admittedly some more than others) and help drive relationships and business conversations forward the old fashioned way: face-to-face. No Powerpoint or Teams to hide behind.
It was a useful reminder that it’s very much our job to make Cannes relevant with the discussions, conversations and meetings. If Cannes ever stops feeling relevant, there’s an onus on all of us to keep pulling in the right direction.
Great ‘techspectations’
The discussions I had with clients centered on the challenges the industry faces from a tech perspective. Are the walled gardens rising and leaving the open web behind? Is retail media already the next big thing—and why? Is Google really going to kill off the cookie, and if so, when? Does Gary Vaynerchuck really need a boat that big?
The events we hosted and attended proved that tech companies are relevant at Cannes and are even now actually leading many of the conversations on La Croisette.
The work is more important now than ever before
While diversity and inclusion and carbon neutrality were rightly at the top of the agenda, the sight of Rainbow Warrior moored up offshore, the visible lack of diversity and (even still) how badly the gender ratio skewed towards men show us that we have a long way to go. To survive in the new era, Cannes must take these topics seriously and not simply pay lip service to them.
Of course, this isn’t just an issue for Cannes. There’s an industry-wide need to confront these issues. If awareness isn’t turning into changed behaviors, we’re doing something wrong.
What a time to work in our industry
More than anything, Cannes showed how a young, vibrant, global creative and ad-tech crowd can come together as an industry, have fun and still do meaningful business. To see the two sides of our industry—creativity and data—mingling well, coming up with great ideas and continuing the conversation when returning to work can only be good for the wider advertising industry. It’ll be exciting to see what comes to fruition in the next six months from these meetings and conversations.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
A reminder to anyone going next year, pace yourselves. Literally, walk slowly from meeting to meeting, and seek shade when you can.
But also figuratively. It did seem to be a better-paced event by those attending this year, but Cannes was always a high intensity activity, perhaps more noticeably after the pandemic. My advice would be even fewer 5 a.m. finishes and more carriages at 1 a.m. Though I’m not sure that will ever quite stick for everyone.
