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First impressions of Cannes
June 21, 2024
Here’s my admission; I’ve been writing about the marketing and advertising industry for close to 30 years and in all that time I had never been to Cannes Lions. I’d suffered my friends’ and colleagues’ interminable posts about how hard life was on the Cote D’Azur but I remained in London, never been part of the action. Until this year.
And, actually, it was just what I expected…but with more Americans. They were everywhere and certainly made their presence felt! To enter Cannes world is to suspend all thoughts of cost-of-living crises, redundancies and pretty much everything to do with normal life. This is a microcosm of yachts, cabanas, crowds and overpriced food (when you’re not sustained by free canapes). And pity any poor, unsuspecting tourists who didn’t realise the town would be taken over. If you squint there’s a tiny stretch of beach left to swim on…which we did, every morning and that eased a few sore heads.
It’s the summer of sport and Cannes Lions had embraced it. Streets were closed when Halle Berry ran through with the Olympic torch, bars across town were bedecked with screens showing the Euros – although the multinational crowd attending the festival meant when a roar went up you were none the wiser as to which team had nudged ahead. Between the linen-clad ad men and lanyard-toting delegates every so often you’d see a professional sportsperson gliding toward Stagwell Sport Beach or Omnicom Cove elevated to a place the rest of us could only dream of occupying by their athletic prowess.
Although Cannes is a high adrenaline sport of its own. The rush to get to the next meeting, the confusion of just which side of The Palais your next session was, the bunfight for tables at the nicest restaurants and the endurance of queuing for a precious place on a yacht party – it didn’t matter if it was any good, you just wanted to say YOU’D BEEN ON A YACHT.
There was a ludicrous amount going on and it was easy succumb to that doomed feeling you should be somewhere else. But there was also genuine anticipation as to who would win the Grand Prixs and many thought-provoking and challenging sessions for delegates to attend.
Obviously, creativity was an abundant topic on the programme but it’s not one that always lends itself well to a conference format. That said, Accenture Song’s creative chairperson Nick Law gave an inspiring talk on the opening day about creativity and how it builds connections and understanding and was the first of several to reference Dove’s AI Beauty work and its #keepbeautyreal.
Other highlights included Contagious’ How to win in 2029 – with its whistle stop tour through 44 predictions (there really was something for everyone) many of which inevitably turned to AI; a session entitled When Societal Progress Meets Resistance where the panellists including Richard Edelman CEO of Edelman and marketing legend Bozoma Saint John pointed to how brands could no longer avoid the political; and a session on the business case for progressive advertising sharing new research showing the proof of revenue gains from inclusive advertising.
And hats off to Cannes Lions for daring to let Mark Ritson rip in his packed talk dismantling the importance of creativity in marketing effectiveness. His posse of fans were delighted and maybe Cannes Lions secretly were too when he begrudgingly admitted he was rather in awe of their ability to market the importance of advertising creativity. But even Mark Ritson has to know his place in the pecking order and the festival positively buzzed with Elon Musk talk after his interview.
For all the main stage action, there was even more at the fringe events. Two of our clients in particular were involved with particularly interesting ones. The first saw Louise Johnson CEO of Fuse – fresh from her award judging chairing – moderating an enthralling session on game-changing strategies in women’s sport. The second was Sparks’ stellar panel of big brand names addressing the issue of how to ensure kindness and generosity were part of their brand experiences.
Cannes feeds on FOMO – so for everything I did see, there were many things I didn’t. No Lenny Kravitz, no Queen Latifah, no Elon Musk and no John Legend. But Cannes was the Pumpkin team in supreme form, the incidental catchups, the new business connections and the rekindling of old contacts and, for me personally, it was brain food – an immersion in everything the industry cares about, is worried about and needs to think about. And that was a rare treat, all played out by the Med.
By Jane Bainbridge, Head of Content.