The Cannes Lions festival continued to outdo itself this year, with a record number of creative entries (over 40,000, generating $22.7m in entry fees for 21 categories), 13,000 total attendees, and if the truth were known, a record percentage of attendees whose interest in creative awards was marginal or zero.
Although the festival is billed as the home of great ideas, where creativity is seen as “the driving force for business, for change and for good,” Cannes is really an open-air bazaar, where buyers and sellers mingle, dream, haggle and hope.
There is hope about winning creative awards, hope about new clients, hope about better careers, hope about fame, hope about more money and even hope that optimism will continue once the festival finishes. The grim reality of the traditional advertising industry – never discussed at Cannes – is that creative and media agencies are under enormous financial pressures, as clients cut fees and find lower-cost ways of creating and distributing ads throughout the highly fragmented media landscape.
Although advertisers at the festival espouse their commitment to great creativity and innovation, they are allergic to funding it, and even highly-awarded agencies know that the Lions they take home with them will not make much of a difference when they discuss their budgets with existing clients. If current trends continue, their fees will continue to be cut, and agencies will see agency of record (AOR) relationships fragment as clients experiment with specialist agencies, particularly in digital and social media.
Cannes provides a brief respite from these pressures, and hope, fuelled by champagne, networking parties and awards ceremonies is coupled with denial to re-energise agencies and its executives at this halfway point in their fiscal years.
The genius of Cannes is in their packaging of award categories and speakers to keep the focus on creativity while, in reality, growing the festival’s eclectic list of attendees so that Cannes becomes the place that one simply must attend – because everyone else is there at the same time.
Creative agencies attend Cannes, of course, to win awards, which helps in their recruitment and retention of creative talent. They meet with existing and potential clients as a matter of course – the festival provides non-stop opportunities for new business hustling.
Advertisers attend in support of the twin concepts of creativity and innovation, supporting their current agencies but shopping around, at the same time, to see what’s out there in the hope of understanding technological changes in a meaningful way, and to size up new partners who may help them carry out marketing programs at lower cost with increased effectiveness.
Media agencies attend because their clients are there – they do not want to be left out, even if their involvement in the awards part of the festival is minor.
Media companies, such as publishers, TV networks and web owners attend to ensure that business continues to come their way from the decision-makers who buy and place media.
Technology companies attend because media companies and potential clients are there. Technology companies play a role somewhere between the creative and media agencies, on the one hand, and the media companies, on the other hand. Their battleground is highly fragmented and competitive. Increasingly, they feel a need to be seen and to participate.
Financial institutions, including mergers and acquisitions specialists attend because there are deals to be made, particularly between the tech companies with one another and with the holding companies. Seeing what is on display at Cannes fuels their deal-making insights and energy.
Finally, there are a diverse mix of celebrities, DJs and high-level speakers who attend for fame enhancement, ego-boosting and money. Why not?
As the festival grows, it becomes less comprehensible to those who are nostalgic for the festival’s previous simplicity – creative awards for easy-to-understand TV, print, radio and outdoor ads. Jeff Goodby, co-chairman and partner, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners wrote that 2015 might be his last year at Cannes. “Nowadays, it is more like a plumbers’ or industrial roofing convention, after which I go home and begin to explain to a friend that there is an amazing new fibreglass insulation technology that will enable us to cost-effectively sheathe surfaces exposed to the sun… ”
There’s no one to blame for these changes, of course, and if I had to make a prediction, I’d bet that Goodby will be back in 2016. How could you miss a festival where everyone who is anyone will be there?
Michael Farmer is chairman and CEO of Farmer & Company. He is author of Madison Avenue Manslaughter which was launched at Cannes Lions 2015
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