Let me say up front that I love the Cannes Festival. And it seems I’m not alone. Against all global economic trends, this event keeps growing. More of the world’s top marketing and advertising executives are making the pilgrimage to this sunny enclave in the South of France every year, with over 11,000 delegates attending this week.
And it’s clear why. Where else in the world can you come to meet and hear from leading advertising and marketing gurus, clients, media vendors, content producers, Hollywood celebrities, technologists, artists, musicians, scientists, architects, designers, data geeks, humanitarians and ex-US Presidents? We are all here to worship at the altar of commercial creativity, knowing that we can’t succeed in business today without constant innovation and iteration.
But at the core of the Cannes Festival is the awards program itself. And here is where a fresh look is warranted. The world has changed dramatically since the festival began. The idea that there are clear containers in which work can be judged is becoming increasingly old fashioned. So is the notion that there is always one clear lead agency driving a campaign. Today’s reality is that the lines are blurring all over the place, and there are certainly no neat categories as far as consumers themselves are concerned. How do you cleanly attribute business effectiveness to one aspect of a campaign when there are so many elements typically affecting outcomes?
Further, multiple partners are collaborating to create innovative and commercially successful work, but the entry process focuses on one lead entrant agency. It just doesn’t reflect the way business is increasingly done today.
No doubt the Media Lions results will again focus the conversation on the predominance of the creative agencies over media agencies. But is that really the point?
What will award category and agency labels really mean in the future when every agency’s remit is becoming broader and technology is making it easier and cheaper for anyone to market anything on a global scale? The answer is not to keep adding categories, even though that might make more money for the organizers. The answer is to re-look at the categories overall and assess how to eradicate the duplication. How to look at it from a holistic consumer viewpoint. How to more accurately attribute campaign effectiveness. And how to recognise all the contributors to a great campaign, rather than just one lead agency, irrespective of whatever ‘label’ you put on those agency contributors.
And frankly the media judging process needs some refinement too. This year saw a record 3,300 entries in the media category. The jury had to work late into the night for almost a week, and yet they still churned through entries at breakneck speed. How can you reasonably expect a jury to do justice to this many sophisticated entries in such a short period of time? They are only human, and you can only pay full attention for so long. There were roughly half this number of entries the year I judged and even then the pace was punishing. We really need to move to pre-judging this category prior to Cannes week to ease the burden, as is the case with some other Cannes categories and other global/regional festivals. Entering is hard work and expensive, and the festival organizers owe it to everyone to make sure that the process is as fair and robust as it can be.
But ultimately the Cannes Lions Festival is not just about the award winners and losers. It’s about the debate. It’s about inspiration and new ways of thinking and working. And it’s about the new connections and partnerships we make here that will create competitive advantage for our businesses in the future.
John Sintras
Chief Executive
Starcom MediaVest
John Sintras: Time to rethink the Cannes Festival?
20 June 2012