Advertisers flock to the French Riviera for Cannes Lions

C'est l'heure!

We are 4 days out from the Cannes Lions. And you know what that means (you do, right?)!

It’s time for advertisers, marketers and creatives to shine as professionals from all over the globe flock to the French Riviera for 4 days of networking and awards.

What’s Cannes Lions, you ask?

Oh, just the biggest and most prestigious awards event in advertising. No big deal. It’s whatever. But if you’re in marketing, advertising or anything even remotely related, you should be paying attention.

Because the primary goal of the festival is to recognise and award the best work in creative advertising. The event's also a major networking hub for marketers, agency executives, up-and-coming creatives and trade journalists.

So, as you can imagine, there’s a lot going on. A lot you, an industry professional, ought to know about.

Ok, so what kind of awards are we talking about?

At Cannes Lions, the advertising and communications industry meets to celebrate the world’s best work. There will be insights from iconic thought leaders. Ideas from the world’s latest innovators. And inspiration from the latest in creative excellence.

'The new global benchmark for creativity is set across 30 award categories, from Film Craft to Creative Business Transformation,' states the website.

As marketers, knowing what’s working in our industry is crucial to our own success. I don’t need to tell you why examining who won what, and why, is helpful to your own brand.

But it’s also important to pay attention to the conversations that are happening at the festival. Leading experts of the industry attend every year to discuss the future of creativity in the industry and its challenges.

Challenges? Like what?

I spoke recently about the declining investment in DEI happening within the industry. There are also major culture clashes in the US affecting LGBTQ+ efforts. AI has thrown a major spanner in the works. The TikTok drama has shaken things up. And smaller budgets are making things difficult all over.

But it’s not all negative. Sports are set to be a huge topic with the 2024 Paris Olympics kicking off in just a few weeks.

But, I’m not going? What does it matter to me?

OF COURSE IT MATTERS. The event will have speakers like Founder and CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cessario, and Meta CMO and Vice-President of Analytics, Alex Schultz. Their talks are bound to be a gold mine of industry knowledge and insight.

Not only that, but seeing what gets our fellow creatives the gold tells us what’s working with audiences right now. Then we can use those ideas in our own brand strategies.

Creative effectiveness is something we all strive for. So if we can learn from these shining examples on the French Riviera, we may find ourselves mixing and mingling at the Cannes Lions one day.

To follow along, you can watch the livestream from Tuesday, 18th June here.

-Sophie, Copywritef