What’s the point of Cannes Lions, really?
Opinion: 100% Media 0% Nonsense
Does Cannes still matter as a beacon of creative inspiration and collaboration, or it it just the biggest media and tech get-together in the world?
I’m having a rather uncomfortable experience. I find this sudden urge to write about creativity. I’ve become infected with a desire to talk about “magic” and “serendipity” and “imagination” instead of my usual rantings about money, tech and analysis.
Of course I’m partly doing the thing columnists usually try: simplify the world into a land without nuance so an argument can stand out between the artificial cracks. Of course media and creativity could and should be two sides of the same coin, whether the two are being used for communication, advertising or otherwise.
And yet [shifts in seat awkwardly], the discomfort is real. I’m the editor of a publication that focuses on the media side of the advertising world, and there’s lots I want to say about creativity. And I have some questions which may be uncomfortable to ask.
I blame our columnist Laurence Green and his annoyingly compelling presentation to a Thinkbox audience last week. The purpose of the “Cracking creativity” conference was to provide new insight into why the creative message and production that goes into TV advertising is still, by a long distance, the most important factor when measuring a TV ad’s return on investment. Way more important than the media budget or specific planning decisions, like the laydowns or the reach-and-frequency decisions.
Yes you knew this already, but were you aware of the extent to which creativity is important? “Creative quality” boosts advertising profitability by 12 times as much, according to econometrician Paul Dyson, which is the same as it was nearly a decade ago. All the complaining about ads no longer being funny and too worthy, all the hand-wringing about linear TV audiences declining… and still creativity matters as much as it did in 2014, Dyson revealed.
De-risky business
The problem, Green has found, is that our industry’s priorities do not align with what’s really important. The biggest barrier to creative development, Green’s interviews with industry leaders has found, is simply due principally to a lack of time.
“It takes time to have a strong relationship and understanding of what is ‘good’… for campaigns to bed in,” Green told the conference. “We take too much time on some of the wrong stuff… I’m not sure creative is the single biggest thing people in agencies are spending their time on.”
So is it any wonder, then, that short-termism in advertising has become “rampant”, as Green went on to say? People aren’t sticking around in agencies long enough to build relationships, nor are marketers in their jobs for long enough on the client’s side. The relegation of longer-term “campaigns”, in favour of “projects” has led to a surge in activations and stunts which don’t do much to help a brand wheedle it’s way into a consumer’s subconscious.
Or any wonder, Green went on to ask, that 28 of the 32 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners last year had “purpose” at the core of their marketing message? Is it that the global advertising community has decided that having a conscience is really the most interesting way to present their brand to the world, or that they’ve become so risk-averse in a short-termist world to do anything else?
Put it another way: can you actually remember any of the ads that won the Grand Prix last year?
If flagship awards and conferences putting on “thought leadership” are worth anything, they should act as an aspiration for doing better than the lowest common denominator, not worsening the incentive structure. If Cannes keeps awarding purposeful work over edgy and daring work, then purposeful is all we’ll keep getting.
Counting boats
And yet, how much does any of this matter really to this “Advertising Festival of Creativity”?
Join me in Cannes next week as I walk up and down the marina, where I expect to see global media and adtech companies’ flags all over the rented yachts. How many ad agencies’ boats do you think will be among them?
Join me as I walk up and down the Croisette, where I’ll be studying closely the shoes of all the Cannes Lions attendees, lanyards and all. Make no mistake, the whiteness of your sports shoes gives you away as a media person, as does the wrinkliness or your linen.
What I’m getting at here is, does Cannes still matter as a beacon of creative inspiration and collaboration, or it it just the biggest media and tech get-together in the world? And are media agencies as understanding of and supportive of creative endeavour as they used to be when they were in the same building, rather than another postcode altogether? What are all these people talking about, really, on the yachts and at the hotel bars?
And if Cannes Lions never existed, would we bother inventing it?
These are the sorts of questions I’ll be asking next week as I interview some of the industry’s most influential leaders and sharpest thought leaders. All of this will be published on our site, our daily newsletter and The Media Leader Podcast.
Because here’s the thing about questions that make you uncomfortable — it’s usually because the answers are really interesting…
Omar Oakes is editor of The Media Leader and leads the publication’s TV coverage. ‘100% Media 0% Nonsense’ is a weekly column about the state of media and advertising. Make sure you sign up to our daily newsletter to get this column in your inbox every Monday.