Day 1 in Cannes: Cannespiration and selfie sticks

Picture an Englishman in 30 degree heat by the beach in the French Riviera surrounded by glamorous well tanned advertising creatives and “the French”….well that’s me right now at Cannes.

After seven or so years I have finally made it to the Cannes Lions festival of creativity and find myself writing this whilst looking out at the ocean with a glass of rosé, so excuse any rambling.

Cannes Lions bills itself as the largest celebration of creativity — it’s where the worlds advertising industry gather for a week of inspiring talks, networking, award giving (and the inevitable back patting that goes with it), and of course partying. It gives the ad industry a general way marker for where things will be heading for the year ahead, and what really worked the year before.

Today (Sunday) was the first day of talks, the weeks line up is always a pretty inspirational mix, this year is no different, there are upcoming talks from creative people as varied as AL Gore, Christiane Amanpour, Kim Kardashian West, Marylin Manson, will.i.am, as well as an ever-increasing lineup of the tech / media elite including founders and leaders from the likes of Google, Snapchat, AirBnB, Facebook, Twitter, Tinder, Tencent, Spotify, WPP, Publicis, Omnicom, and many many more.

There are two key trends I predict to pop up time and time again over the course of the week (feel free to insult me if I’m wrong next Sunday).

1. From Structured data, to unstructured humanity

This is really an on going trend, for the last 50 or so years advertising has been about communicating to mass audiences, however in the increasingly digital age we live in, it’s more about communicating to a world of mass niches. The best type of advertising elicits an emotional response, I don’t know about you but things like programmatic advertising, whilst frightfully clever and very profitable for media companies, tends to appeal to my emotions about as much as watching mould collect on a slice of bread.

We are starting to see the rise of psychology and behavioural sciences become ever more crucial tools in humanising our work, helping to make it much more effective. It’s often the small ideas that nudge us into making better decisions that end up making the biggest difference.

2. Equality in ad land

Often at Cannes a talk from the year before can spark a bigger change in the industry. One of those happened last year when Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO spoke about the importance of equality in the workplace.

Cannes Lions took this to heart and have created a new award called the Glass Lion, it will be awarded to work that implicitly or explicitly addresses issues of gender inequality or prejudice, through the conscious representation of gender in advertising. This year one of the ads most predicted to clean up at the awards is all about equality, it’s called ‘Like a Girl’ and it’s from Proctor and Gamble.

Understandably there are many talks this year on the topic of equality, and every agency worth it’s salt has been making strides in that area. Great creativity comes from diversity so expect to see the positive knock on effect of this in the years to come.

3. Innovation…

I have to go to supper now and drink some more Rosé but will catch up again with you all tomorrow. If you want to follow what I’m up to you can follow me @ChrisRawlinson.