It's that time again: the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is upon us!
With so many innovators in one place at the same time, the conversations are bound to be thought-provoking. This year, it's hard to avoid the feeling that the advertising industry is on the brink of significant transformation (again). AI is turning tech and creative production on its head; post-cookie strategy continues to vex marketers; and the promise of cultural events has everyone's attention.
So this year at Cannes, let's engage, debate, and innovate together! Here are the conversation starters that will be on everyone's mind at the festival. (And if you're headed to Cannes, make sure to say hi to the Madhive team.)
At Madhive, we like to say that AI is just the way we do business now. And that means confronting AI in every aspect of our industry.
There's a sense that by this time next year, we'll be working in a completely different environment, and the Cannes conversations around AI will have progressed to another level.
For now, it's clear that generative AI in ads is a major area of exploration. Amazon is hosting a panel on the topic at their A’Maison Amazon Port, and this is the first year that the festival required award submissions to note if AI was used.
We're especially excited about this topic because of the potential it offers for local businesses and SMB brands. If there's no longer a costly barrier to entry, then more businesses can experiment with video advertising, particularly through CTV. Plus, brands with greater scale can easily generate variations of a campaign that are tailored to different geos, maximizing impact. (We even used AI to create a variation for our recent CTV campaign!)
So keep that all in mind while you watch the numerous live AI experiences that will undoubtedly be present at many brand activations this year.
One of the hottest "tickets" at the festival this year will again be Stagwell's Sport Beach, which emphasizes how essential live events have become to digital advertising.
With professional athletes discussing the impact of sports, while also giving hands-on instruction to attendees, the expanded activation brilliantly demonstrates how emotionally-compelling live experiences can be.
The challenge is how to capitalize on these cultural moments, and it'll be an important focus for several panels throughout the festival. Live sporting events, awards shows, and other shared experiences bring together diverse digital audiences into a single, engaged moment. With such a captivated audience, advertisers have become invested in finding ways to bring their brands into the conversation.
Speaking of shared cultural moments, both the Olympics and the U.S. election will be major conversation starters. We're about to witness a very different environment for both events, and everyone will be eager to see how it plays out.
The common factor? CTV.
NBCUniversal projects that streaming for the Paris Olympics will be 4x the volume compared to the last summer games in Tokyo, signaling that advertising is shifting to CTV for even this historic tentpole event.
Meanwhile, political groups will spend more on CTV ads this election season than ever before. So far, the bulk of ads have largely focused on hotly contested primaries and down ballot races, but political ads will pick up just as the festival comes to a close.
That means everyone will be debating the impact CTV will have on two of the biggest events of the year.
Perhaps the only thing more buzz-worthy than AI will be retail media networks. As cookies continue their slow, painful demise, national retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Target are offering unprecedented access to first-party shopper data.
That's all well and good, but as Adweek explains, "retail media networks are about to exit the honeymoon phase and now need to show that they can offer real value to grab consistent investment from advertisers."
Expect lots of conversations around how retail media networks can offer advanced analytics, programmatic buying, and omnichannel experiences.
Creating campaigns that are resonant with customers on a 1:1 level is a major theme across festival programming and brand activations.
Ogilvy, for example, is leading a session on advertising that makes people feel understood, while several panels will talk about authentic representation, diversity, and body inclusivity.
This custom messaging becomes more effective when it connects with a relevant audience. Delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time will be an important extension of this topic. We expect lots of discussions about how to create deeper relationships with customers through tailored campaigns — from creative, through programmatic execution.
Both the push for personal ads and the U.S. election speak to a greater sea change in how national brands are strategizing. By building from the local level up, advertisers can craft campaigns with geo-specific messaging, resonating more deeply with potential customers.
That's obviously important for political ads. Down ballot races need to deliver their message to the specific districts that can vote, while issue ads can deliver in the zip codes or regions most likely to be impacted.
The election is a big reason why local advertising spending in 2024 is projected to grow by 9% YoY, but we expect to see more national brands leveraging this geo-targeting year round, too.
Let's say a national hardware retailer wants to promote spring gardening items. The ideal time to do that is when the customer can be emotionally compelled to act, but that perfect moment will vary across the nation, as will the content and products that inspire them.
Digital advertising has enabled this type of precision, and it's a passion for us at Madhive. We recently acquired Frequence to further this goal, and we'll be interviewing industry leaders about local advertising while at Cannes.
From the transformative power of AI to the strategic use of cultural moments, this year's Cannes Lions festival underscores the need for continuous innovation. We'll be there talking about these trends and more in the Madhive lounge.
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