“Cool” is in the eye of the beholder. At a conference earlier this year, an entrepreneur thought imposing an emoticon on a picture was “cool” while business models were not. Am I missing something? Cannes Lions has always been about “cool”–or at least the perception of it. More so than by what is praised and lauded, you can begin to understand what top delegates think is “cool” by what they don’t say. This year, in addition to the core principles of creativity, innovation, culture and transparency, there was a lot of discussion around artificial intelligence [you can read more about that, here], virtual reality and wearables. And while all of that was interesting, what was more telling was what was not said.Here are three things that I did NOT hear being discussed at this year’s Cannes Lions Festival:
- Google Glass
- Real-time marketing
- Retargeting. Honestly, Marketing Tech in general.
1. Wearables are still hot. Google Glass is not.
The iWatch dominated the conversation when it came to wearables this year. No surprise that Google Glass is not cool. Among the thousands of entries at the the event, there were no creative, innovative campaigns incorporating Google Glass, nor were delegates seen sporting the unsightly eyewear at parties on the Palais or the Carlton terrace. I have a sneaking suspicion you would be thrown overboard if you rocked Google Glass on a yacht party.The most telling sign that Google Glass is not cool was the fact that it had no presence at Google’s Beach Party.Bikinis: CheckCocktails: StrongGoogle Glass: Nope
2. Real-time marketing. Can marketers stop talking about this Oreo bullshit?
Is real-time marketing really worth all the hype? Since the Oreo Super Bowl tweet heard ’round the world, I haven’t seen much to indicate that we should be expecting any kind of dramatic shift in the marketer’s toolkit.In my opinion, real-time marketing is an easy title to slap on campaigns as justification for work done in a space that still lacks adequate quantitative measurement. Brands need content that will generate positive engagement to justify their social media team’s work. A lot of clients don’t know how to measure social media value, so having more of something even the client doesn’t understand, such as engagement, feels like success.At the conference this year, Twitter’s Chris Moody led the seminar, “Creativity in the Age of Data.” During his presentation, Moody articulated the argument that more focus should be on longer term goals rather than the “magic moment.” His data-driven analogy was to capture the power and predictability of the sun (i.e. brand mentions) rather than a single unpredictable event like a lightning strike (i.e. Superbowl ad).
3. Creatives don’t give a damn about retargeting or any marketing tech in general.
The heritage of Cannes Lions is grounded in creativity. Cannes has long been a place where ROI could proudly be mistaken for a new French foodie fad rather than return on investment. But marketing technology has slowly creeped into the annual soiree on the Cote D’Azur. So it should be no surprise that retargeting, with its “cookies”, “pixels” and “deep linking” has not dominated as the talk of the Riviera. Just as surely as marketers crept into SXSW during the early 2000’s (and have since made the event their own) techies–recognizable by boxy button downs, rimless glasses and Casio watches–can be spotted sipping champagne amongst some of the most creative thinkers in the world. The convergence of marketing and technology has brought two distinct groups together to design and create a plethora of tools to help marketers target customers at every stage of the lifecycle, through the seamless experiences that customers yearn for. Request a demo of the People Pattern platform here.
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