Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who's there

_{(Depeche Mode, ‘Personal Jesus’)}

I’ll get this one out the way early. I have never been to Cannes. Not at the start of my career, when it focused more squarely on creative work, nor the middle bit when it was all social and content, to now, where it largely seems to be a media/tech sales trade show.

So, given that, this may read as the bitter ravings of someone who worked in agencies for 15+ years and didn’t ever get to pick up any metal (even when we won some stuff). Nor did I get to stand on stage and pontificate about the latest trends wheeze sponsored by a friendly brand.

What’s the problem?

Bluntly, I think there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark if some of the ‘thinking’ I saw at Cannes is venerated (read this excellent takedown first). This isn’t the ‘hah hah, how is Shingy able to speak on some pack of nonsense’ of yesteryear, where he stands out for talking a lot of noise, set against other grown ups in the room. No, this is an industry-level hollowing out of critical thinking, and lack of desire to try and evolve the discourse, and I think that’s very worrying for the industry (and associated industries).

I think we’ve shifted over time from valuing the output to valuing the input. As less and less work gets seen, as AI takes over some of the craft, the festival becomes a celebration of the pipes and the people who put them there. More about the media deals and less about the business effects the work can generate.

From an outside perspective, it looks like it’s only accelerated since Ascential, Cannes Lions owner, and owner of WARC, were swallowed up by Informa (themselves a large trade show organiser, the biggest events business you may never have heard of) in 2022.

Given the way corporate events at scale work, you need content. Lots and lots and lots and lots of content. The work only gets you so far. You need endless talking heads, microshifts in how modern marketing works. Spoonfed narratives from media talking heads - all so people can go home and say they’ve heard or seen something vaguely controversial or inspiring.

The solution: Rebalancing corporate with creative.

“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships”.

_{(David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College Commencement Speech, 2008)}

At some point, there has to be a choice. Is Cannes just a place for talking heads, or will it forever be a tech platform outpost that wears its creativity suit once a year?

If I was the advertising / comms bodies, I think I know what i’d do…

1) Set up another global festival, focused solely on the work / inspiration.

Make it deliberately low-fi. Limit the number of attendees. Set it up as a charity (so it can’t be bought, can’t be over inflated) that funds creative comms internships / junior roles, and only have a limit on the number of case studies and attendees from individual agencies, who must bring at least one u-25 staffer with them.

2) Limit the number of categories.

Part of the issue with Cannes has been the bloat. “Holding company of the year”, anyone? Limit the categories to 8-10, strongly focused on the output and effectiveness. Ideally, the judging committee should be freelance / not affiliated with the holding companies. Or, if they have to be, ensure there’s equal weighting.

If you’re going to invite any outsiders to the festival, bring along those with a creative background who have to judge the work, not witter on about a new album or some unrelated wibbling. I’d far rather have my ads judged by a musician than a tech company CEO.

3) Position the festival as ‘a celebration of human craft’.

In a vanishingly short time, AI has a clear presence in a lot of creative communications. Wonderful for efficiency and cost savings, potentially quite bad for unfettered creative licence. It serves Cannes well, as it’s as much about the delivery systems (the pipes) as it is anything else - that’s the bit which is hard to solve for brands, and what the tech giants suggest they can help with.

But as David Abbott, the legendary British adman put it - ‘Shit that arrives at the speed of light is still shit’. There’s a need to focus on the end product, and when growth doesn’t happen from the latest AI tooling, there will be a desire for new ways of driving effectiveness, and all roads lead back to the work.

4) Make youth AND experience more of a focus.

This is not for the professional conference speakers. You know who I mean - those who’ve toured the world fattening their bank accounts with the same old tired schtick. No, if it’s in hock to anything, it champions originality and the creative process. Think Brain Pickings / The Marginalian as a conference. That’s the very newest approaches from both the young and the old - not some rehashed strategy slides which were last in fashion in 2009.

My musing above centre on a few questions -what does the creative comms industry value? What does it worship? I’d hope it’s not the corporate world of the pipes and the technology; if it’s going to succeed, it needs to worship differently, to show how creativity has a value beyond hitching its spurs to technology, focusing on how it can deliver a step-change in business fortunes, not incremental efficiency(ies).

If it’s just hackeyneyed, dated truisms from those on the professional conference circuit, it will continue to wither on the vine, powered by overpriced rose and tech salespeople. There is another way, but the industry must be brave in choosing it. It need not be Cannes.

This week, i’ve been trying to avoid the heat, and listening to this little pearler. Fitting, I think. What a groove.