Cannes we fix it?

With this year’s Cannes Lions fast approaching, it’s time to don my rosé tinted Snapchat specs and predict which trends and talking points are going to be taking the Palais by storm. Will it be all ad-blocking and brand safety? Programmatic and header bidding? Or a return to its original purpose – the celebration of great, adventurous creative work?

In truth, while these topics may seem like they cover entirely separate areas, they reflect an industry that is becoming ever more tech-driven and fixated on effectively monetising an audience who are harder to impress and more sceptical of advertising than ever before.

With that in mind, there are three big topics that should take centre stage at this year’s event…

Mobile needs to be seen as a 5.5” creative canvas

Mobile devices have become the remote controls of our lives. They are in our pockets 24/7, the first thing we check in the morning, and our go-to device for entertainment, information and socialising. In spite of these universal truths, mobile has – remarkably – continued to be something of an afterthought when it comes to executing creative campaigns.

 With more ad-dollars flowing into mobile than any other digital platform, there really is no excuse for brands and advertisers to simply crop, cram and shrink their creative to fit 5.5” screens, or worse – teeny-tiny mobile web display ads.

The creative opportunities afforded by full-screen mobile ads are almost endless. Combined with the higher engagement rates compared with desktop, the ease of ensuring brand safety and the ability to reach your particular audience in a targeted and relevant way, it’s time the creative community started thinking smaller.

Data needs to come first

In the not too distant past, it wouldn’t be unusual for creative campaigns to be based on a flash of inspiration or built out from one key insight about the brand, product or audience. To take such a low-fi approach today would be considered primitive in the context of today’s data-driven industry.

Last year’s Next Rembrandt campaign from ING showed that data could be used in a truly engaging and creative way, and this year’s most-talked about campaigns will have a similar focus on data. 

More broadly, the agencies whose creative teams are fuelled by data and insights about the brands they work for and the audience they are trying to reach will steal a march on those that are more reliant on the brains and opinions of their top creative teams. 

 More self-regulation

As the ad-blocking debate morphs into a discussion around filtering and verifying, we could see the end of the type of intrusive, annoying auto-play video ads (with sound!!!) that drive people mad. As consumers breathe a collective sigh of relief and pause their ad-blocker installations, we (the industry) should be working out what else we need to do to fix what has become a broken relationship between people and advertising.

The bombardment on desktop and mobile was a result of an old-media approach to new-media platforms, with strategies focused on relentlessly pushing messages to a wide audience and making use of cheap inventory to do it on a massive scale.

Instead, the approach to digital (and mobile in particular) should focus on the really powerful aspects of mobile and digital to deliver a smaller volume of more targeted, engaging ads that add value to those that view them.

It’s the difference between serving an auto-play video of an artist to thousands of people as they browse unrelated content, and serving an ad for gig tickets at a local venue to a targeted group of fans and allowing them to buy them by tapping or swiping. The former annoys most of the people that see it, the latter offers something useful in an innovative and engaging way.

 So, what now?

Fundamentally, while Cannes provides the industry with a week to navel-gaze, celebrate, cut deals and network, this year’s event needs to see the entire advertising eco-system acknowledge the preferences of an audience that is more self-aware and less tolerant than ever before.

Brands, advertisers and media agencies need to change the way they view their audience (as people rather than clicks, impressions or engagements) and use all of the tech and creative tools at their disposal to create ads that deliver value to the people that view them.

Value can come in the form of entertaining creative, useful, timely content, relevant vouchers in line with your preferences, or, as Unlockd's service is built on, actual tangible rewards such as more mobile credit, data or free access to premium streaming services.

It’s time we refocus advertising around the audience and where better to crack that conundrum than the world’s biggest get-together of the great and the good of the ad industry.