FIVE BIG CAT TAKES FROM THE CANNES LIONS

If you are a Chief Marketing Officer, it has become almost obligatory to take the pilgrimage during the month of May to the French Riviera, baking in the sun of Cannes while you wear outsized shades to protect from the glare of creativity, celebrities and compelling conversations.

That the 2022 edition took place after a two-year pandemic induced hiatus, only made it more high energy and a festival not just of creativity (as the event is positioned in its tagline) but a celebration of re-establishing human contact.

Venetian Origins

I learnt an interesting origin fact about the event from its VP of Marketing, Ilaria Pasquinelli, whom I met at Cannes, along with Lorraine Peel, our Chief Brand Officer. Established in 1954, inspired by the international film festival, as a separate forum to recognize advertisement films, the Lions was first based in Venice before it shifted base permanently to Cannes in 1984. Its Venetian origins remain enshrined forever in form of the Lion in the logo and in the award trophy, which is inspired by the winged lion statue present at the Piazza San Marcos in the island city.

A Davos for CMOs

In the last four decades is has grown into what is essentially a Davos for CMOs, Chief Creative Officers, Brand Gurus and Communications technologists. The similarities with the World Economic Forum's mega annual event are many: both have complex agendas, high profile speakers, outsized content emissions, differential levels of access, massive volume of side events, and company showcases trying to outdo each other. But there are many differences too. Unlike the Swiss Davos, this one is a Davos with boats, heat waves and shorts. The one tip that long term insider, Arun Sudhaman, gave me was "Dress as casual as you can for the hot weather. Only the newbies dress up."

Its impossible for even a 50 or 100 member team, that some agencies and companies send, to sample all that Cannes Lions has to offer. You could listen to keynotes all day at the main Palais, spend it entirely in meetings, watch ad film screenings for hours, or pick just one of several company pavilions on the beach - be it Meta, WPP, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Provoke Media, Bloomberg, Deloitte and so many others - each of them have a dedicated full 5-day rich agenda of panels and sessions, which you can simply get lost in.

I dabbled in a bit of everything, and left Cannes with 5 takeaways:

1. Ukraine remains centre stage, demanding (rightfully) the world's attention

It seems much longer, but it has been only 127 days since the world we live in changed dramatically with the invasion of Ukraine. Apart from the sympathy and support it has rallied for the Ukrainian people from across the world, the implications of this seismic event have been felt on all fronts globally, be it geopolitical and economic, or food security and supply chain issues.

The very first plenary at Cannes this year was Garry Kasparov, the politically vocal Russian Chess Grand Master, who made a passionate case for upgrading military and economic efforts in support of Ukraine, stating that "Unlike chess, there can not be a draw here. There is no draw between good and evil. We have to make sure the right side wins." He went on to show a video message from the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, who appealed to the creative community to help the country in continuing to help bring out the narrative of the sufferings being endured and the support needed, since that is so vital in keeping public attention, which eventually drives political will.

Along with the world's largest PR agency, Edelman, which is poised to become the world's first ever billion dollar agency this year, Kasparov announced a "Regain Ukraine" campaign, with its CEO, Richard Edelman, calling for brands to make 'Courageous Communications' to keep the story and support going.

Not to be left behind, the WPP Group partnered with the country's government to launch a campaign called "Advantage Ukraine" which will help drive investment to rebuild the country. A discussion between economists in Davos this May had concluded it may take up to US$ 1 trillion in reconstruction efforts.

I attended an event in which WPP's CEO Mark Reed, in conversation with the Ukrainian Minister for Culture & Information Policy, Oleksandr Tkachenko, put forth the message that "Ukraine is open for Business and will emerge from this war as a major technology, manufacturing and cultural hub for Europe."

I also had a very engaging discussion on the sidelines, debating the societal impact of this with the very brave journalist from Euronews, Sasha Vakulina, who covered the conflict from Kyiv in February.

While the conflict continues, no one can deny that Ukraine is winning the battle on storytelling, communications and of capturing hearts and minds - even in Cannes.

2. Climate & ESG now lies at the heart of business...and brands

The highlight of Cannes for me was a roundtable that Anne Kawalerski, the CMO of Bloomberg, had put together for about 30 global CMOs from various sectors.

We were taken through a range of interesting data sets from Bloomberg Intelligence, which showed that while inflation is spiralling, consumer sentiment has slumped, and the possibility of recession has climbed back to about 40%; interestingly ESG mandated investments are not slowing down and will account for 50% of all assets by 2024.

Bloomberg also analysed that there was been an explosion in global media coverage on climate and ESG related matters, growing by a stunning 1492% from 2017 to 2022.

If both your investors and your audiences are demanding a stronger game from businesses on climate, inclusion, treatment of employees, parity and other fronts, this will remain a central focus for them, irrespective of the evolving financial scenario.

Aptly, the Bloomberg villa was branded as the ESG House by Anne, Mirabella and the rest of the team from Bloomberg, who ran a gamut of compelling sessions on climate, inclusion and diversity.

Given the heatwave in Cannes and in Europe that week, it was easy for most delegates to relate directly to the many discussions that took place on climate issues.

There was plenty of activist presence too, with Greenpeace invading the beach dressed as burning dogs and campaigns like the one below advocating for agencies to no longer work for clients in the fossil fuels industry.

Personally, I feel it is not a very productive effort, offering such a binary choice. The fact is that energy companies are just a medium. Who really is consuming the energy and causing emissions? Its all of us who use cars, energy in our homes, consume products built in factories, etc. Its too simplistic to squarely blame energy companies and not take any personal accountability as businesses and individuals.

I liked a statement that Lorenzo Simonelli, the CEO of Baker Hughes, made at Davos earlier this year,"Energy is good. Emissions are bad."

The answer to the climate challenge is going to lie not by shaming use of energy, but by ensuring a faster energy transition, investing in hydrogen, carbon capture, electric mobility, solar and who knows - even fusion. At the same time, as we transition, we need to make our existing fuel choices, like natural gas, as efficient and low-emission as possible. Energy companies have the foremost role to play here and should be supported and encouraged in this transition, which as the Bloomberg analysis showed is certainly the case with investors and audiences.

Perhaps Bloomberg's latest new anchor, the actor and former White House official Kal Penn will help shape the debate further with his new show "Getting Warmer with Kal Penn."

Enjoyed meeting him at Cannes and he also held a very insightful discussion with the CMOs /CCOs of Ford, IKEA and P&G, Suzy Deering, Anne Krogh and Damon Jones, on the sustainability and circular economy efforts at their companies and industries. The panel concluded that consumers will not compromise on product quality for climate, so we need to give them both. Ford's example of the electrification of its iconic F-150 was an inspiring example of how change needs to start at the core, and a climate friendly product can be as good as its antecedent.

3. Its no longer enough to just be a CMO

An interesting insight came to me as I looked at the titles of the panellists at an event being moderated by Rebecca Stewart from Adweek. There were three CMOs there from three outstanding companies: L'Oreal, Lego and Marriott.

Take a closer look at their titles in the image below.

Asmita from L'Oreal holds responsibility for Digital, Julia from Lego for Products, Julius from Marriott for Sales - alongside their CMO roles.

Seems to confirm a trend that Chris Ross, VP at Gartner had opined on earlier this year.

Similarly, a lot of my colleagues in the Communications profession are increasingly carrying the title of 'Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer'.

So if you are a CCO, make sure you are educating yourself on sustainability and if you are a CMO, you need to be top of the game on technology and customer experience.

4. Crypto is not dead

Perhaps the most surreal session I attended was listening to an unexpected speaker coupling between Gary Vaynerchuck and Paris Hilton on 'The NFT revolution and what it means for brands.'

While Paris provides great star power, including an almost-stampede for selfies with her, it was interesting to hear about her experiences with NFTs as part of her consulting business.

Gary (whose podcast I regularly consume) said something very remarkable.

He compared the current crash in the crypto markets to the dot com crash in 2000, saying "People are saying now that Crypto is dead. Imagine being in March 2000 and concluding that the Internet was dead and pulling all your investments, and not investing in Google, Amazon or Facebook. Some companies fell apart but others with strong business cases went on to create untold value. That is where we are now in Crypto."

Let's hope, especially for the sake of those looking at their crypto portfolios, that he is on to something here.

As for the field of marketing, there is no doubt that the use of NFTs is only in its inception phase and has the potential to explode. Business Chief had put together a nice set of examples on how brands used NFTs last year.

5. Marketing needs to appeal to all the five senses

Saving the best for the last. When you listen to so many great CMOs and Brands, from Nike and Pepsi, to Netflix and P&G, you don't expect to be blown away by a financial technology company.

Mastercard's CMO Raja Rajamannar's session was a masterclass in marketing. Strong on substance, strong on data and strong on showmanship.

Raja made the point that marketing is failing as a profession, with a survey showing that 70% of CEOs don't have confidence in their CMOs to drive growth or customer loyalty.

Mastercard realized early that they can't ensure customer loyalty by just giving points on a card. In fact they needed to earn by it creating memorable or 'priceless' (as their campaign tagline goes) experiences - and becoming a lifestyle brand.

So they tied it up by appealing to all the five human senses:

Sight: They took a bold decision to remove the company name from the logo, since 80% of consumers in any case recognized the dual circle logo.

Taste: After curating a range of culinary experiences at iconic locations, the company is actually now running its own restaurants under the priceless brand. For example this one in Sao Paolo, Brazil

Touch: The Touch Card by Mastercard represents a great leap forward in inclusion towards visually disadvantaged people

Scent: Which other financial company do we know which has launched its own brand of perfumes!

Sound: Already a first mover in sonic branding, at Cannes Lions, Mastercard launched their first ever music album (Obviously called 'Priceless') supporting up and coming artists from across the world. Two of the artists performed on stage live towards this launch.

Randstad led by its CMO Joanna Irwin, is another example of a company doing innovative things on sonic branding.

Perhaps inspired by all these multisensory experiences, one of the cool (literally!) activations at Cannes was this ice cream truck that served alcoholic iced lollies, to keep away the heat.

One of many activations by companies which had rented out beach houses, yachts and villas with many curated experiences and services to pull in audiences to their owned spaces.

If volumes were the criteria for a lounge award, probably Meta would win it it with what appeared to be the most crowded lounge this year.

A final bonus point. One of most interesting places I spent time was in the jury area looking through some of the creative work that had been shortlisted for awards. The creativity and genius of many of the winning campaigns is just stunning, and shows how far our profession has come in crafting compelling and very creative narratives.

If you're looking for inspiration today, you could do far worse than spend a few minutes (or even hours) looking through the work of some of the winners this year. Its all featured here:

See all the awards: Cannes Lions Awards (lovethework.com)

Hope you found some of the content on this post to be useful. There is always so much to learn and be inspired by at Cannes Lions. Congrats to their team for doing a great job in relaunching the platform. Look forward to next year!