Pausing For Intermission
Welcome back to An Unfair Advantage. This month, we find ourselves in the same position as agencies and brands worldwide, unpacking, analyzing and serving up our take on the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Our aim is to give you a hot take on the action but also our POV on the Cannes conversations and what they're likely to mean for the next few months of marketing, advertising and creativity.
Strategy Lead Callum Gill and Rehab Founder Tim Rodgers spent the week on the Croisette and provided their thoughts on what they saw and heard.
tl;dr: Cannes definitely had an overwhelming focus on AI, but not always focussed in the right places. The Cannes crowd’s craving for creativity wasn’t always satisfied, but when it was, it was superb. Real, tangible demonstrations of AI, like our free RFP Checker delivered much more impact than AI panel discussions.
The conversation around AI, creativity and marketing should tighten up in the next few months. Brands and agencies should focus on AI in action rather than more discussion around “the AI opportunity”.
1. AI Conversation Spread
We would estimate that roughly 80% of the essential and fringe lineup content either focussed on or referenced AI. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with this if these discussions and presentations all pitched their analysis at the same level. This was far from the case. Discussions ranged from insightful, hands-on, tangible and active demos of the tech and useful applications (many found on our Client Google’s epic Google Beach) to others suggesting the biggest takeaway from their content was to “try Chat GPT”.
There were instances where we even heard panellists make claims that AI was unable to or was “years away” from being able to do something you would find in a live demo a few meters down the Croisette in another activation. This disparity was felt by the crowd. It was hard to identify an industry-wide consensus on AI and it didn't help that AI, inserted into many different panel discussions and presentations, shared the same key takeaways, the kind Rehab was discussing way back in 2021.
The type of outdated calls to action we heard:
With the other end of the scale being light years ahead of this, our view is that some of the programmers in both the fringe and the essential track should be more discerning about the core content of their chosen speakers and ensure that their audience is receiving the highest quality, most advanced discussions in this space.
Over the next few months, the AI x Creativity conversation needs to tighten up and focus more on AI as a problem-solving team accelerator with tangible, demonstrated activation, not just a flurry of possibilities.
2. Real Tools. Real Impact.
Those conversations that resonated the most, created the most impact and inspired the Cannes audience were those where a tangible demonstration of AI application was available. A great example of this is what we were seeing at Google Beach. What set Google apart and increased inspiration and engagement with the audience was the ability to see exactly how AI had been used to accelerate creativity, not just more theory on the possibilities. This was also evident on Meta Beach, with Microsoft and TikTok. (We were proud to see some of our work being presented at Cannes, too!)
Our discussions with clients and Cannes attendees focussed on how AI can help uncover trends and insights, how it can help generate ideas or even build an audience to assess and test creative and this gave people real ideas to take back to their brands. We were able to demo our free RFP Checker tool and even make reference to Rehab’s 2023 Cannes Idea Validator, which was still ahead of some of the AI content we saw at Cannes in 2024. In the coming months, brands and agencies need to move beyond AI for AI’s sake, embed AI in their workflows, and offer tangible results to their teams, like the brands we work with are already doing.?
3. Creativity in Fits and Starts
Transitioning to the topic that should be the lifeblood of Cannes Lions, the industry pros in attendance were definitely craving creativity. There was a missed opportunity for the festival itself to activate creatively with AI and it tended to be the likes of Google, Meta and TikTok that got it right.
The Pinterest Manifestival was also hugely popular again this year due to their unwavering focus on creativity and hands-on, practical crafting based on their Pinterest Predicts trends. It was a constant topic of conversation at every meeting, breakfast, lunch and dinner and really embodied what the festival should represent and reflect.?
The stand-outs aside, overall there wasn’t a huge amount of creative activation that stopped people in their tracks. The Kargo drone show created by Drone Stories wasn’t necessarily novel but was executed immaculately and got people talking.
From our current experience and projects in flight, we know that AI has tremendous potential to enhance digital activation. Some of these activations will soon be in the market, so over the next few months, brands should focus on AI as part of the activation engine, not the gimmick.?
领英推荐
4. Old Guard Vs New Wave
Cannes was vibrant this year. It seemed back to full strength after some tough years post-pandemic and people had arrived ready to engage and soak in the best in strategy and creativity the industry had to offer. However, it was clear that once again, youth engagement, Gen-Z and even Gen Alpha were topics to be discussed, dissected and debated.
It was interesting to see that Cannes attendees were largely a mix of millennial and Gen X representatives with a few Gen Z players here and there, either supported by various initiatives like the Lions Creative Academy or invited as part of panel discussions on relevant topic streams.
It seems that with a focus on tech and tech-powered creativity, our most digitally native cohorts could not only have benefited from the content on offer but also brought a lot back to their brands, agencies, or businesses. Over the next few months, more should be done to ensure these perspectives form a central part of AI integration strategy and innovation approach at agency and brand offices alike.?
5. Creator is King
Creativity is King is an old adage and a little worn around the edges in 2024. What was clear from Cannes is that brands and platforms clearly consider the Creator to be King, Queen and everything in between in 2024.
Of course, with big social brands and creator-lead platforms with heavy presence, this might not be too surprising. But with creators on panels and leading presentations across all fringe activation stages and the essential track, it was clear to see the emphasis the industry is placing on social creators and their place in the creative ecosystem.?
It was interesting to see how eager brands and agencies were to engage with creators of all types, as they hold the keys to the digital kingdom in terms of audience engagement. Ad effectiveness was hotly debated everywhere at Cannes, and where ads can’t reach, creators surely do. I doubt we’ll see a move toward entirely creator-led advertising strategies anytime soon, but based on this evidence, it seems that creator consideration in your social strategy is absolutely essential moving forward.?
6. Stick to your Guns
The content that resonated the best was the content that aligned with the host experience’s core purpose or focus. TikTok demonstrated this with a clear focus on the aforementioned creator content stream. Even their AI discussion was focused on how they are leveraging AI to give creators the best experience on their platform through TikTok Symphony. Google executed with their AI as a creative partner platform but had the tools and tech on hand to back up their approach. With many others there was often a sense of ensuring that the right topics were covered, the buzzwords repeated without a consideration of what that meant for their brand or even objectives at the festival.
In the coming months, brands leveraging AI and new tech should focus on how their execution aligns with campaign, brand and business objectives. The time of activating with AI for AI’s sake has passed, and the audience will want to see innovation in delivery that matters, makes a difference to their brand experience, and aligns with a brand's core beliefs.?
7. Simplicity, Coherence, Action
Brands should use these three keywords to underpin their approach in the coming months.?
Simplicity: The time for grasping around the edges of AI or theorizing far-flung possibilities is over. Create a simple proposition for how AI or new tech will accelerate your teams or engage audiences and execute.?
Coherence: It was amazing to see so many disparate and contradictory PoVs on display. It's time to align a brand or strategic imperative behind AI and other tech and stick to it.
Action: We need to experiment and explore, but ChatGPT3 launched in November 2022. By now, we should have skin in the game and projects in play. Your audiences want AI-driven experiences and utility today, so share your experiments and make your innovation tangible.
See you next month
And that's a wrap. We hope you consider these six takeaways from Cannes this year and prepare yourselves for what's to come. If you’re not sure where to start with AI or how to implement our takeaways to win, connect directly with our strategy teams.
Just don't ask me which dimension I prefer...
4 个月Super useful thanks!