What’s wrong with Cannes?

So, we’re all in violent agreement that something’s up with Cannes but exactly what? And what are we going to do about it?

Clearly nothing’s wrong with Cannes itself, it’s a beautiful French Mediterranean town that’s an ideal hub from which to explore the Cote D’Azur, that much will always be true. It’s what arrives in Cannes once a years that’s the issue. And this is where our terminology starts to let us down because there’s an awful lot going on in the phrase ‘There’s something wrong with Cannes’. We’d do ourselves a favour by starting to unpack that along with our cabin-sized suitcase. We first need to ask ourselves, what exactly does arrive in Cannes in the last weekend of June each year? Because what doesn’t arrive is just the Cannes Lions.

The Cannes Lions have been dutifully giving out awards for creative work for 64 years, and by and large they’ve done a pretty good job. They run a system that is widely respected and they have proved themselves to be good adaptable listeners by adding Glass Lions (diversity), Titanium Lions (innovation) and the like to their ever-expanding list. Is it expensive to be there and to enter? Yes. Is the list of awards the right ones? Maybe not. But as someone who’s run a fair few awards properties along the years I can tell you these are the eternal criticisms flung at all gong ceremonies and they will, and should, be the subject of lively debate.

If it were just the Cannes Lions that arrived in Cannes each June I suspect there wouldn’t be a problem but like all mega-successful festival properties it’s in danger of being eaten by its own offspring. The Edinburgh International Festival, for example is an arts event running in August each year but you’d hardly know it it’s so swamped by the enormous Fringe that dominates the city at the same time. The baggage that arrives with the Cannes Lions has also come to dominate. The parties, the side-events, the mega-spend of tech platforms is the Lion’s equivalent of the tsunami of street theatre and comedy that overwhelms the polite Edinburgh Brahms recital going on somewhere (apparently). Even in the couple of years I’ve been going to Cannes I’ve been surprised at the wild noise that surrounds the official bash. Most people who arrive now don’t even bother forking out for a delegate pass from what I’ve seen. And why would you when any time spent in the actual Palais de Festival would eat into your networking time? There are parties to go to.

And it’s not even as if we party well, to be honest with you. By which I mean we party damn hard. At Glastonbury this is to be celebrated. In Cannes we arrive with a reputation. Speaking to locals in the know, bartenders and the like, the low regard in which the advertising industry is held is fairly shocking. We may think we have big yachts but the property conference’s yachts make ours look like matchbox boats. We might think our industry is glamourous but the film festival delivers glamour par excellence. What we do better than any other event that takes place in Cannes all year is drink. And get hammered. And occasionally vomit. (The proof in the piles of dried semi-digested free barbecue found on the street corners in the morning). From my conversations it’s clear that locals have mixed feelings about the advertising industry turning up.

And when our industry arrives it’s not just our industry anymore, we’ve brought another one with us too. The Lions’ celebration of creativity now arrives at the door of the Cannes party with a load of internet platforms we’ve just met down the pub. The Lions might be taking place but to walk through Cannes is to see digital tech brands from one end of the Promanade to the other. From the Spotify party venue through the Twitter and Facebook beaches to the grand splash of Snapchat promotion dominating the Palais and finally to the ad tech yacht cluster, tech and tech platforms shout the loudest. The psychogeography of the festival clearly now signals that this is where the action is.

Yes, the industry needs to connect with these mega-platforms. Yes, the industry could and should be networking hard and fast. But it’s a measure of the disruption the whole marcomms business has experienced in the last few years that people are seeking to gain an edge through smart distribution rather than just better work. Because no-one has a singular model for navigating the digital space - how could you? - so much of the festival’s energy is now taken up with where and how work appears rather than what the work actually is. These are all good, purposeful and proper conversations to have, without a doubt, but the tech platform noise has drowned out the original purpose of the Lions. No wonder everyone’s wondering what the hell this thing is for now.

But this is not a Cannes Lions existential crisis, it’s ours, and it’s deeply unfair that the Lions should be bearing the brunt of any current criticism. The fact we all have to face into is that the advertising industry gets the annual event it deserves. As it stands, Cannes is not an aberration on the edge of our industry that needs to be resolved, it is a mirror held up to the industry. Terrifyingly, Cannes is us.

The whole marcomms industry, with the advertising legacy at its heart, is the one with the existential crisis. Are we proudly making adverts because the world still needs this noble tradition of selling stuff? Or are we content-producers trying to influence culture? Or are we part of a wider tech revolution that’s transforming how the human race communicates? Perhaps we’re all of these things and more. Perhaps this is the new reality. Perhaps we should just stop whining that it isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps we should just accept who we are, with all our many failings and internal conflicts, and get on with it. But first we need to admit that everything that is Cannes is us.