Ad Partnership Team’s Cannes Lions Diary —Part 1

Business Blog / June 25, 2015

Much has been discussed on the brands here on the French Riviera. We wanted to share Cannes Lions creativity through the eyes of our publishing partners:

• Google Cardboard won the Cannes Lions award for mobile innovation, so our partner CBS Interactive quickly took the opportunity to preview the first virtual reality comedy film, Our Reality Is Virtual, starring Kenan Thompson. Christy Tanner of CBSi launched the project with the creative agency The Uprising Group. After the preview, CBSi hosted a panel discussion with Kenan, Uprising and Weaver (who stitched together the VR). A great discussion ensued and included the point that the industry needs a more consumer-friendly term; they felt ‘VR’ is alienating and means so many different things.

• Fast Company brought creativity to real-world issues by hosting three sessions in partnership with Microsoft. ‘Create good‘ was the theme of their program bringing together causes and creative thinkers to provide missions statements, logos and branding statements for three non-profits. The sessions were great to witness and had good collaboration from creatives and executives at the festival. Projects included the rainforest partnership and a funding project for Haitian schools.

• Celebrities continue to be a key feature at Cannes Lions, as was obvious by speaker guests like Pharrell, but also via iHeartRadio‘s Ryan Seacrest, who not only moderated a discussion in the Palais but also mixed it up with iHeart clients. AOL brought Mary J. Blige to perform for their guests Tuesday night. Original programming and star power are clearly center stage for digital media partners.

• Speaking of celebrity, we were very fortunate to have joined an impromptu panel discussion moderated by Wenda Harris Millard and Joni Evans, with the amazing Mary Wells Lawrence who was in town supporting Pure Wow. Mary was sharing anecdotes, such as highs and lows of her spectacular career, including how she convinced Alka Seltzer to market two tablets instead of one (when two is needed to have the medical effect required) thus doubling their sales. She also helped transform the airline industry by getting Braniff Airlines to introduce fun into flying, adding color to planes and lounges, among other things that we take for granted today in the world of JetBlue and Virgin.

• Seizing on all vast amounts of talent speaking here in Cannes, The Guardian was again hosting the entry to the Speakers Lounge. This created a relaxed and informal environment to capture the attention of the speakers. In the room, they highlighting many of their key audience stats, editorial successes and readership numbers.

~LucyG and ChristineC are reading “How-to: Cannes Lions”

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