Cannes: When Advertising Ain’t Advertising Anymore

Filed Under Advertising, Digital Signage, Mobile, Social Networking, digital ooh, twitter

USA Today has a nice piece on the Cannes advertising festival. I was invited to this last year but had a hard time justifying the $5000 to investors for a week in Sunny South of France. For some reason they wouldn’t let me pass it off as work

Whereas advertising awards used to be really easy at Cannes, consisting of…um…just TV creative, today’s advertising doesn’t look quite the same as it did in days of yore. As the article states:

The blurring of lines for what’s an ad is obvious in the competition for Lion awards at the 56th International Advertising Festival this week. Entries in the 11 ad categories range from faux ads and products to marketing that combines a live event, social networking, film and outdoor.

Did you read that right? Yes, that said OUTDOOR and SOCIAL NETWORKING.

Integrated programs that combine the effects of a multiplatform and multi-touchpoint campaign are what’s winning awards these days and what marketers feel is hot and worthy of conversation – NOT TV (well…it depends what agency you work for and how stuck on living in the past they are)

Where awards get won, creatives usually follow and I’ll be looking forward to seeing the Cannes results and entries over the coming years. Maybe I’ll even be allowed to attend

Worth the quickie read and exploring some of the submissions