Cannes Lions

CANNES — Can artificial intelligence predict the outcome of an election? Back in November, Havas did exactly that. When the world was betting on a Hillary win, Havas deployed what, like large tech firms, it is now calling its “cognitive” technologies, on 15 million news articles, candidates’ speeches and a billion social posts by 10 […]

CANNES — Mobile is one of the biggest forces shaping digital marketing, marketers are challenged to agree common data standards, and advertising can enjoy a healthy future where commerce is taking place. Those were some of the conclusions of a panel of ad agency technology executives, who debated the topics in a session recorded by […]

CANNES — Artificial intelligence has been around for a long time – well, in theory. But one leading ad agency thinker says the technology has reach the point where executives simply must decide what their execution strategy looks like. So OMD’s Jean-Paul Edwards commissioned a Europe-wide research study to understand how companies in different countries […]

CANNES — Would you let a bot do your marketing for you? Ben Parr thinks you should – and so do the investors who just gave $1.6mn to the startup he founded to convince you. Parr, a former Mashable writer, co-founded Octane AI last year, to help brands deploy AI-powered chatbots that can interact with […]

CANNES – What does drinking beer and scaling Mt. Everest have in common? For Sports Illustrated, it was an issue dedicated to augmented reality with Coors Light tagging along in a “high-touch, custom-created solution.” The May 8 issue of SI was an AR-lover’s dream as it enabled readers to scan its content without the use […]

CANNES – U.S. television broadcasters can take solace in the fact that it’s not just their world that is being upended by digital distribution. The same thing is happening in Latin America. “Everybody’s trying to reinvent themselves in one way or another,” says Renato de Paula, CEO of MEC Latin America. “We are experiencing video […]

CANNES — Depending on who you talk to, two-bit news sites that play fast and loose with the truth swung last year’s US presidential election. But they also swung advertisers’ ire toward ad-tech platforms that, for a time, seemed unable to stop brands funding the fakers. That is why Wayne Gattinella introduced a new way to […]

CANNES — Will Netflix introduce advertising? That is a question on many minds in Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Madison Avenue alike. Often, the question is framed as an “either-or” in which Netflix would have to choose between continuing its current premium SVOD model or ripping it up in favour of ad funding. Previously, Ampere […]

CANNES – So many video ad units and platforms, so many ways to attribute value to those units. “Trying to figure out the value of a video ad unit depending on where it runs seems to be one of our challenges as an industry,” says Shenan Reed, MEC’s Chief Digital Officer for North America. And […]

CANNES — What do executives at the bleeding edge of marketing strategy think about the way the business is changing? That was the main question on the lips of moderator Jay Sears, the SVP of MasterCard’s advertising intelligence, when he chaired a panel discussion on the topic on the shores of the Cannes Lions festival […]

CANNES – Yes, broadcasting live sporting events is expensive considering the rights fees. But it’s a great viewing environment at a time when consumers can avoid ads in other programming. It’s that “other” programming that concerns media sellers like ESPN and Fox, as evidenced by the discussion during a Comcast panel at the Cannes Lions […]

CANNES – If you are one of the many people whose attention to a television show is shared by another device, there’s a decent chance Alphonso knows what you’re watching. The automatic content recognition company indexes TV like Google indexes the Internet. So when an Alphonso SDK in a tablet, smartphone, smart set-top box or […]

CANNES – Even if unified cross-screen audience measurement remains a bridge too far at present, understanding linear television audiences gets better all the time. This is something that A+E Networks can attest to following an engagement with TV analytics firm 605 in which ad exposure data was matched with transactional records. The result, as moderator […]

CANNES — Cannes Lions is billed as “the international festival of creativity” but, judging from some of the tech talk that has made in-roads in recent years, you could forgive a delegate for not feeling very creative anymore. So, in a world of ad-tech, what place does creativity have at the table anymore? Creativity is […]

CANNES — Across the TV industry, MVPDs are examining how they can upgrade their ad sales processes. Taking a cue from online video ad sales, they want to start trading ads using data-infused insights, allowing advertisers to target audiences, not just content. Brian Golbere wants to help, though he says the prospect has a ways […]

CANNES — After a few years in which the advertising industry has talked plenty about targeting, precision and data, many executives used last week’s Cannes Lions to talk about rebalancing the narrative with a nod back to creativity. But the two hemispheres of the industry don’t have to be divorced from each other, says one […]

CANNES – Call it television, video or neither. What matters to ESPN’s Eric Johnson is that it delivers “value and impact” to advertisers. Like other attendees of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Johnson welcomed the many conversations about how the industry can come together and drive more effective ways of measurement. “We’re trading on […]

CANNES — Marketers should start preparing for an age in which their independent intelligent brand assistants are at consumers’ beck and call to answer pre-purchase questions using artificial intelligence, according to one leading ad agency executive. At Cannes Lions, AI – perhaps surprisingly – emerged as one of the key trends and opportunities facing modern […]

CANNES – Reducing commercial ad loads on network television is paying dividends for viewers and advertisers. Now the industry needs to balance context and content to improve the ad experience on digital platforms. That’s the prognosis of Chris Linn, President of Turner Entertainment’s truTV, which was the first network to announce limited commercial interruptions “and […]

CANNES – Time Inc. doesn’t foresee a letup in the niche segmentation of television content going forward. And even if that content doesn’t attract huge audiences, that’s okay as long as viewers are “super engaged,” according to Rich Battista. Just in case this prediction doesn’t pan out, Time Inc. will be churning out all manner […]