Cannes Lions

CANNES — Driverless cars are already here. But that doesn’t mean drivers shouldn’t be able to take control at the wheel whenever they fancy putting pedal to the metal. The marketing chief of one big auto maker believes owners should be able to choose their vehicle’s driving mode depending on their preference. Earlier this year, […]

CANNES – Sailing against companies like Facebook and Google, Oath—the combined AOL-Yahoo entity—finds itself navigating deeply competitive waters. So it’s apt that the person chosen to pilot the new vessel, John DeVine, not only ran Yahoo’s global operations but also is a former U.S. Navy officer. Oath is a portfolio of more than 50 media […]

CANNES – In a world of seemingly endless video content choices, one thing is still missing: a better value exchange in which consumers realize that watching commercials might just be worth it. “I think it’s one of the things we’re kind of missing,” Dave Penski, CEO of Publicis Media Exchange Americas, says in this interview […]

CANNES — The world of online advertising has grown up by using metrics like click-throughs as proxies for advertisers’ real end goals, like driving sales. Now, slowly, as new attribution technology hots up, brands are being promised the ability the ability to close the loop. But, whilst, to many, this evolution appears to be driven […]

CANNES – Expanding its premium video advocacy footprint beyond North America, FreeWheel debuted the FreeWheel Council for Premium Video Europe (FWCE) at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Right out of the gate, the FWCE garnered the support of the some of the biggest TV programmers and operators across the region. Initial FWCE members include […]

CANNES — Many brands remain wedded to an advertising planning system developed by econometricians – but the so-called “marketing-mix modelling” doesn’t necessarily give them all the answers about campaign performance. In this discussion panel recorded by Beet.TV, ad agency tech executives say many clients are capable of moving forward – but they are caught between […]

CANNES — When they burst on to the scene a few years back, so-called “programmatic advertising” techniques focused on unlocking lower-grade ad inventory using real-time auctions. But times have changed. And one ad-tech exec is witnessing a maturation of programmatic that now includes a focus on premium ad space and a “flight to quality”. “Programmatic […]

CANNES — As Cannes Lions played host to plenty of discussions about the role of artificial intelligence in advertising and marketing, many might have wondered how far off some of the technologies may be. Certainly, tools like 3D brand avatars imbued with lifelike emotions and empathy may seem far-fetched. But they are real, here and […]

CANNES — The market for addressable TV, the practice of using data to digitally target TV viewers over connected devices, could double this year, says one leader working in the space. Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, Cross MediaWorks CEO Nick Troiano says the technology is rolling out well in local TV, and will eventually […]

CANNES — Artificial intelligence may get talked about a lot as a future technology. But the reality is that some of the big technology firms already make several AI and machine learning disciplines available for any developer to use in their own applications today. That means the time is now to pick a horse in […]

CANNES – What constitutes “premium content” is in the eye of the beholder. So rather than trying to ascertain a common definition, one’s time is better spent understanding the drivers of ROI while taking into account things like environment, ad formats and targeting. “That’s really more what we’re focused on versus worrying too much about […]

CANNES — Artificial intelligence is promising the touch and revolutionize every industry on the planet – even journalism. Already, algorithms are beginning to take the basic inputs of data and write coherent narratives, But one top magazine editor doesn’t believe robots will be calling the shots in the newsroom any time soon. “I’m not terribly […]

CANNES – Global agency MEC has a bias against bias. Toward the top of the list is “unconscious bias” and it’s become an acute problem in a day and age when agencies are facing more competitors than ever. “We’ve done an awful lot of work on unconscious bias. It’s a huge thing in our industry,” […]

CANNES — Twitter says it wants to help down-play shady user-generated content (UGC) in the advertising offerings it serves up to big agencies. in this video interview with Beet.TV, Twitter agency development director Stephanie Prayer says the network is trying to soothe brands’ concerns over the safety of environments in which ordinary folk publish their own […]

CANNES — Peering in to consumers’ credit card purchase history to target them with advertising is no longer a new prospect in digital media. But now that same opportunity is coming to TV. Nielsen Catalina Solutions already helps advertisers target ads using so-called “buyergraphic” data, using its database of purchase history from 90mn households. Now […]

CANNES – Live streaming video is helping to break down the perceived barriers between traditional television and premium video, while OTT viewing continues to see tremendous growth, according to the latest FreeWheel Video Monetization Report (VMR). In this interview with Beet.TV, VMR author Ying Wang discusses the first quarter VMR findings, which show that premium […]

CANNES — As research continues to show growth in podcast consumption and digital music subscription continues to go from strength to strength, advertisers once more have an opportunity to embrace audio. The prospects for radio advertising had been looking shaky. But now new advertising technology looks like helping networks benefit from the same kind of […]

CANNES — Chatbots may have been one of the big tech trends of 2016, but few advertisers have yet embraced the idea of making artificial brand personas that consumers can interact with. Mindshare is one agency that has dipped its toe in the water – but it now thinks artificial intelligence technology may help catapult […]

CANNES — Artificial intelligence technology will significantly upgrade the ways in which marketers can develop models that find the right consumers online, according to a Nielsen executive currently rolling out the technology across Europe. Nielsen added Nielsen AI to Nielsen Marketing Cloud in April, bringing machine learning that optimizes audiences based on consumer behaviour. But […]

CANNES – It would make a great question on Jeopardy: which 129-year-old legacy print media brand is the top brand account on Instagram? Answer: National Geographic. “I always kind of take that as an encouraging thing that we have Millennials and Gen Z’s interested in the subject areas where National Geographic has always been a […]