Cannes Lions

CANNES – We are living in the “golden age” of television which is being populated by an unprecedented amount of premium programming, says Liz Dolan CMO of Fox International Channels.   For advertisers, this represents new opportunities – including powerful brand association with shows via social media, she explains. She cites the “Walking Dead” as an […]

“Uninterrupted,” a video site of videos by prominent athletes had its official launch in Los Angeles this week.   In Cannes last month, we interviewed James’ longtime business partner and childhood friend Maverick Carter about their new venture which is being published in partnership with the Bleacher Report.  The series initially launched last December. We […]

CANNES — After “programmatic” methods of refining and automating the planning and buying of digital display ads took off, many are wondering when the same technology will get traction in the TV world. But that’s the wrong question to ask, according to GroupM global chairman Irwin Gotlieb. He says the same approaches have been used since TV […]

CANNES – Teads, the video platform that powers video advertising into the text articles of many of the world’s top publishers including Forbes, the Guardian, the Washington Post and Le Monde, has grown quickly from its origins in Paris to be a global company which is now booking most of its revenue in the U.S. […]

CANNES — Addressable TV promises to be a powerful tool for reaching consumers at scale with creative that’s carefully targeted to them, but how much lift are marketers who are investing in it actually seeing? “You’re seeing 50, 60, 70% increase in sales lift,” says Tracey Scheppach, SMG’s EVP-Precision Video Director, in a panel discussion […]

CANNES – While agency clients want to have complete transparency over what they buy programmatically and prefer to buy in a private exchange, there is room for buying in an open marketplace, explains Adam Shlachter, Chief Investment Officer of Digitas LBi i this interview. We spoke with him about the advertising industry transition to an automated marketplace during the […]

CANNES — The fact that many the world’s biggest brands recently started to review their long-held agency relations, putting them out to tender once again, is making agencies nervous but will refocus their minds on results, according to one agency boss. Adweek reports, in the last six months, as advertising technology opportunities swirl around them, 20 big brands […]

CANNES –  Native advertising was very much part of the conversation at Cannes Lions with the BBC and others announcing ambitious initiatives.  One of the most talked about was the announcement of a joint venture between WPP, Snapchat and the Daily Mail around a native advertising initiative called Truffle Pig. At Cannes, we spoke with Rob […]

CANNES – An app that allows women in Turkey to ask for help by simply shaking their phone, won the Media Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival last month. The use of technology and media by “NGO” like organizations for public good was one of the most creative and important trends at Cannes Lions […]

CANNES – Much has been said over the past year about the issue of advertising fraud and  the danger it poses to the ad tech industry.   This was a contentious topic of conversation at the recent Rubicon Project rooftop session during the Cannes Lions Festival. After the session, we spoke with moderator, Jay Sears, SVP […]

CANNES — BBC News has managed to mix online video and text since the late 1990s. But why keep the two separate? Now the organization is ensuring both are on-screen at the same time, launching a product called “stick video”. “The idea is that the video player moves with you on the screen,”BBC Global News sales […]

CANNES — The CEO of video ad planning, buying and execution tech platform Videology acknowledges, right now: “The vast majority of television-based media is not fully addressable.” So he imagines a world where, today, technology supports TV ad buying that is merely “data-informed”, evolving later “all the way up to fully addressable”. With New York-based Videology, […]

CANNES — Since the value that addressable TV delivers is widely understood, what’s hampering its adoption?  Investment banker and CEO of LUMA Partners Terence Kawaja asks these panelists in a session taped aboard the AT&T AdWorks yacht. The mindset of big brands accustomed to the notion that they can buy a massive audience of adults […]

CANNES — One of the biggest benefits of data is that it can personalize the media business, especially through video, says David Kenny, Chairman and CEO at the Weather Company, in this interview with Beet.TV  from the Cannes Lions Festival. “Weather is this place that is very personal, very local, uses enormous amounts of data and you can combine […]

CANNES — When the Media Ratings Council specced out what truly constitutes a “viewable” ad impression, in a world increasingly falling victim to fraudulent ads, ad buyers rejoiced. And then the whole system began fragmenting. Now, it seems, some customers are getting confused about which viewability trackers are right. “As viewability becomes more and more a transitionary […]

CANNES — During a panel discussion at Cannes Lions, disagreement broke out over how much ad buyers should know about the so-called “transparency” in ad network and programmatic practices. “If the agency and the client can have a very clean discussion about what is the value of the offer and what is the fee they charge, […]

CANNES — Many brands are now beginning to take the opportunity to buy ads through programmatic platforms purely under their own steam, rather than enlisting ad-buying agencies. But what is the experience like? Whilst such a feat is eminently possible, Michael Brunick, partner in programmatic ad advisory service Unbound, says: “Several brands we’ve been working with have been doing programmatic […]

CANNES — The large number of media accounts currently up for review comes down largely to issues of pricing, trust and transparency, according to Lou Paskalis, Bank of America’s SVP-Global Media Investment. “We are in an upheaval we’ve never seen before in this business, and marketers realize they need a new pathway to market, and they’re […]

CANNES — This summer has become known as the season for media agency pitches, and clients are most eager for “tools and people,” says Jordan Bitterman, Chief Strategist of Mindshare NA.  “Most of the clients are public companies and they are in a cycle. There are three times a year that we do a review process […]

CANNES –  Something dramatic happened to TV viewing about 18 months ago: Aggregate viewing dropped.  This has happened in large part as audiences moved  to video-on-demand and the measurement services which have not been up to the task, says Irwin Gotlieb, chairman of WPP’s GroupM unit. He says that some 70 percent of the drop in viewership is […]