Cannes Lions

After transparency, back-handers and disintermediation by platforms, media agencies are also facing a competitive challenge from interest shown by big consulting firms. Is this the nail in the coffin for the traditional ad agency? Not necessarily, but their role may well evolve in the next few years. That is the view from one exec whose […]

CANNES – Over the next couple of years, ensuring digital brand safety for marketers will become table stakes for publishers. In the meantime, GroupM is shifting the conversation with its clients to how ads perform better in truly brand-safe environments. “I think we’re moving into a stage where brand safety will become a commodity. Within […]

CANNES – Started three years ago on the true[X] yacht as a networking event for people of color at the festival, the program Cannes in Color has morphed into a major industry diversity movement called the I.D.E.A. Initiative. This year, it grabbed the spotlight at Cannes Lions with hundreds of attendees gathered at the Spotify […]

Whether it is AT&T buying Time Warner, Comcast and Disney bidding for 21st Century Fox, or the earlier roll-up of Verizon, Yahoo and AOL, one thing is clear – US media and technology consolidation is in full-swing. One more thing that’s in full-swing? The arrival of consulting firms to the advertising and marketing party. For […]

CANNES – Shortened by one day this year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity attracted fewer agency people. But there was a 30% increase in attendance by brand marketers and a 20% rise in the number of consulting firms, according to MediaLink Vice Chairman Wenda Harris Millard. So the Festival is still a “very […]

The worlds of crypto-currency and toilet paper may seem to have little in common – but the technology that underpins Bitcoin may soon help one of the world’s largest personal hygiene product makers clean up its media business. Kimberly-Clark, whose – brands include Andrex, Corronelle and Huggies – was one of the companies announced by […]

CANNES – At gatherings like the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, audience segmentation strategies have been been front and center for the past few years. “I think now that a lot of learning discussions have come out we’ve come back to if you do that type of targeting, what are you going to say […]

CANNES – While L’Oreal USA’s Nadine Karp McHugh is happy to hear lots of conversations by television networks about how to improve the viewer advertising experience, she’d like to hear more marketer voices giving their input. “I think that’s really important to solve for. But they should start with not only the consumers but also […]

CANNES — It was the subject of a thousand interactive TV dreams in the nineties – the ability to buy products straight from ads seen on the TV screen. Now Hulu has enabled it, and its ad chief thinks the future has finally arrived. The new ad unit, called T-Commerce, was launched with interactive firm […]

When Twitter unveiled its mid-June feature update, focusing the company on a message of serving “What’s Happening“, it seemed strange. Twitter first embraced “What’s happening?“, the prompt to create new tweets, back in 2009. But, this time, the company was making some product changes, to better emphasise its role at the heart of global user […]

CANNES – Two highlights at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for true[X] President Pooja Midha are some “very promising conversations” about the company’s engagement ad formats and positive response to measuring brand lift. “People really appreciate that the engagement ad format, which is the core of our business, has the power and […]

One month after Europe’s new privacy legislation came in to effect, the world did not cease to exist – but a good proportion of ad inventory did. Still, one ad-tech exec believes consumers have every right to expect a rebalancing of their relationship with publishers and advertisers, which the new GDPR law sought to usher […]

CANNES – Rob Master is excited about the promise of transparency, visibility and measurement for Unilever as it helps to pioneer a blockchain consortium with IBM and Mediaocean. To him, it’s all about prioritizing dollars. “The digital ecosystem is fraught I think, as we’ve all seen with a host of challenges,” says the VP of […]

CANNES — If you believe the hype, podcasts right now are one of the fastest-growing media in the market. Edison Research’s The Podcast Consumer, the most oft-cited proofpoint, now suggests weekly podcast listening has grown to 17% of Americans aged 12 or over, with a balanced gender split. More and more publishers are falling over […]

CANNES – Like many industry executives, Amanda Richman applauds the “shared sense of purpose” among parties looking to advance measurement capabilities and experiment with new ad formats instead of “letting those conversations sit at a committee level.” When she eyes the video landscape, Richman sees it evolving toward the opportunity for more precision targeting without […]

CANNES – Big brands are far from dead, according to the Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Pet Nutrition. But they need to winnow out “fake news” about their supposed widespread demise and establish an evidence-based philosophy and operating model for driving growth, says Jane Wakely. “Accountability in marketing to me means growth. Ultimately, I think […]

CANNES – While bigger can imply better when it comes to media scale, it doesn’t shield you from challenges like audience fragmentation and the “murkiness” of the digital advertising ecosystem. So while AT&T recently upped its vertical integration game with the acquisition of Time Warner, it’s as enthusiastic as smaller companies to see various industry […]

CANNES – There was no shortage of talk about data at the recent Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. But beyond the purpose of targeting people who are actually relevant to particular brands, “when you get to the right people, what happens?” asks Dentsu Aegis Network’s Matt Seiler. In this interview with Beet.TV at the […]

CANNES — After transparency, back-handers and disintermediation by platforms, next on the list of challenges facing media agencies is blockchain. Or, is it? A blockchain is a public, distributed, anonymised ledger of transactions that is supremely trackable and traceable. It is the technology that underpins digital currencies like Bitcoin – but, in theory, those “transactions” don’t have to […]

CANNES — Even before digital media came along, it was a chore to reconcile buys across radio, print, television and other media while monitoring discrepancies and make-goods. Throw in the dizzying complexity of digital media transactions and it’s no wonder that marketers like Unilever are embracing blockchain technology. “What blockchain does is create a single […]