Cannes is the Summer Destination for Global Marketing Creatives

By Jack Glasure, SVP, Sports & Entertainment

Last week I had an opportunity to attend the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, along with 11,000 other delegates from 90 countries representing leading brands and their agencies. Since its first outing in 1954, this event has been bringing the creative communications industry together every year at its one-of-a-kind event in Cannes to learn, network and celebrate. With so much knowledge on hand, I selected a 5‑day seminar track centered on Entertainment Marketing, recognizing that our current music and film campaigns for clients across the US could best benefit by benchmarking with award-winning work presented by the creatives and strategists behind them.

At Cannes, each curriculum track is led by a relevant, influential category leader. The Entertainment track, which to my delight included music, film and sports, was led by Steve Stoute, Founder & CEO of Translation Enterprises. Author of The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture That Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy. Some of Mr. Stoute’s clients are similar to the brands we work with, so I was tuned in to the Q&As from an audience that admired the speaker lineup and content presented. Stoute said, ​“I want to see the worlds of music, sport and entertainment converge, showing how great global creativity cuts through.”

There were some interesting award categories celebrating creativity that taps into ​“fan culture” and leverages the power of music, film and sports in connecting fans to brands. The awards ​“jury” of industry leaders that Stoute assembled rewarded campaign excellence by evaluating breakthrough creativity, strategic planning, sponsorship, brand management, media and talent.

My particular interest was on a new Cannes award, the Lion for Excellence by a Challenger Brand for Sport, which celebrates the success of disruptive, game-changing work for an aspiring brand that uses progressive thinking and innovative creativity to overcome resource restraints (i.e. budgets) to challenge the status quo. Submissions were judged on the impact of the campaign, specifically tangible business and/​or awareness results achieved.

Alright, if you’re still with me, here’s the good part, and in conclusion, I will acknowledge and concur that this ​“convention?!” had more beach parties and DJs than anything I’ve ever attended in Vegas or Miami. After all, Cannes is on the French Riviera, the centerpiece of a sun-drenched Mediterranean beach alongside Nice, Monaco and St Tropez. It was easy to strike conversations and network, facilitated by budgets from Google Beach, Twitter, Spotify, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, FOX and hundreds more.

As an agency with nearly 1,000 campaign awards under our belt, we’ll strive to compete for many of these coveted Lions awards next year, and invite our clients to join us.

The opinions within this article are of the author and not representative of FWV.

About French/​West/​Vaughan

French/​West/​Vaughan (FWV) is one of the nation’s leading public relations, public affairs, advertising and digital media agencies, with offices in Raleigh, New York City, Los Angeles and Tampa. National, international and local clients represented by the agency include Wrangler, ABB, Proximo, Melitta, Bassett Furniture, Volvo Trucks North America, the V Foundation for Cancer Research, Moe’s Southwest Grill and the N.C. Department of Transportation. Owned or affiliated companies include fashion and lifestyle PR firm AMP3 (New York City), pet and veterinary PR practice FWV Fetching and feature film development imprint Prix Productions. FWV is a partner in IPREX, a $380 million network of communication agencies with 1,600 staff and 110 offices worldwide. For more information, please visit www​.fwv​-us​.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Instagram.