Does Cannes Matter? Agencies Debate Spendy Festival in Lean Times
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Agencies invited everyone to the party at Cannes years ago. Now they’re the ones with hangovers. Amid concerns the event has grown too costly for an industry grappling with fierce competition from consultancies and dwindling revenue from clients, agencies are rethinking all that ros.
“The sun is setting on Cannes,” said one agency exec affiliated with a major holding company. “Clients with each passing year are demanding more accountability. They look at this award show that celebrates a kind of creativity from a couple decades ago. Now it’s not OK to be frivolous. It’s not OK to waste money.”
Still, it’s hard to say the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity flat-out doesn’t matter, especially as it keeps getting bigger, tech companies and consultancies keep raising their stakes — and the clients keep flooding the Riviera. “On its face, you can’t argue that Cannes is irrelevant. The better question is, what role does it play credibly in an industry that is defined by much more than simply creative excellence,” said Jason DeLand, a partner at Anomaly. “At its worst, it’s a boondoggle. Somewhere in the middle is a great place to connect and network and probably at the very top end it’s a place to learn and get inspired.”
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