Innovation, mobile integration, social, technology, and media platforms entering the fray will all star at Cannes Lions this year.
Innovation and technology will be the big themes at Cannes Lions this year, but China will stand out for mobile integration and for its media platforms entering the fray.
Jit Ng, vice president, DDB China Group & managing director, DDB Group Shanghai
One thing that is trending right now is mobile integration. Everyone has been talking about mobile being the big thing, and yes, it is a big thing, but if it doesn't integrate into your life then it is just another tool. So what we have been seeing and observing in China is the mobile integration – your social, and e-commerce, and basically your entire life behavior are all integrated within a mobile environment. So you can literally buy things through mobile, while sharing what you have purchased, you can give out little gifts to your friends through mobile, you can pay for your taxi and any other things through mobile as well. So we are hoping to see in Cannes, anything that shows China has taken mobile into a different level.
Another area I can see that is quite active is online to offline (o2o). Now, many people talk about o2o. Here in China people have actually made it happen. There are all sorts of different services here that are online-based that lead to offline. I wouldn't be surprised if Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu really come out with things and wow the world.
I will be very interested to see some of the innovations that are coming out of the world. These are really true innovators, coming out with totally new things who may not be in the advertising industry so I want to see how these inventions can (Read more...) be brought down to a level where consumers can experience it too. Innovation will be something everyone will be really keen to look at.
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Thomas Crampton, global managing director, Social@Ogilvy
YouTube, Snapchat and Vine are now launch platforms for generation celebrities able to rally huge fan bases around popular and niche topics. Brands teaming up with these stars have the potential to reach and engage millions – not forgetting the ability to produce highly entertaining content. The risk is also there: Try to control a teenager.
Wearable technology, the Internet of things and health create a perfect storm of opportunity for companies to shift from passivity to brands that do. The challenge for brands is to do things in meaningful ways for their customers that are strategically relevant to the brand. (Not everyone should create a health band.) Privacy, of course, will also be crucial as technologies get more personal and granular.
Jane Lin-Baden, chief executive, Isobar China Group
This year I would really expect to see more submissions from clients. And I wouldn't be surprised if the submissions directly from the clients won the awards. One of things here is that clients are really taking a much more pro-active role in award submissions.
We will also see more submissions from media owners / media platform owners than from media agencies – I think they will be very interesting in Cannes. Tencent and Baidu are submitting their works themselves. And even though some of the awards are done together with agencies, media owners are taking a view on how to promote brands differently from before.
Creativity though is going to be the challenge for work submitted by Chinese media platforms because ultimately I see they are not yet coming around to the big idea. Will they win the Grand Prix? I don't believe so. There is still a distance to go but what is interesting to see is that in the past media owners have been a second line, they are a supporting line and behind the scenes, but now we see them actually come to the first line to make themselves as famous as our clients. So that's something that is going to be a trend.
What kind of awards are we going to give out at Cannes? Are we going to give out awards for big ideas, creativity or are we going to give the award for effectiveness. I would not be surprised to see media owners winning the effectiveness award this year. How can we actually validate integration in Cannes? Because if you look at the Cannes awards, typically going to expertise, specialties, so where do we actually give the awards to agencies that really pool everything together and show true integration? That is something I would like to see at Cannes in the future and in that regard China would excel.
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