Future Thinking: The View From The Clients

Cannes Lions offers clients a number of compelling reasons to attend. With top agencies from across the globe attending as delegates or sifting through work on the jury, it’s a great opportunity to bring their top creative thinkers together. But even more relevant is the chance to view competing work in similar sections, while seeking inspiration for new campaigns and discovering insights into the future of the industry through the seminar and workshop programme. And for some brands, it’s the ideal opportunity to take to the stage themselves and share their vision.

“We take Cannes seriously for two reasons,” said Jonathan Mildenhall, vice-president, global advertising strategy and creative excellence, The Coca-Cola Company, during the company’s seminar. “Firstly, to learn and be inspired by some of the finest minds in the industry. And, secondly, in the hope that we can share our thinking and have a dialogue to build confidence that we’re heading in the right direction in this ever-changing media, connections and consumer landscape.”

Talking tech

One theme in 2011 that was impossible to ignore was the effect of technology and its impact on media in each brand’s communication strategies. With the
one-way mass message truly a thing of the past, clients such as Diageo, Coca-Cola and Ford talked about participation and engagement, opening up their brand stories to consumers and sharing the creative reins.

“If we think we can change consumers’ attitudes or behaviour we are misguided,” claimed Andy Fennell, chief marketing officer for Diageo. “We need to acknowledge their demand to participate in brand ideas, and change the form of our ideas so that they inherently invite consumer participation.”

Coca-Cola’s Mildenhall echoed the same sentiment, stating that its brand stories needed to create what the company calls “liquid and linked” ideas that provoked conversation, after which the company could then act and react to those conversations.

As technology continues to develop and challenge marketers and agencies in new ways, the client consensus was to see each new device or service as an enabler rather than an idea in itself. Ford group vice president of global marketing Jim Farley even went as far as to call the social media revolution a myth, believing instead it was the customers themselves who changed. “They’re in a completely different space compared to a few years ago – how they learn, show, collaborate and socialise has changed and isn’t going back,” he said. “This is enabled by technology but if we’re not careful we’re going to be using ‘insider baseball’ talk, so to speak. We shouldn’t see them as media chains but as enablers.”

Throughout the course of the client seminars other topics ranged from the implementation of sustainable growth at Unilever, to the importance of integrating public relations at Ford, to tackling multiplatform usage at Diageo. But universal to every brand was the importance of the emerging markets, technology, and measuring effectiveness, along with one other critical point – the strength of the agency/client relationship, with each speaker individually praising their respective creative partners.

Eastern promise

One unifying point of interest was the continued and increased growth of the emerging markets. Sales from these currently account for one-third of Diageo’s business and the drinks company predicted this would rise to half over the next three or four years.

Over at Unilever, meanwhile, CEO Paul Polman believed emerging markets would account for around 70 per cent of all its business in the next five years. “The scale and growth of China and similar markets is changing things very rapidly,” said Polman. “These areas will increasingly take centre stage on the global stage. Couple this with connectivity and you can see the challenge for a brand. We need to shift the focus from New York to New Delhi.”