Stuart Elliott: Catch Me If You Cannes

Ah Cannes as in the advertising extravaganza held each June in the south of France For many years it was called the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival but it now goes by a grander title the Cannes Lions International Festival of CreativityFestivities actually begin on Friday with Lions Health two days devoted to healthcare advertising The main event starts on Sunday and continues through June 27 providing what the official Website describes as quotan unmissable seven days of networking celebration inspiration and learning under the Riviera sunquotAt least the folks who own and operate the festival acknowledge that the locale and its clime are big draws In marketing these days that39s known as transparency It probably wouldn39t be the shindig it is if it were held in say Minneapolis in the wintertime though I must admit that on quotThe Mary Tyler Moore Showquot the gang at WJMTV sure had fun at the annual Teddy AwardsThe Cannes Lions is widely deemed the ad industry39s most prestigious global event It39s a longtime goto for creatives from European agencies and they have been joined by phalanxes from American Asian and Latin American shops Cannes Lions may also be the industry39s most posh event what with lovely beaches highend hotels such as the Carlton the Majestic and the Martinez villas yachts and a marvelous main street the Croisette that runs along the Mediterranean Even the event space where the Cannes Lions is held has a ladida moniker the Palais des FestivalsThe opulence of the surroundings is a major reason that many attendees head to Cannes in a defensive crouch quotFor some Cannes has always been an excuse to put down tools for a week and party in the sunquot Robert Senior worldwide chief executive officer of Saatchi ampamp Saatchi wrote in an article for Campaign quotAnd partying is fine especially if you are celebrating some fantastic work well done as long as that39s not all you doquot he continued declaring that quotlearning and development is a key opportunity at CannesquotUhHUH Nothing says quotlearning and developmentquot like dinner at a villa a cocktail party on the deck of a yacht drinks on the patio of a luxury hotel or libations at an afterhours hangout that festivalgoers have nicknamed the Gutter Bar The latter has to be experienced in person to be believed Hundreds of industry types spilling out onto the Croisette each night at a time celebrated by Frank Sinatra as the wee small hours behaving rowdily and raucously enough to bring the quotMadquot back to Madison AvenueOne time at the Gutter Bar I saw people throw beer bottles at cars they believed were passing too close to them It was difficult to decide who was in the right because the drivers were hardpressed to navigate around everyone standing in the street The curses in several languages mixed with the sounds of glass shattering and the wretching noises emanating from those who39d partied too heartily It was a sad sloppy dispiriting mess that called the professionalism of the business into question and I39d go back again in two secondsAlas I won39t be in Cannes next week In fact I was only at the festival one time in 2005 My former employer had a low opinion of the newsworthiness of the industry39s penchant for patting itself on the back with an apparently infinite spate of awards shows And the addition to the Cannes Lions agendas of some actually worthwhile elements such as events featuring marketer clients like CocaCola Procter ampamp Gamble and Unilever came around the time that newspapers39 travel budgets were shrinkingThe upshot was that my sole visit to the festival came on my own time and my own dime while I was on vacation in France I enjoyed myself tremendously attending more parties than panels at the Palais not to mention those trips to the Gutter Bar There were some aspects of work to my visit if it had been the Cannes Lions Festival of Accounting I wouldn39t have gone but I39ve never kidded myself that it was anything more than a trip for schmoozing and socializing to one of the most beautiful places on earth as summer startedSo those who can enjoy your week in Cannes Just don39t try to tell us it39s something other than what it is Save the selling job for the campaigns you createThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage management or associated bloggers

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Stuart Elliott: Catch Me If You Cannes

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