With a host of brands seeking to unlock growth through creativity, two new awards and a new initiative called Connect, Learn, Experience (CLX), the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity \u201cwill be a little bit busier and a little bit bigger than last year,\u201d says Chairman Philip Thomas.<\/p>\n

Although Cannes Lions<\/a> started in 1954, it wasn\u2019t until the last decade or so that brand marketers began to attend, represented by the likes of Procter & Gamble. \u201cThey\u2019re coming in a slightly different way,\u201d Thomas notes in this interview with Beet.TV. \u201cI think historically they were brought by their agencies but now they\u2019re kind of coming on their own volition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s event saw the launch of the CMO Growth Council<\/a>, a partnership with the CMO Masters Circle of the Association of National Advertisers featuring 25 CMO\u2019s from some of the world\u2019s biggest global brands. \u201cCannes Lions really is about how creativity will drive your business and that means growth. One place they believe they can unlock growth is through the use of creativity,\u201d says Thomas.<\/p>\n

The CMO Growth Council has since met in such locales as Dubai, Los Angeles, New York and London. \u201cThey\u2019re coming together again at Cannes this year to continue to develop the conversations, publish white papers talk about the specific issues that marketers have.\u201d<\/p>\n

In adding two awards this year\u2014the Entertainment Lions for Sport<\/a> and the Creative Strategy Lions<\/a>\u2014the folks at Cannes had some doubts about the latter. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know how the industry was going to respond,\u201d Thomas says. Given initial estimate of perhaps 250 entries, \u201cat the last count we\u2019ve more than three times that many.\u201d<\/p>\n

CLX<\/a> is designed around immersive and interactive experiences with some of the world\u2019s best-known media and entertainment creators, including Activision Blizzard, Adobe, NBCUniversal and Tik Tok from China. \u201cI think if we look across the festival over the last few years, that\u2019s the most interesting thing is the number of different organizations that want to get engaged, who think they can provide solutions for clients and brands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt used to just be an advertising festival and it\u2019s just not that anymore,\u201d Thomas adds.<\/p>\n

He mentions in passing last year\u2019s Cannes Lions and the absence of Publicis Groupe, plus some shrinkage in the adtech space over the last few years. But events continue to be in demand because of a “human need, which is to be face-to-face and to be with other people,” Thomas says.<\/p>\n

This video is part of the Beet.TV preview series titled \u201cThe Road to Cannes.\u201d The series is sponsored by 4INFO<\/a>. Please visit this page<\/a> for additional segments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a host of brands seeking to unlock growth through creativity, two new awards and a new initiative called Connect, Learn, Experience (CLX), the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity \u201cwill be a little bit busier and a little bit bigger than last year,\u201d says Chairman Philip Thomas. Although Cannes Lions started in 1954, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":60687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7977],"tags":[5295,5137,5395,7588,7993,7996,7997],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}