Does Cannes Still Need the Lions?
As the relevance of the Cannes Lions is being debated, the beach houses, dinners, and side events are already fully booked. The festival has long become more than its awards, but could it survive without them?
Where Cannes Really Happens Today
Before the industry heads to Cologne in September, Cannes is on the agenda first next week.
This weekend, the first marketers, creatives, platform managers, and agency heads will be on a plane for the Côte d’Azur. And most of them – I suspect – won’t even notice that there’s an intense debate underway about the festival’s relevance. About awards, effectiveness, creative impact, AI, and data. And, of course, about last year’s AI manipulation scandal, in which submitted performance data was embellished.
The market is undergoing massive change, and like any business model, an awards festival must adapt or even reinvent itself. So it’s no surprise that Cannes today talks more about business impact, effectiveness, and growth than in the good old days.
And yet I get the feeling that many attendees give surprisingly little thought to this debate over relevance. Because if we’re honest, most people don’t travel to Cannes for the awards ceremony. They go for the people and the networking opportunities.
And they also travel for the glamour, the yachts, and the romantic Côte d’Azur. The beaches and buildings around the Palais are now so packed with vendors that one might almost get the impression the event could function even without the Lions. At least for a while.
The side events, beach houses, dinners, breakfast sessions, and rooftop parties have now taken on a significance of their own. Many visitors don’t even have a ticket to the festival grounds. So does Cannes even need the Lions anymore?
That would certainly be going too far. After all, the core of a brand isn’t created by the side events. It’s created by the idea it stands for. If the creative competition were to disappear, the brand essence of Cannes would slowly erode.
Maybe not right away. Maybe not in the first or second year. But fewer creatives would come. There would be less attention and less appeal. But right now, there’s little sign of that. The demand for events, meetings, and discussions is high.
We at DMEXCO are also on site in Cannes and are hosting several events together with partners. And what can I say: They’re all already sold out. That, too, demonstrates the relevance – but also that of the side events.
