Keeping pace with the evolution of online advertising, this year’s festival will hold talks on ‘cloud-computing’ and impact of social-networking on consumers.
The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival has not been particularly known for being well clued in to the evolution of online advertising. In a bid to make up for lost ground in this space, the festival — which is in its 56th edition — has also invited the Who’s Who of the digital world to give an online perspective to its audience this year.
The speaker line-up includes Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. Not only this, but moderated by Forrester Research’s Mary Beth Kemp, its social media panel will bring together senior executives from an array of social networks to explore the most effective, high-risk practices in social media marketing. The panel includes Rebekah Horne of social media giant MySpace, Kevin Eyres of professional network LinkedIn, Dave Balter of BzzAgent, the international word-of-mouth media network, and Justin Siegel of MocoSpace, North America’s largest mobile social network.
Topics for discussion include the dos and don’ts, lessons learned, successful and innovative ideas, techniques for measurement, monetisation strategies, and a look at what may be next. “Ultimately, this session serves as a social media sampler by surveying a variety of different practices spanning a variety of different types of online communities,” reads the Cannes schedule.
Interestingly, ‘cloud computing’ is another topic for the year. The speakers include Michael Mendenhall, CMO of Hewlett-Packard, and Bob Greenberg, CEO of digital agency R/GA, who will share their vision on how brands can embrace the ‘cloud’, transform their relationships with consumers, and build sustainable platforms for marketing programmes.
Anyone who has uploaded a picture on Snapfish, posted a video on YouTube, or put his/her personal profile on a social networking site like Facebook or LinkedIn, or listened to a song on Pandora or LastFM, “is living in the cloud”. In ‘cloud computing’, digital assets like pictures, videos and songs are no longer tied down to the technology hardware that is personally owned. Instead, these assets live in the ‘cloud’ — the vast network of servers that make up the internet. Once in the cloud, they can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, with just a simple internet connection — from a PC, a mobile device, or through a web-connected digital video recorder (DVR) or television.
“Forward-thinking marketers are already embracing the cloud,” say the Cannes Lions organisers, “developing tools and applications that extend the value of their products through value-added services.” Nike+ is an example of a cloud-based service, where consumers’ running data lives in the cloud and enables runners around the world to form communities around this data. Nokia vine is a cloud-based service that converges an array of mobile technologies like global positioning system (GPS), image capture and tagging to allow people to capture and share the moments of their lives.
GoViral — Always On is another topic which will be dealt with by Jimmy Maymann, Chairman of GoViral. The audience is not where they used to be and they talk their own language using Blogger, Twitter and Facebook, where they join their online friends to share news, gossip, opinions, recommendations and the latest spoof of a steamy Guinness ad, reason the organisers.
They are tired of being bombarded with banner ads, pop-ups and roadblocks in an effort to drive them to a brand site that’s not relevant to them at that particular point in time. This approach needs to be reversed and brands need to find ways to interact with people regardless of where that conversation is taking place and meet them on their terms.
Rather than spending resources on 30-second ads, banners and microsites that consumers will avoid, savvy marketers develop new types of content and distribution strategies to engage consumers in active conversations that open up brand participation.
Incidentally, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft Corporation will be honoured with the Media Person of the Year Award at the 56th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival “in recognition of his leadership and Microsoft’s continued commitment to digital advertising.”
“We are delighted to honour Steve Ballmer... (who has) changed the face of worldwide communication,” says Philip Thomas, Festival CEO.
