Last week saw the close of another Cannes Lions event, AKA the International Festival of Creativity. As the dust settles, I figured now’s a good time to take a look back at some of what was said, seen and heard.
Let’s start off with some sights and sounds.
First up is Sylvia Jensen, Head of Marketing, EMEA, Oracle Marketing Cloud. As part of her Instagram takeover she took viewers for a walk. Take a stroll with her from the Palais to the Cannes Oracle Deck, the heart of where marketing and advertising leaders converged to celebrate creative achievements and innovation during Cannes.
And no Sylvia doesn’t really walk that fast. Or then again maybe she does.
Next up is Ron Corbiser, CEO of Relationship One who shares some insights on his first day at event.
.@relationshipone‘s @Corbisier is a newbie to #CannesLions. Hear what his first day was like. #CannesOracleDeck pic.twitter.com/OnnxTKeBFg
— Marketing Cloud (@OracleMktgCloud) June 20, 2017
Quotable Quotes
Here’s some quotable and notable quotes from Cannes Lion 2017:
- “Life is about being authentic & not worrying about the outcome” – Halle Berry
- “Transformation now is led by customers.” – Jennifer Renaud, CMO, Oracle Marketing Cloud
- “Digital transformation is about doing biz differently.” – Senior Marketing Director, Global Tropicana Brand, PepsiCo
- “It’s very difficult to lead transformation from the center.” – Una Fox, VP Digital Marketing Technology, The Walt Disney Company
- “Success is not linear. Opportunity comes in many guises,” Tina Brown, CEO & Founder at Tina Brown Live Media
- “It is really imperative to have a diverse team driving the Marketing agenda” – Antonio Lucio, Global Chief Marketing & Communication Officer at HP Inc
- “In a data driven world, small moments can drive bigger outcome.” – Kristen O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, Time Warner Inc.
- “We need to make a case that equality is good for men & for people in majority” – Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook
Gender Equality
Sheryl’s quote is the perfect segue to talk about a major topic that came out of Cannes: gender equality. In her post on LinkedIn last week Alex Rynne referenced this very topic as being one of the trending topics to come out of Cannes.
“Marketing execs weren’t running away from the diversity issue at this year’s event… Several large companies announced plans to run continual research over the next decade on gender equality. As Unilever CMO Keith Weed put it, ‘Why would you only use half the talent in the world if you can use the whole talent in the world? You could get a lot of middle aged men and teach them to try and think differently or take a diverse group of people and leverage the diversity among them.’”
Moreover the findings of research that was released at Cannes revealed that “85% of women said that when it comes to representing them, the advertising world needs to catch up with the real world.”
Additional findings of the research, which was from The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media at Mount Saint Mary’s University and J. Walter Thompson New York include:
- There are twice as many male characters in ads than female characters.
- 25% of ads feature men only, while only 5% of ads feature women only.
- 18% of ads feature only male voices, while less than 3% of ads featuring female voices only.
To make real change, however it can’t be just men talking to men or women talking to women. As Renaud points out “we need men in the room to have a dialogue in order to make real change.”
More Pics
Here’s a few more pics from Cannes Lions 2017 and Oracle.
Kristen O’Hara, CMO, Global Media, of Time Warner Cable (L) and Jennifer Renaud CMO, Oracle Marketing Cloud discuss how they are empowering their teams to create heroic marketing moments for growth.
(From L-R) Cory Treffiletti, Vice President – Marketing & Partner Solutions, Oracle Data Cloud, Charlie Chappell, Head of Media and Advertising Hershey Company and Blake Cahill, Global Head of Digital and Social Marketing, Royal Philips talk balance they face every day between infusing emotion and logic into their creative strategy.