As our team made its maiden voyage to the 2015 Cannes Lions festival this year, I really didn’t know what to expect. But it didn’t take long before it was clear that we were a company with the right technology, in the right place, at the right time.
This year’s conference coincided with the dawning realisation that creative advertising is going to become a lot more programmatic, systematic, and yes, personal.
The change has been unfolding for months, but Cannes made it clear that marketing automation and advertising tech companies are now key players in helping to drive the conversation forward as the worlds of technology and creativity collide.
Without hyperbole, this was the year that Cannes Lions transformed into a shindig – Silicon Valleystyle.
But, more importantly, it served as a moment in time where marketing technology and advertising technology came together like peanut butter and jelly.
We were there for a reason: there was keen interest in how technology was changing the advertising business. The payoff is in the simple idea that an ad that is personal and relevant gets much higher conversion rates and much more money.
Another hot topic was whether technology in general was starting to crowd out creativity – or even elbow it aside entirely and take over. This wasn’t surprising, since technology (or “science”) is often viewed as being at the expense of “art”.
What is awesome is that today’s technology is freeing up marketers to be marketers. Technology and creativity – now, what a beautiful marriage. Technology unshackles marketers and allows them to come up with nearly infinite ways to drive personal engagement with consumers and buyers.
One surprise for me: the ad agencies get it. I thought that might be a hard sell. It’s a journey, for sure, and we are at the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a hard change in many places, but they get where this is going, and they told me how they planned to transform their own companies. I can’t wait to see what the dialogue will be next year.