Original article by Robin Langford in Performance Marketing World here.
As the sun sets on an eventful Cannes Lions, PMW quizzed some of this year’s attendees at the French Riviera festival to get the scoop on the biggest marketing event of the year.
From Greenpeace protests to ubiquitous Ryan Reynold’s selfies, Cannes Lions didn’t disappoint on its live return after a two-year pandemic hiatus.
While creativity was rightly at the centre of the festival, each year the use of data to validate and inform branding campaigns becomes a more essential part of the marketing cocktail.
Away from the Grand Prix winners and celebrity appearances, there were key announcements about brand safety and suitabilty and the awards shortlist for Creative Data showcased innovative work.
During the festival, PMW spoke to some leading performance marketers to share their experiences of the week-long event:
“AI audio technology progressing in three key areas – making music, vocal tracks and AI voiceover”
Kim Aspelling, Director of Creative Production, A Million Ads: “This year, Cannes has seen a lot of talk about AI, in particular how we utilise the technology and data across buying and advertising. With the technology progressing in three key areas – making music, vocal tracks and AI voiceover – advertisers are looking to connect these areas for the first time. This is going to be a key future trend for innovation in audio advertising, and something that may surface in some of the awards this year.
“Context in advertising has also been a hot topic – geolocation data can now be used to map out a listener’s day, and work out people’s habits to better target them in a personalised way. For example, if a person is often late for work, we need to think about how that impacts their purchasing behaviour. Someone who is late needs quick, easy purchasing options. As actionable audio ads allow listeners to interact and shop on the go, they provide a solution when a listener’s day doesn’t go to plan. It’s time actionable audio ads were tailor made, with audiences at the heart of strategies.”
