Now that the Cannes Lions dust has settled for another year, I've reflected on my fave presentations from this year’s festival. I attended Cannes as part of RA*W Advertisers, a foundation that supports young talent working in advertising. Out of the twenty something seminars I attended, I found two really exciting…
Like the last few years, Contagious delivered a strong and relevant seminar. This time they shared a ‘Toolkit for Transformation’ – four predictions they think will shape the ad industry in the coming years….
1. Brand loyalty will go extinct – we already don’t have to buy music or films, as we can just rent them instead. The same goes for tools, which can now be shared with others via apps such as Peerby. As consumers we also have more general choice, as smaller brands are no longer hindered by a lack of huge marketing budgets and instead are able to target audiences through online and social niftiness. An effect of this growing ‘switching economy’ is a decline of brand loyalty. So how does Contagious suggest we combat this? Keep the consumer at the heart of everything we do. Talk to the individual and not a generalized target group. Personalize the message. And keep it real.
2. The unconnected need to be connected – we all know the people without Internet-access are the ones who need it the most. But what the big companies and brands are apparently missing is that this is a big opportunity – an opportunity to not only help third world countries get online but to also make a big profit. Just so long as they keep in mind to ‘enable and educate before advertising’, and if a company starts acting more opportunistic than in the spirit of good will it could just bite them in the ass.
3. New brand experiences must liberate us from the screen – the Internet was never developed for just the screen, the idea was that information would be accessible for everyone everywhere. In the next few years we’ll apparently see more and more applications with a human interface. So marketers should have a think about how their product or service fits into ‘the internet of things’ and if it still complements current consumer behavior.
4. In 10 years the advertising agency will be an algorithm – yep, computers will take over. Already supercomputers can compose beautiful unique pieces of music, so is it only a matter of time before effective creative ads roll off the printer? And if so, will we all be out of a job? Nope, the computer needs input. Our role is apparently set to change and as such we’ll need to apply our brainpower in a different way. For instance, hitting the streets to gather live qualitative data for the computer. I’m curious what category Cannes Lions will create for this…
And then there was Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of ‘the Internet’. The only ‘celebrity’ I was excited to see on the Cannes speakers list. This genius has been incremental for the world as we know it today. So I got myself a primo-spot in the auditorium, opened my notebook an got ready to jolt down anything he had to say about the ‘coming Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution. After 45-minutes no notes had been taken and my mind was about to explode. Sir Tim, it seemed, had just tried to break the world speed-talking record. Luckily Cannes Lions records all seminars, so yesterday afternoon I watched his talk again.
Berners-Lee explained that now is the perfect environment for the AI Era, as computer are getting stronger and algorithms more sophisticated. He gave three examples on how AI can improve and change our lives.
1. Self Driving Cars – The people developing these cars think they will save many lives with it. Still too many people get killed in road accidents, and these accidents are usually down to human error. Apart from the safety aspect, what Berners-Lee likes about Self Driving Cars is the impact they will have on urban planning. Can you imagine living in a city as crazy as London or New York, where in the (near) future you can just get out of your car in front of your house and your car will park itself in a quiet part of the city? Cities will look completely different if we can remove parking areas from city centers.
2. Accessible data – big part of our brain is memory, to machines that is just data. And there is a lot of data we don’t want to cram into our brains, such as public traffic schedules or contact details. Availability of this data, especially in real-time, is quite useful. And for companies it is important to put their data out there and make it accessible to us. Twenty years ago if you wanted to buy something you had to talk to every company yourself, you had to go looking for information. Ten years ago, you could find all the info on the company’s websites, but still you had to compare the data yourself. Now there are websites that make the comparison for you. Very practical, but this is only possible if companies make their data accessible. So as a company, make sure your data can be found by people and by bots.
3. Your own data – “My data to me is more valuable, then my data to you” A company, such as an insurance company, can take your data and make you part of some data set. It is valuable to them as they can make assumptions about the type of person you are, and maybe base offers or new products on this data. However all this data about your health and daily life is a lot more valuable to you, as it can make predictions about your own future. Right now this information is scattered and we don’t even have access to it all. It’s now waiting for powerful apps or VPA’s (Virtual Personal Assistants) that look at every aspect of your life, combine it with all the available data on the Internet and suggest you what to do next. Very basic example could be ‘Shall I order some fresh fruit to be delivered? You need some vitamins as a flu-epidemic is approaching your city and you caught the flu twice already this year.’ The VPA knows what fruit you like, knows which ones have the vitamins that help fight the flu and has access to your bank details – easy does it. And if you then still get the flu, your VPA will order some antibiotics with your family doctor. And all this starts with easy access to personal data.
Of course Cannes had more to offer this year that these two completely different speakers both talking about changes in our future. And that is what I love about Cannes Lions – you dig through the program and always find something that sparks your interest. In my case it’s tech development and AI, but the program is so jam-packed that whether you’re a planner, creative or marketer, you will come home with your own (completely different set) of insights and inspiration – but we’ll probably all come home a little hangover and a little bit sunburnt. A l’année prochaine.
This blog was first published on Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam's blog.