This year’s Cannes Lions International gathering poses a unique juxtaposition, says Magna Global’s David Cohen. Traditional media companies will be showing how they can compete with the latest hot digital offerings and the latter group will be trying to learn something from the legacy media folks.
“There are traditional companies that are thinking about their offering in new ways,” Cohen, who is president of North America for the media unit of IPG, says in an interview with Beet.TV. “Whether it’s traditional broadcasters or out of home companies who are thinking about technology and data and going to the market differently.”
Then there are the new kids on the block, emerging platforms seeking to compete with their predecessors. “They are trying to take some of the learnings that we have from 60 years of traditional media and bring that to the market,” Cohen says. “It’s a mix of old and young. It’s a great juxtaposition for the first time I think in quite some time.”
One thing that Cohen won’t be doing at Cannes is meeting with people that he could meet with any time in New York. He plans on spending lots of time walking the Palais des Festivals. “The tendency is for us to just have meetings, from morning noon and night it’s meetings, meetings, meetings,” Cohen says. “We’re trying not to do that. This is a festival of creativity. We want to see the best work in the world so we’re going to make our way to the Palais more so this hopefully than in years past.”
This interview is part of our series “The Road to Cannes”, presented by FreeWheel. Please visit this page for additional segments.
