CANNES -- In recent years, it has added tracks for entertainment, innovation and even health. But now the creative ad industry's main event is considering expanding to encompass an even wider array of media industry topics. Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview as Cannes Lions kicked off, event CEO Phillip Thomas said the biggest recent expansion had come with the [...]

CANNES -- Over the last year, a noticeable apology for ad-tech has grown louder in the advertising community, as ad execs - once sold on hyper-targeting super-powers - cast their eyes back toward the basic tenets of creative ad craft. To Doug Rozen, that means "making stories matter". It's one of the mantras of OMD, the global ad agency where Rozen [...]

Back in 2012, before the words “safe environment” for digital video became industry mantra, a company called Outrigger Media launched OpenSlate. It was a tool to help advertisers target the long tail of video production. Among other things, the company knew “there would come a time in an industry that got hyper focused on audience and eyeballs and finding the right [...]

In the UK pay-TV market, they are two fierce rivals. But now satellite operator Sky and cable company Virgin Media are forming a "strategic partnership" to scale advanced TV ad targeting opportunities, against the common enemy of online platforms. The pair have announced Virgin will use data from Sky's existing AdSmart addressable TV system, as well as tech from its parent [...]

Creation and viewing of mobile video is growing in leaps and bounds but marketers aren’t moving fast enough to keep up with the trend. This is the focal point that Facebook will bring to the fore at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity as it continues to roll out new video formats. The social media behemoth next week will kick off [...]

Artificial intelligence (also referred to as augmented intelligence) is expected to be one of the most talked about topics at Cannes next week. But it can be hard to fathom exactly what AI could mean, and for whom. That's why the Weather Company CMO  Jordan Bitterman and his team plan to bring the technology to life to the marketing and and media [...]

In a fast-moving world with fast-changing technologies, new strategies and ideas prompt constant innovation in the way we construct messaging and communicate for companies. But is constant reinvention necessarily a good thing? In this video interview with Beet.TV, one of the creative chiefs from a major international agency calls for longer-term thinking. "We talk a lot about purpose-driven brands, but I definitely [...]

One of the world's top ad agencies is well used to making messages for TV screens - but TBWA also sees an opportunity to break free from that screen. Speaking with Beet.TV in this video interview, TBWA's global chief creative officer Chris Garbutt says: "There’s never been a more exciting time for storytelling. All these new opportunities have shown up in [...]

The digital ecosystem is awash in content, but it’s not a case of more is merrier. “We think less is more,” says David Lang, Chief Content Officer for Mindshare NA and President of Mindshare Content+ Entertainment. As he looks ahead to the 2017 Cannes Lions festival, Lang talks about the importance of conducting content strategies and audits for brands and explains [...]

Like many other companies, Twitter uses the Cannes Lions festival to showcase its product offerings. Unlike others, it’s adopted a “feed-first” mantra as opposed to mobile-first. At this year’s festival, Twitter will spend a lot of time talking about the value of experiences, how it’s doubled down on live streaming and what it takes for brands to create a value exchange [...]

Most marketers have now been taking advantage of social media networks for several years. By now, everyone knows the medium is both transformational, but also risky. But exactly how risky can social be, and how do brands best respond? News Corp's Storyful unit, which began by helping publishers validate user-uploaded content for news stories, says it can help marketers understand how to avoid [...]

What the Global CEO of J. Walter Thompson believes is “incredibly interesting” about creativity is that it can exist in product utilization. This comes at a time when despite the continued expansion of digital platforms, consumer engagement is all that really matters. As she looks ahead to the 2017 Cannes Lions festival, in this interview with Beet.TV Tamara Ingram talks about [...]

What do you get when you combine the internet's most-recognised viewability measurement system with one of the biggest content verification agencies? A new framework for fighting profiteering fake news merchants. Moat and News Corp's Storyful have partnered to form the Open Brand Safety (OBS) initiative, an open-source effort to track web domains and video URLs identified as purveyors of intentional misinformation with the aim [...]

Brands can only chase new technologies for so long before they become mainstream. At that point, it’s creativity that matters. It happened in the early days of television and it’s happening all over again, says Ari Weiss, North American CCO for DDB in this interview with Beet.TV in which he explains why he looks forward to the 2017 Cannes Lions festival [...]

Finding the right context for traditional television commercials and creating platform-specific creative are challenges and opportunities for brands and their agencies. When it comes to the latter, being screen agnostic is a plus, according to NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino. “I think the creative agencies are wrestling with two things,” the media company’s Chairman of Advertising Sales & Client Partnerships says in this [...]

Sean Bryan can’t wait to get to the Cannes Lions festival this year. And it’s not just because he has high hopes for McCann New York’s groundbreaking Fearless Girl campaign and its work for brands like Godiva, Microsoft and Nespresso. “I love it every year. But this year in particular is going to be an interesting year,” says the agency’s Chief [...]

LONDON -- In his first year as Managing Director of the Cannes Lions festival, Jose Papa will be overseeing a number of new initiatives. One in particular is designed to bring together some 15,000 participants in new and engaging ways under the auspices of its networking pillar. One of the things “that excites me the most” is how Cannes always tries [...]

When Wenda Harris Millard discusses the evolution of the Cannes Lions festival she does so with many years of perspective. What she sees now is an efficient venue where people gather to engage with others “who have real implications for the future of their business.” Millard is Vice Chairman of MediaLink, the strategic advisory and business development firm that has long [...]

Less than a decade ago, the creative work showcased at the Cannes Lions festival seemed to be more about technology than storytelling, in the mind of Y&R’s Global CEO, David Sable. But more recently, some of the work has been “spectacular” as the value of good storytelling has once again eclipsed tech. During the same time period, user-generated content has taken [...]

Depending on which part of the industry in which you operate, the media and marketing landscape may look pretty buoyant still But one of the top media investment analysts sees a very different story looming. According to Pivotal's Brian Wieser, the biggest marketers are now spending less in a drive to cut procurement costs - and that could affect the mood at upcoming Cannes [...]