Marketers and media execs from the Portada network provide 5 takeaways from the recent Cannes Lions 2023 festival. Read what Entravision’s Juan Saldivar, NUMATEC’s Giuliano Stiglitz, and We are All Human’s Claudio Romo have to say.
The deal-making, beach takeovers, luxury yacht visits, etc., at the Cannes Lions 2023 festival are over. Portada asked three leading executives about the key takeaways and insights they got during the event.
Cannes Lions 2023 Takeaway 1: More Ad-Tech Than Ever
“Tech takes over advertising,” says Juan Saldivar, Chief Digital, Strategy and Accountability Officer, at Entravision. More than ever, AdTech, and, to a lesser degree MarTech, was a key part of the on and off-stage conversations between marketing decision-makers at Cannes Lions 2023. “People talked tons about measurement, attribution, creative excellence, and user experience. But two words stood out this year: retail media and data layering as the currency for the future. Creative excellence at scale was another critical topic,” Saldivar adds. Boston Consulting Group puts it this way: The CMO as Tech Guru: Staying on top of emerging technologies has become central to the CMO’s job—with the latest disruption coming in the form of generative AI.”
Cannes Lions 2023 Takeaway 2: Performance Expanding Vs. Branding
Related to the preeminence of Ad-Tech is, according to Saldivar, the sense that “in the battle between branding and performance-driven campaigns, the latter is winning as more than 60% of all money spent is controlled by a few including Google, Meta, Amazon, Alibaba, TikTok, and others. This trend is being accelerated by the big 6 (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, Dentsu, Interpublic, and Havas) are acquiring performance agencies.”
Takeaway 3: Increased Activity in the Second Half of 2023, Boosted by Retail Media
Giuliano Stiglitz, CEO of NUMATEC, notes that the growth sentiment among Cannes Lions 2023 participants was positive. “Advertising activity in the second semester of 2023 will pick up,” Stiglitz adds.
Growth expectations for retail media are particularly strong: “It seems that 65% of all ad growth will come from how retailers tool up and sell their captured audiences,” says Entravision’s Saldivar.
Takeaway 4: AI Was on Everyone’s Lips
Asked about the main area brand marketers at Cannes Lions 2023 have their eyes on, Claudia Romo Edelman, Founder of We Are All Human, tells Portada that “Definitely, AI was the main topic at Cannes this year; the industry is interested in investing in the platform and learning how this technology impacts the industry but mainly how it benefits the new way of working and developing business.” “Not surprisingly, AI, Retail Media, and Privacy were the big topics at Cannes Lions 2023, ” adds NUMATEC’s Stiglitz.
Cannes Lions 2023 Takeaway 5: Latino Creators Unite
A Cannes Lions 2023 takeaway Claudia Romo Edelman did not expect is to see that “Latino Creators were united at Cannes. We all supported each other at our events, and we, all together, agreed on our purpose and committed to the same goal. We need to change the perception of Hispanics in the United States.” According to Kantar,
this year, the discussion on how DE&I are communicated within advertising content “has reached yet another level, and showed more nuance. Brands have now moved past whether to be inclusive to the how, within their own organizations as well as how they engage externally with agencies, suppliers, creators, and consumers. This year’s Cannes Lions winners demonstrated that creativity can help make brands more inclusive.”
“Elevating the conversation about Latino representation is a priority, according to Romo. “Next year, we are planning something big to make a bolder statement; Latino leaders in the industry are getting organized to accelerate change and influence big brands to put big money into our community. You know, this year, the energy in Cannes was unbelievable; I do believe we will be stronger every time,” Romo concludes.
