I have the unbelievable privilege of attending the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity as a Young Lions delegate for the third consecutive year. This marks my last eligible year as a “Young” Lion and it is an amazing opportunity to enjoy the south of France with some of the best advertising talents in the world one last time.
The Festival of Creativity not only showcases the best global work and emerging technologies but is also the birth place of many industry shaping trends. A lot can change in a given year and as with previous trips I look forward to seeing how previous year’s trends have evolved on a global scale.
In 2017 my theme was “People vs. Machines”, a focus on how emerging technologies will shape the lives of consumers and our potential relationships with them. In the past year, emerging technology such as personal assistants, AI and VR/AR have become integrated into our day to day world. Brands are increasingly able to adapt and engage with consumers in a complete personalize 1 to 1 experience.
With these new technologies established and marketers gaining a better understanding of how they can be used, the industry is on the cusp of making drastic changes to brand experiences which is reason why I selected this year’s theme of BODY (Connectivity, Tapping into our 5 senses, Power of Experience) as my key focus.
With-in Body “Connectivity” is where I am looking forward to exploring the most. Diving deeper into how as an industry are we approaching in-home personal assistants and their ever growing number of connected devices. Regardless of if it is a Google or Amazon device they are becoming common place in homes. These tech giants are essentially having consumers pay them to build a future in-home ad network. The more users expand their personal network i.e. adding more devices such as smart TV or wearables the more we can learn in an effort to deliver the most relevant message.
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