Cannes Lions: What are you missing?

The annual advertising get-together is often portrayed as a gigantic piss-up (excuse my French). But there are nonetheless lots of events there worth a spin. I just checked out the seminar programme here. A few things caught my eye: notably the much-maligned Rupert Murdoch in conversation with Y&R; a talk titled "A day in the life of a mobile phone in Seoul" (I'm presuming there's more to this than it seems); and a wonderful talk entitled "Don't create an ad, start a conversation", signed Nick Moore, EVP, Chief Creative Officer - Wunderman.

I love this idea, but I'm a little wary of the blurb: "The days of the brand monologue are over. Today the consumer is an active participant, passionately engaged in conversations with the brands they love and hate. So today’s ideas have to do more than drive an ad: they have to be capable of reacting in real time to everything the customer says and does."

That's nice enough if your audience is passionately engaged. But let's not forget that the advertising business also relies on generating new traffic and sales. And who has the time and budget to "react in real time to everything"?

Having said that, if I was in town, I'd check this out.

And now... a Roman Holiday for Cannes

Rome was very definitely one of the world's movie-making capitals for some time, and still is home to the Cinecitta facilities and numerous movie companies. So it's nice to see that it is still keeping up with things. In addition to hosting a good festival in September, the city is about to show a selection of films from this year's Cannes festival between June 5-12 in various cinemas across town. Ten Cannes classics will also be shown, with talks by film-makers, actors and professionals (and there are no lack of those in Rome itself).

For details, visit Cannes a Roma (in Italian). Our thanks to Wanted in Rome for the tip.