There are too many categories in Cannes.

The festival in Cannes will start soon now. But is winning a lion still desirable? Nowadays you can win a lion with virtually anything. But, as nobady dares to say, it is 100 times harder to win gold in the commercials category than online. That might change since online is becoming more and more conceptual/idea driven but the gold lions given to online and DM creatives the pas decade have watered down the value of a Lion. A radio ad, how hard is it to translate is differently and win an award for somtehing never done? Half the print ads are paid for by the agency itself. And what is titanium? Isn't that the stuff your watch was made of in the eighties? Have they melted them? Cannes should have remained a true TVC festval, a cheap immitation of the real film-cannes. Corny, overrated but at least a real competition between ads that can be compared on merit. As it is now, I would suggest some new categories: - Sheep shaving - Nail polishing - Whistling - Selling vegetables - Skiing backwards up a mountian Many more could follow. And do not call me old fashioned. Each medium could have it's festival, just as integrated and ambient. But at least when you've won a Golden Goose for the best ambient idea, we would know just how much it is worth.

I am not really all that interested in the danger of awards inflation. For a start, everyone knows what category you have won for, and can make their valuation accordingly. And is it really so easy to win a cyber Lion - when your competition is any one of 15m people in Brazil who can apply a great idea to a budget of over £10,000, rather than being any one of those 4,000 people worldwide who can attach a great idea to a film budget of $1m+?

What matters more to me is that the festival is interesting. To be honest, if it weren't for the ambient/outdoor/cyber/direct/design, I would stay home and watch the winners' reel in the comfort of my own large chair. It isn't Cannes I question - it's all those other time-wasting, money-grubbing specialised events.

 

Yep - I agree... There are so many time-wasting awards all over the world that really don't say much about the winning agencies. In many cases there are only a few agencies entering the awards which doens't really say much does it.

 
Yes, Cannes is probably a good waste of money for many agencies but I would also like to highlight that while many of the entries are rather boring or perhaps more politely said, nothing new or ingenious, there are those that break the boundaries, most especaily in my opinion, awards in newer markets e.g. digital. If Cannes were only awards for TVC's then it wouldn't really be particularly exciting. Yes, very nice to watch a bunch of TVC's with budgets in the millions but really, is this as creative as we can get in 2008? What would people do for 4 days apart from party? - well, thats all many do anyway but...

I think the creativity within newer medias such as Digital is very interesting and even more interesting are the integrated ideas - and we aren't talking about so called 360 integration whereby the TVC points the user to the web address afterwards, but rather 'transmedia' ideas whereby the concept / story is integrated from the word go - each media/medium helps to tell the story and clearly this is where the term 'fully integrated' media should be heading - new outdoor ideas, direct / CRM, digital and so on. I think it will be another year or two before we really have these but there are still some great  entries from leading agencies around the world that have begun this process in my opinion.

 

 

I don't think there are too many categories in Cannes. There is a tremendous body of work out there that needs benchmarking. It is true that establishing appropriate quality measures for newer categories (don't forget, the Festival has been dominated by TV for many many years, so the influx of Cyberlions, for example, has helped challenge the 'old school' rather a lot. Whether they should actually be called Cyber or not is perhaps a moot point, but it seems to me that there is increasing blurring of the edges of the categories. Last year, many of the successful direct winners were 'promo' led, and many of the Cyber winners were 'brand' led. The event celebrates craft, maybe it should celebrate strategy too.

OK, so Cannes has a lot of categories. But it's still one of the 'big ones' and winning one – in whatever category – still confers a high degree of status.

this is the point. advertising is the solace for those who cant be creative and original in true fields such as writing, art, academia etc. Valueless awards full of former polytechnic crass and uneducated simpletons waxing lyrical about an advert for batteries or chocolate bars is the very essence of this pathetic back-slapping industry. Who actually cares? The true measure of creativity is soemthing that transcends those with vested interest. To call adverts 'creative' is, frankly, embarrasing.

I could gather together a hundred losers with crap media degrees and 2:2's and say: this is the annual best crap awards. And the winner of the best crap goes to....with micro categories for crap colour. Ad infinitum ad nauseum. That you people think by winning such meaningless tat actually means anything shows only how self absorbed and deluded you all are.