Post-Cannes thoughts.
A bit of a departure from our usual programming.
I don’t think people know what advertising is.
This was the thought that occurred to me, a few times, as I wandered up and down La Croisette at Cannes, as I attended day after day of talks and explorations, as I drank rosé and bonded and bantered and bellyached with friends new and old about a thing that we all kind of love, and that the world mostly tries to ignore.
I read (and listen to) a lot of punditry about advertising. And the overwhelming opinion is that I’m part of a rapidly disappearing species, one that is not longer suited to the climate and the competition that it faces. Whether it’s a holding company earnings call or a comparison to the good old days; the story is the decline of advertising. And yet.
Advertising wasn’t in free fall, at Cannes. Despite the best real estate on the beach (or the port) belonging to the tech companies that collectively drove the shift from building brands to measuring conversions, despite the decline of the traditional media ecosystem that made interruptive creative (and tbh mainstream celebrity) plausible, despite the collapse of a shared mainstream culture at all, advertising remains incredibly, vibrantly, idealistically relevant.
Because advertising is not a 30 second TV spot. Advertising is not a full page magazine ad. It’s not a billion dollar multinational holding company or a specific and predictable agency process. Advertising is not a billboard or a banner ad or the phrase “new and improved”.
Somehow, because those things are losing relevance, you assume advertising is, as well?
Rory Sutherland once referred to a beautiful flower as advertising. It’s peacock feathers and birdsong. It’s a cool nickname and a good outfit and a talkative friend who sees the best in you. It’s tinder to the spark of a decision.
Advertising is communication in the name of commerce.
And you think it’s just going to what, go away?
The mere presence of the titans of tech on the beach tells you there’s untold value on the table. Ritson or Tindall or Binet will tell you, today, that there’s clear and durable and measurable value in building brands and contextualizing products, even if it doesn’t always get tracked in an automated dashboard. They’ll even fucking tell you *how* if you care enough to genuinely listen and think critically.
So the only conclusion I can come to, is that people have precisely no idea what advertising is. Because I can promise you, while some pieces of century old corporate infrastructure are hitting end of life, and a widely-adopted business model has abandoned creativity for optimization, the premise and the promise and the product of it all, are still eminently viable.
Building a brand. Attracting an audience. Manufacturing meaning. Introducing future icons. It’s all going to be valuable a year, or a decade from now, assuming we’re all here to enjoy it.
You’re mourning a caterpillar because it’s entered a cocoon. Change isn’t inherently bad.
Cannes was a nice reminder of that. The math still maths. Doing good and smart work creates positive effects. Incredible creativity can be put to work to create something durable. The occasional bout of idealism is justifiable. And the industry is a lot more than a dwindling number of holding companies in a trench coat.
Which is why it’s so nice to get back to work.
Don’t worry, I’ll be back midway through the month with something a little less idealistic, but I wrote this the day after I got back, and decided it was worth putting out into the world, even if it’s not exactly what I’d usually publish here.