A daily diary series from Cannes Lions Festival 2022

By Jon Evans, Chief Growth Officer, System1

After logistical challenges and much wardrobe angst I am back in Cannes! For all the benefits of video conference nothing beats the buzz of talking in person and what a wonderful place to do that. Beside the ‘networking’ and Rose what will I be looking for? Last year I wrote in Campaign that Cannes Lions were for the first time no better than the average ad when judged by real people. That was a pretty damning assessment so will we see a focus from the judges on creative that ‘works’? Rather appropriately my first event is the Triple Jeopardy talk by effectiveness legends Peter Field, Karen Nelson-Field and Orlando Wood. I will be interviewing them on my podcast Uncensored CMO for an off the record chat. Next up for me is B2B… Yeah, I know B2B and creativity don’t always get mentioned in the same breath, but LinkedIn are here in force to fix that. Then later in the week I am very excited to be sharing brand new research on the impact of diversity in advertising called Feeling Seen which LinkedIn are kindly hosting. Somewhere between that I hope to see who I bump into and what serendipity has in store for me because that’s what Cannes is about.