CMO insight: Key takeaways from the Cannes Lions Festival

Since 1954, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has awarded communications leaders for innovation. It also provides a platform for advertising and marketing professionals to share insights, evaluate trends and determine where the industry is going next.

In June, juries of creative leaders put their heads together to award campaigns for their creativity and leadership of thought.

Creativity and business results should go hand-in-hand

The Cannes festival is a celebration of creativity in communication, rewarding innovators for taking advertising content to the next level. This year, some attending chief marketing officers expressed concern over the awards focus on style over substance.

According to Medical Marketing & Media, the CMO of last year's most-awarded company, Mars Pet Nutrition, expressed a desire to combine creative efforts with business strategy.

"Our ask of Cannes is that we continually push to link creativity with real business results," said CMO Jane Wakely. "We're an evidence-based company and our belief fundamentally is that you measure results on behavioral change, not on attitudinal change, because behaviors do not always follow attitudes and we'd love to see more and more rigor."

In other words, CMOs want their messaging to be creative, but they also want to see evidence that the target audience is responsive to that creativity. Tracking engagement metrics is necessary for determining how readers are interacting with and responding to marketing materials.

Engagement also depends on an integrated approach to advertising and marketing. A brand's print ads should align with its online and social strategy, which should align with the brand's overarching values. Establishing a high level of alignment is easier said than done, however. The marketing team needs to have a measurable strategy for generating data on customer needs and values.

CMOs want to see more alignment between creative efforts and business strategy.

CMOs want to see growth

This year, the Cannes Festival established a growth council to discuss how brands can harness their creativity to drive business expansion. Led by Procter & Gamble's consumer product leader Marc Pritchard, the council's purpose was to identify strategies for gaining a competitive edge through creative communication.

Ascential Events executive and council member Philip Thomas told MM&M that alignment between customer values and brand creativity can contribute to business growth.

"What they feel passionate about is the same as we feel passionate about, which is that in this difficult low-growth world we live in, creativity is the differentiator," said Thomas.

Another council member, Samsung's chief marketing officer Younghee Lee, believes creativity is more important than ever.

"People asked me about my wish for this Festival. I think we should focus on creatives," Lee said. "At the end of the day creative matters. Technology and data are important, but to cut through and breakthrough is all about humanity and creativity. So, if we can come back to that one agenda that's good enough."

This sentiment certainly applies to physician-targeted campaigns. Doctors live in a world of routine EHR systems and stuffy technical documents. Adding some creativity and humanity to marketing materials intended for this audience could easily pique their interest.

In the world of medical advertising, these takeaways are even more applicable. An element of creativity will spark reader interest and get them excited about new opportunities. Marketers can also capture the attention of valuable readers across channels by using imagery, text and video. As each element comes into alignment with the others, the effectiveness of the campaign grows.

Want to learn more about how these insights can improve your relationships with prescribers? Visit our resource center for more information.