Established in 1954, the 2008 edition of the Cannes lions International Advertising Festival will take place on the Croisette soon after the Film festival in the third week of June. The primary purpose of the festival is to present the Lion awards for the advertisements and advertising campaigns adjudged the best of the year.
Last year's edition, of this generally regarded most prestigious international advertising festival, outlined a new trend in the business. Even as the web and handled devices shake up where marketers spend ad dollars, one of the fastest-growing media is tried-and-true outdoor. Driving outdoor growth has been technology and a burst of creative ideas hat are making a relatively old medium new. Indeed, while overall U.S. ad spending in 2006 rose 4% over 2005 to almost $150 billion, outdoor spending rose nearly 9% to $3.8 billion. This rise was second only to Internet spending, up 17% to 9.7 $billion. James Miller, Pepsi marketing director said that "outdoor has been around for 150 years. It's not something that you think as new. Now, there are so many new technologies around it, it's forcing companies to look at it." President of the jury for the outdoor awards and founder of Jung Von Matt in Hamburg, Mr Von Matt says interest and creativity are growing because, "The interactive relationship marketers can have with consumers can reach consumers wherever they are, especially walking down the street."
The best-of-show outdoor Grand Prix went to Nedbank in South Africa for its "Power to the People' billboard. This appealing and evocative sign is equipped with 10 solar panels, each generating 135 watts of electric power, that are powering the kitchen of a nearby primary school.
BBC and agency BBDO in New York ended up with one of just two U.S. Gold Lions for their giant billboard launching BBC World, a round-the-clock cable news network intending to rival CNN and Fox News. The display used interactivity to introduce the channel and push people to demand the channel from their cable provider.
The board persuaded viewers to use their cell phones to text-message their reactions to new photos. For example, people could pick "criminals" or "citizens" for a photo of immigrants at a border and "occupiers" or "liberators" for one of U.S. soldiers. About 10,000 votes were messaged in four weeks, and results were displayed continuously.
Both concepts were astonishingly good, and 2008 should be a good vintage for outdoor advertising revival.
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