Artificial intelligence is expected to be a hot topic at Cannes Lions this week, as the advertising industry descends on the French Riviera for its annual party in the sun.
Your mood should lighten.
In a year that will feature the Olympics, multiple world elections and the Euro 2024 soccer tournament, marketers are spending more on advertising than ever before, and while there is likely to be plenty of bragging rights for winners of the coveted Lions awards at this festival of creativity, there is also some anxiety in the air.
Companies are exploring how AI can be used to perform tasks such as copywriting, research, and automating ad campaigns. These tasks can then be outsourced to agencies, who typically charge clients a fee based on the number of people and time they work with their business. “Buy now, pay later” company Klarna recently shocked the industry by announcing that it had reduced its spend on marketing agencies by 25% thanks to AI.
“The ad agency industry is under pressure because it's a human capital-based business,” said Wayne Levings, chief customer officer and CEO of the Americas at research firm Kantar. “When that's replaced with some degree of automation, ultimately advertisers are going to expect some efficiencies.”
CMOs return to Cannes in droves
MediaLink, the management consultancy part of United Talent Agency which always has a major presence at Cannes Lions, predicts that about 20 percent more marketers will attend this year's event than last year.
A Cannes Lions spokesman said the festival was expecting 12,000 delegates, but that many more advertising executives and vendors would skip the official gala and socialize at side events.
Mark Wagman, managing director of data and technology at MediaLink, said marketers are eager to see how AI can speed up areas like production and reporting. But concerns remain over issues like privacy, copyright, bias and the energy needed to power AI models. For now, he added, big marketers will only seriously negotiate partnerships with giants like Google, Microsoft and Adobe.
“Good luck to marketers who have to navigate AI vendors through procurement and legal processes right now,” Wagman said.
Jessica Apotheker, chief marketing officer at Boston Consulting Group, said she would like to see more marketers publicly set strong brand guidelines for how they use AI. This year, Apotheker instituted a rule that forbids anthropomorphizing BCG's AI assistants, which must have clearly robotic voices and non-human names and attributes.
Reflecting on the recent Open AI and Scarlett Johansson vocal furor, Apotheker said, “I'm very sensitive about how if we educate a generation to call their assistants women, to use women's voices, and to believe that women exist to serve, that will impact a generation that is always going to be ordering women around.”
Cannes Lions has made its own rules regarding AI: This year for the first time, winners must disclose whether they used AI in their films. A festival spokesman said this is to help juries judge films more fairly, but also to better understand how the industry is using AI.
AI will have a major presence at the Palais, home to Cannes' main program: Accenture Song managing director David Droga will appear on stage alongside OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murathi, while Google Ads vice president Vidya Srinivasan and Google Creative Labs director Alexander Chen will introduce the tech giant's Gemini model.
Agencies position themselves as AI agents
There has been a lot of talk about agencies being threatened by AI, but these companies have been through many waves of disruption before, from the economic downturn to the digital shift. All major agency holding groups will be expected to unveil how they will leverage technology, partner with the most innovative start-ups and ensure access to lucrative computing.
“The challenge for clients is figuring out how to put all the pieces together,” said Greg James, CEO of Havas Media North America. “The beauty of AI is that if you ask the right questions, you get great answers, but a lot of marketers are still figuring out what the right questions are.”
Just in time for Cannes, Publicis Groupe unveiled “BS Bot,” which allows users to upload audio, images, articles, press releases and presentations and sees AI-powered, jargon-free translations.
Anthony Yell, chief creative officer at Publicis-owned ad agency Razorfish, said the company treats AI as a creative collaborator and that the technology is not yet ready to replace humans.
“AI is not going to replace human creativity because creativity is very abstract and AI is very structured,” Yell said. “I came to Cannes to create work that will have an impact on the world and for the discussion that will surround it.”
Influx of influencers
As the AI boom leads to an explosion of content and a myriad of new media channels emerge, from ad-supported streaming to retail media, many marketers are looking for inspiration on how to cut through the noise.
“There's a real concern in the industry that AI will be the great equalizer, that soon everything will sound the same and brands will lose their clout,” BCG's Apotheker said.
Step up, influencers: actors, athletes and creatives including Queen Latifah, Lando Norris, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Deepak Chopra, Jason & Travis Kelcy, Lenny Kravitz and Janelle Monáe will be flocking to La Croisette this year.
“The winners will be those who find the right combination of AI, the right influencers and the right concept,” MediaLink's Wagman said. “It's not enough to turn one thing into 500 things or ask an AI model, 'What should I say?'”
