Making it in marcomms: How much do we still need Cannes to celebrate success?

Cannes – and specifically a trip to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, to give it its full title – is the pinnacle event in the global communications industry diary, where the great and good come “to share ideas, do business and celebrate the power of creativity”. Or, to put it another way, Cannes is where 12,000 advertising w***ers congregate to be seen, schmooze, get drunk and bask in the sunshine (and each other’s glory) for 72 hours. There is an awards ceremony too, apparently.

Middle-aged cynicism aside, nowhere on the planet can you feel the excitement and taste the success of the media industry more than in Cannes, in the third week of June. There are people there who have worked their butts off for 350 odd days of the year, often to only produce just one piece of advertising that will inspire millions. They have earned their moment, their glory, their glass of champagne in a La Croissette bar. There are others who did very little for 350 days of the year, but they have the connections, the influence or the ego to get them to Cannes.

And what about the people they left behind in the office? Perhaps part of the award-winning team or agency? Someone has to stay behind to service the other clients (check out Cannt if you can’t go to Cannes). What about the nominated? The losers? Will they ever ‘make it’ to Cannes? Do they even care? Cannes is very ‘of an era’, after all. What does ‘making it’ look like if Cannes didn’t exist in the modern era of communications?

‘Making it’ means to achieve a goal; to be successful. ‘Making it’ in one’s job is to be showered with awards, accolades, promotion and praise. Personally I have a real problem with industry awards. I’ve sat on judging panels (often wondering what I’ve done to ‘make it’ onto this illustrious panel!) and I often don’t believe the winners to be the true winners of our industry. Don’t get me wrong – if you are proud enough of your work to submit an award entry then there is self-belief, inherent success. But some agencies are simply going through the motions because they know it will win them clients. Some are brilliant at writing award entries but less good at producing outstanding work.

For me, the true industry winners, those who have really ‘made it’, are those who have been brave, taken risks, worked hard, stood up for what – and for whom – they believe in, at any cost. In his new book 'People Over Profit', author Dale Partridge argues that today’s socially conscious consumers want organisations and brands to ‘do the right thing’; that brands which demonstrate generosity, courage, transparency, honesty and humanity will influence today’s consumer, make them happy (as the fictional Godfather of advertising Don Draper explains: “advertising is about one thing: happiness”) and win them over as customers.

If you’re heading out to Cannes this year – enjoy your moment. If you’re not, there are plenty of other ways to celebrate your career success this June (can I suggest a vat of beer or wine with some colleagues in the nearby pub, then onto karaoke later?). And I don’t believe we need to wait for Cannes to celebrate our successes, either as individuals, brands, agents, companies – or indeed as an industry. We should celebrate this every working day. But we do, as individuals, brands and businesses, need to clearly define what ‘making it’ looks like for everyone involved.

Cannes, and everything it stands for success-wise, isn’t for everyone. It’s not for me anymore. It isn’t enough anymore. I’ve got a much more challenging set of career and life KPIs now. But I desperately still want to hanging off a yacht around the Med with Messrs Le Bon, Taylors (x3) and Rhodes. A girl’s gotta dream, right?

*Duranies (n): A global tribe of music fans, many of whom are now middle-aged women, united and fuelled by the music of Duran Duran.

Amanda Davie is a digital business consultant and executive coach. She is founder of Reform and Mentoring Digital Minds.