Cannes 2014: Facebook to order book? The real value of a delegate pass at Cannes Lions
I love Cannes. Great work, great wine, great fun. This year is no different, just on an even bigger scale than last year. Its global reach now means Cannes is the true crossroads where the advertising world meets for once a year and socialises. Maybe sometimes there is a touch of Robert Johnson at those crossroads?
Matthew Charlton has been catching up in Cannes
What I have enjoyed most is it has become the physical embodiment of my friends on Facebook. Everywhere you go you just meet more and more people who you usually only spy on via updates on Facebook. There is no other time in my year this could even possibly happen and in the words of Mastercard, it's priceless.
This Cannes I worked out I met and meaningfully caught up with, wait for it, upwards of a 120 people I've know throughout my career in two days. People from Europe, the US, Asia and Latin America. All of them now doing interesting and influential things. Nearly all of them friends on Facebook.
How kind of Cannes to arrange for a a quarter of my Facebook friends to come together on one place, where it is sunny and has lots of wine.
The value of these people and these conversations is huge. I've found out who is pitching, whose is selling, who might get the chop soon, which campaigns are breaking soon and a lot lot more. There is a good chance I closed the deal on a new business opportunity as well. In two days.
So all hail Cannes: it's unique and whatever the price it is worth its weight in gold. And I don't just meet Lions.