Fast Media Magazine At The Cannes Lions

On Monday I will be flying out to Cannes to visit the Cannes Lions advertising festival, during the week I will post a number of impressions and talks with attendees at the week-long event. Why are the Cannes Lions relevant to the stockphoto business? For this one week about 8.000 delegates from the creative industry as well as their clients, the advertisers will get together to not only award creative work but to network and learn at the numerous seminars, workshops and events.

The advertising industry has been subjected to a lot of changes, just like the photography business. In fact, many of the changes are directly related and have resulted in price pressures, misunderstandings and sometimes tensions with this important client segment for photography creators, packagers and sellers. Large agencies have been under pressure from smaller, independent ones. Digital as a category was hardly represented only a few years ago and is now at the forefront of many of the seminars, social media have made revolutionary changes to the way audiences are reached etc.

The festival will see speakers such as Facebooks’ Mark Zuckerberg, The Huffington Posts’ Arianna Huffington, Actor Robert Redford, and many many other senior speakers and thinkers highlighting change and giving direction. And of course, this being Cannes there will be many drinks and parties. It seems a new optimism is on its way and it will be interesting to see how leaders in the creative industry are feeling after a few very difficult years.

Over the coming days I will post a number of impressions of the festival, press releases where they are appropriate and I hope to be able to speak to a number of people and posts their views on both their industry as well as how they see photography being integrated into their work over the years to come.

The articles will be labelled with the Cannes logo or the Cannes live pictogram when it’s a direct report. If you’re interested in particular subjects please let me know and I will try to find out more information or attend a seminar. I hope you will find the reporting about this important event relevant and useful for your business.