Cannes Lions: Blippar's favourite (unofficial) bits of the festival

Cannes Lions, ‘International Festival of Creativity’, is the Oscars of the advertising industry.

Every summer, over one hot week in the sunny south of France, it brings together the biggest and best brands and creative agencies in the world, all of whom descend upon the city to showcase their finest work.

Though several members of the Blippar team have attended Cannes in the past, this year was our first as an official company with serious presence, both physically and digitally: not only did we host a number of events, but our activity also made a huge splash on social media, particularly Twitter, and we were announced as one of the most talked-about brands at the event.

Cannes Lions at sundown

People particularly loved our Be The Gossip campaign, for which we hijacked the official Cannes Lions logo with an awesome blipp that was regularly refreshed to reveal all the locations of all the parties taking place that night.

Cannes, of course, can usually be split into two halves: the official events, and the unofficial ones.

The official ones, most of which happen in the Palais, are tremendous, and this year was an extremely eventful one, with vast numbers of celebrities attending both in the crowds and on the stages; speakers included Marilyn Manson, Monika Lewinski, Heston Blumenthal and the Kardashians.

A huge billboard advertising our Be The Gossip campaign

Blippar's Cannes Lion blipp

The awards themselves are handed out during thrilling ceremonies, where outstanding creative and innovative campaigns are showcased and applauded and rewarded.

But it was, perhaps, the unofficial bits of Cannes that Team Blippar enjoyed the most, and here are some of them…

1 Microsoft Beach Club

Microsoft has been one of the chief sponsors of Cannes Lions for many years now, and their beautiful Beach Club is in a great spot right next to the official Lions beach.

This year Blippar stepped in to make the whole Club interactive – from personal badges given out to guests, to conference room walls, a mural with a light animation, and a full Blippar wall featuring our best-in-class example campaigns.

Blippar's interactive wall in the Microsoft Beach Club

One of the other main attractions at the Club was the presence of a well-guarded HoloLens, on which only a few were fortunate enough to have an exclusive go.

Every day there was a terrific line-up of sessions and talks about innovation, interactivity and pushing the boundaries of creativity within the augmented reality and virtual reality industry.

We can’t wait to see how things develop over the next 12 months.

2. MediaLink Suite

The MediaLink Suite was definitely the best place to do some serious networking, with all the brightest and best people in advertising milling about and attending the excellent DailyDose sessions.

One of our favourite sessions was about the impact social media and technology is having on real life, particularly in terms of shared and captured content.

Cannes Lions is the place to be for advertising networking

Another great one was about the age of un-marketing, whereby brands proactively leverage consumer data, and how offering personalised experiences often trumps having one overarching brand message.

The buzzword at most of these sessions seemed to be ’real-time’, and its importance if you are to deliver the right content to the right people at the right moment.

3. The Girls’ Lounge

For all the women at Cannes this was the place to be - or at least stop by for a quick mani-break. They had some of the most inspiring panels on female empowerment, with fantastic speakers including Lina Yaccarina from NBC Universal and Fama Francisco from P&G.

Their key message to their female audience was a noble one: ‘Lift as you climb.'