Three years after launching a dedicated B2B category, Cannes Lions winners from 2024 bore no resemblance to the B2B marketing world that I understand, have sought to champion for the past two decades, or (most importantly) drives the global economy.
I attended my first Cannes Lions Awards ceremony yesterday evening, and in terms of slickness and glamour, it absolutely didn’t disappoint. The production values were high, the rosé-fuelled audience was enthusiastic and the winners were suitably delighted - with choreographed celebrations that would have graced any Premier League game. The presenters were as polished as you’d expect them to be on this, the third night of the mammoth programme.
It was excellent to see a breadth of winners from around the world (in all categories celebrated on the night, not just ‘creative’ B2B) reflecting the increasingly global nature of the advertising industry and the agency world. And the campaign case studies were fantastic vignettes on the creative execution – each a mini masterpiece in storytelling.
But… I cannot help but be dismayed that the one platinum and two gold winners did not reflect the B2B world as I understand it, or that I’ve been seeking to represent and celebrate for the past 20 years. Historically its this B2B sector that was shamefully ignored by Cannes Lions for all but the last three years of their 70 year history. The B2B world I’m referring to here are the heartland sectors of tech, industrial/manufacturing, professional services, pharma, financial services, construction etc. The three winners from B2B this year were Coca-Cola, Heineken and JCDecaux.
Now, I’m not denying that these campaigns were B2B in that their audiences were businesses, but weren’t reflective of ‘big ticket’ B2B and all the complexity that comes with that - including multi-faceted decision making units, long lead times etc. In my opinion, these are the things that differentiate B2B, making it distinct, compelling and fascinating… and above all, difficult!
Moreover, the two gold winners carry the halo of globally recognised consumer brands, inevitably influencing the perception and making them at best B2B2C, whilst the platinum is celebrating the advertising industry selling to itself… which surely cannot be what this category was created to represent!
Finally, in the gold winning campaigns, although (as I mentioned above) the video vignettes certainly represented great storytelling, besides being cool and creative, they didn’t adequately explain how the work impacted the business. I find that really worrying – the onus being creativity overshadowing business impact.
This verdict means the marketing activity conducted by the firms that make up the majority of the global economy has been ignored or overlooked by Cannes Lions. Surely that defeats the intention of the organisers and those who advocated for the creation of a related category.
So were there not enough ‘pure-B2B’ campaigns entered, or were they not deemed ‘creative’ enough? Or did the judges just get seduced by the magic of those consumer brands and the use of influencer tactics by JCDecaux? Or did the jury have insufficient B2B expertise to understand the nuances? These are questions for the judges (which I expect they may answer below!) but this result seems to serve no-one, and I’d suggest that if Cannes Lions truly wants to by relevant and inclusive to B2B marketing, it needs review how they define B2B or how they judge it. You can view the winners and shortlist here.
On this year’s showing, I don’t think Cannes Lions can claim to be adding anything to the world of B2B marketing, or helping marketers operating there to be more successful or more effective. Worse, the message this sends out is that ‘pure’ B2B brands offer nothing unique and distinct, and they are always going to be judged as second place to anything from B2C. That’s doing everyone in B2B a massive disservice, and is just plain wrong.
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