The best places to see and be seen in the advertising business are the spots on or near the beaches of the Croisette at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. These are the stages where the industry’s biggest players make a splash, create buzz, outshine their competitors and ultimately close a few business deals in the process.
But is it really worth the seven mom phone number data figures many of these companies are spending on these festival spaces for a few days each June?
Well, it all depends on how you calculate it and how much you spend. Cannes activations can cost anywhere from $108,000 for a brunch to $4 million for a spectacular concert, according to nine executives interviewed for this article and a Cannes Lions sales team.
Influencer marketing firm Influential has seen “about a 20x return on investment” — much of that in the form of new business — since its first beach activation at last year’s festival, CEO Ryan Detert told Ad Age.
Those results led Influential to double its beach presence in Cannes this year, swapping the beach space previously occupied by X (formerly Twitter) for Stagwell’s former Sport Beach, Influential announced today.
In addition to new business, which is sometimes not immediate but can lead to an invitation to join an agency review many months later, executives said the glitzy beaches and yacht parties can also pay off in public relations. “There were 632 journalists in Cannes and 15,400 articles and press releases during the festival week alone,” last year, according to the Cannes sales platform.
Eye-catching facilities also give an impression of prosperity and success to potential clients and talent. And sending employees to Cannes can pay dividends in terms of retention and goodwill.