Earlier in the week, Hill & Knowlton CEO and Cannes Lions 2010 PR jury president Paul Taaffe called on the festival organisers to change its name to recognise the wide variety of marketing disciplines represented.
So we’ve been asking all our interviewees this week that exact same question. For this special edition of Cannes Eye TV, [...]
Category Archive for ‘PR Industry’ 
Should Cannes Lions festival change its name?
Bring on 2010 PR Lions
As we PR consultancy folk continue to fret over the minimal number of PR agency-originted campaigns that either made the short-list or won a PR Lion, let’s not forget that it was our first year in the fray. And that practised ad agencies have had 55 years to perfect an approach to winning Lions. Having [...]
A call for more PR Lions submissions in 2010
The process of judging the first-ever PR Lions was not something any jury member took lightly this year, and I can vouch for the fact that we laboured over our shortlisting considerably, dropping many off the list, reinstating some at the last minute, and reviewing even new candidates that didn’t make the first cut…but always [...]
Day 1 @ the Festival
On a day when the last thing anyone wanted to do was sit in an auditorium – with sunny skies and beach beckoning – the opening sessions largely reflected the day and condition of most delegates – many who were either jet lagged or in Saturday night recovery mode. And yet, while not all sessions [...]
Ah, all done...now to shortlist!
Another gruelling day judging automotive & transport, retail & e-commerce including restaurants, public affairs, and half of the entries in best PR-led integrated campaigns (as there were so many submissions). Yesterday, my group had consumer goods including FMCG & household products, and half of the entries in best use of the Internet, digital media & [...]
Can brands (re)gain the high ground?
Much like Dell on the day it launched its first corporate blog to a cacophony of the ‘righeous’, Skittles faced off against the wrath of the (m)asses and (barely) endured. Trent Reznor, on the other hand, is calling it quits. And can you blame him?
I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of [...]
Perspectives on Canadian Twitter use... or are they?
So according to a recent Ipsos Reid study, “ONLY” about one out of every 100 Canadians is using Twitter (which apparently translates to “ONLY” 1.45 per cent of the Internet population in Canada). Is it ONLY me, or am I reading too heavily into the implied message here?
Granted, my Cannes colleague Niall recently blogged about several other studies [...]
Going beyond "awareness"
The always thought-provoking Karen McGrane argued recently why “Web ads suck”, She cites a litany of usual suspects: lack of investment compared to other channels, questionable measurement, size and technical constraints and, most interestingly from my perspective, the fact that advertising should be “about more than awareness”. As a career PR professional, this last point caught my attention – [...]
Advertising and PR - "Play the music, not the instrument"
In this blog’s inaugural post, my colleague Tony asks the question ”Does the involvement of PR signal a fundamental shift away from ad agencies?” It’s a question that has been debated ad nauseum throughout the blogosphere for years with no clear resolution and with responses, for the most part, clouded by obvious self-interest. But it’s an important question – albeit [...]
Can we?
With Cannes Lions 2009 only weeks away and the PR industry attending for the first time in 55 years, we thought it was a good time to launch an event blog to give PR a voice. Over the next few weeks and during Cannes itself we will be blogging from a PR perspective and showcasing [...]