Does the Cannes Lion Even Matter? Sales Boost or Ego Boost? EP30

Episode 30 Transcript

Welcome back to the Marketing Combat Podcast. My name is Chris Kubbernus, CEO of Kubbco, a creative agency based in Copenhagen, Denmark. And with me is always my amazing, incredible, handsome, glassid. He's got glasses. Glassid. Glassididit. Jason Donnelly. What's up, man? How's it going? You know, these glasses are just blue light blockers. I got Lasix, so I can see pretty good. You're one of those guys, hey? Yeah, these aren't even real.

So fun times. This is the Marketing Combat Podcast. I am Jason Donnelly, the handsome co -host of Chris Kubbernus. every episode that we do this, we know what the topic's gonna be, but we don't know what the way we're gonna argue is gonna be. So you might be arguing a point that you don't actually believe in, like yesterday's. I may have or may have not believed in what I was arguing. But today, to bring it up to the focus today, can lions? The award entries are down.

38 % this year. So our question is, do awards for advertising even matter anymore? Is it doing anything or is it just a bunch of advertisers tooting their own horn? Personally, I think no, I don't think that the actual awards matter because of one of the things that we most recently talked about, the two minute KFC ad, I think it's gonna win a ton of awards. And at the end of the day, which is against my entire fight on the podcast,

is I don't think it's a good ad. I don't think that it does anything for KFC other than get people talking about it, which is eyes on it. I think that's the most important thing. It's not about the awards. It's not about the trophies. It's not about the first place in your Spell and Be. It's about getting eyes on it. So if it's getting out there and showing a ton of people your product,

what you believe in, showing that you're authentic brand, showing that you're real, showing that you have a product that people will love and fall in love with and use. I think that's the most important. I don't think it's putting a shiny trophy up. I think it's really just more focused on getting it in front of people and getting the sales.

pushing people down the funnel. I know how horrible this is as if you're not in advertising, if you're not in marketing and you're hearing this and you're like, they just want to shove stuff. Yeah, but I think that's the most important thing. I don't think it's the lions. I think it's the get -it -in -front -of people. Even if, I mean, if you look back at some of the ads out there, like from Scrub Daddy to some of the silly things that have been out there, they're silly, they're ridiculous, but are they going to win an award or anything? Probably not, but they've been seen by millions.

and they've probably sold a lot of those Scrub Daddies. Go look at the Scrub Daddy thing. I'll put a picture of it right here. But yeah, at the end of the day, I think it's eyes that are more important than lions. So I'd love to know why these awards are so important. Chris, are they actually moving the needle at all? So my take on it is they don't move the needle in terms of sales, probably. They don't move the needle in terms of effectiveness in advertising. The thing that matters most in these is people. And when we look at

The cultural ramifications or the ramifications of when a creative person or an agency wins an award, the ramifications are high. It actually is a pat on the back in a thankless job in some ways. mean, a lot of creatives work very hard. It has traditionally been an industry with over hours, not a lot of great pay. I mean, that's why a lot of agency creatives go brand side because they're like overworked and underpaid and they're like, crap, I want to really jump out of this and...

build something for the future. So advertising in general has been like an industry that has always had lower pay, lower thankfulness. mean, yes, you get to work on cool products, projects, you get to do things that you get to go to Cannes maybe and hold up an award. And I think that's where it matters the most. So I don't think it has any effectiveness in terms of

how well a brand is doing, but it is basically a nod to creativity and creativity for creativity's sake. They might want to mask it in like, this is the best advertising. And we might sit there and we might pat ourselves on the back and say, man, we're so good at ads. But most ad agencies, most creatives are not actually looking at the effectiveness. Most brands are not actually looking at the effectiveness. If they were, I think their investments would be done differently.

So in terms of like, it a good thing for that brand? Is it good thing for society? No, I don't think so. Is it good for the creatives? Absolutely. They love it. The problem I think is that we're going to face in the advertising industry and it's why that can is like lower now, like 38 % from the high. So, you know, those stats are basically the high number was 2016. There was a ton of entries, but then, you know, the last few years it's lower and lower and lower and we're down.

38 % from that high of 2016, is I think that we're seeing with the economy changing is that there's just less money out there for advertising and that means there's less money for award entries. So I think it's a macro economic issue. I don't think it's necessarily like people think they're less relevant or they're changing strategies. mean, publicists back in 2018, dropped actually applying for any awards that entire year because they wanted to invest in an AI platform.

called Marcel. And I think you might see this actually continue. This might be a trend that more and more agencies are saying, we need to put our money somewhere else. That's what I think could happen. And that might be just a short term sort of thing while they build some tools, they build some extra things to stay competitive, and then they'll come back and invest in creativity. It's sort of like a ebb and flow. So this is why I think advertising...

festivals or advertising awards matter specifically can so I think that they're great Jason on the other end said and I'll quote no, there's no quote here I'll just I like to add a little title to your section called the lions don't roar anymore by Jason Donnelly the lions don't roar anymore by Jason Donnelly He thinks that the Cannes lions don't matter anymore I think that they still do to the people that apply for them and I'm sticking by that Thank you so much for listening to the marketing combat podcast. Please subscribe. Please like please comment Please do all the things that you can do and we'll catch you in the next one

See you tomorrow.