Microsoft Advertising at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
This year’s Cannes Lions delivered another fantastic line-up of speakers to inspire, educate and entertain delegates. They included Barack Obama’s Campaign Manager David Plouffe, Kofi Annan, Twitter’s Biz Stone, and Steve Ballmer. As Cyber Lions sponsor, Microsoft Advertising’s events explored pushing creative boundaries in digital media and stimulating debate on the future of advertising.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer challenged the audience to recognise the opportunities offered by digital to re-shape the way brands engage with consumers. Ballmer passionately outlined why he believes Microsoft Advertising will lead the charge in innovating the industry out of economic adversity and help them “buy the internet”.
After the keynote, Fortune Magazine's Pattie Sellers quizzed Ballmer on his proudest business achievements, his view of the recession, and how Bing fits in.
Visionaries, strategists and award-winning creative directors came together for an interactive conversation about the present, the future and the distant future of advertising.
The audience applauded the incredibly successful digital campaign for Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch and gave the loudest cheer to multi award winner Naoki Ito from GT Tokyo who showcased this Love Distance campaign.
This fast-paced, interactive workshop helped creatives jump into one of the industry's fastest-growing channels: games advertising. The session included a competition against the clock to come up with a creative concept for a real client and win a $250k media spend to make the campaign happen.
In Cannes, Steve Ballmer became the first digital leader to be honoured with the Media Person of the Year Award. View Ballmer’s acceptance speech.
Cyber Lions
As founding sponsor of the Cyber Lions awards, Microsoft Advertising, it was fantastic to see our MOUSE Grand Prix winners Boondoggle scoop two Gold Cyber Lions to add to their three Gold Lions won in Direct and Media. Watch Boondoggle accept their awards.
