The 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity opened this week and will run for five days celebrating “the value of creativity in branded communications”. Billed as an exchange between brands, creative agencies, professionals and opinion leaders, the festival aims to award the best global creations of advertisements and other products from creative communications industries. Held in the Palais des Festivals at the shore of the Mediterranean Sea of the French Riviera, the 65 years old festival will host around 20,000 officially registered delegates. Another 60,000 to 80,000 attendees will fly in from all over the world to network and spend thousands of euros each in just a few days of drinking rose wine and stumbling from one pool party to the next.
2019年的戛纳国际创意节于本周开幕，将会持续五天，来庆祝“创意在品牌传播中的价值”。作为品牌、创意机构、专业人士和意见领袖之间交流的活动，该节日旨在奖励创意传播行业中全球最佳的广告和其他产品的创意。这个有着65年历史的节日在法国里维埃拉地中海沿岸的影节宫举行，预计将有大约2万名正式登记的代表参加。另外会有6万到8万名与会者从世界各地飞来，在短短几天内，他们就会在从一个泳池派对踉踉跄跄地走向另一个，一边喝着玫瑰露酒，一边宣传、建立人脉，并进行数千欧元的消费。
This year, the festival has seen a 5% rise in award entries from China… and while this increase is promising, it still makes for a small total amount of entries from the second largest economy, as China’s presence in this and many similar festivals has always been scarce.
今年，来自中国的参赛作品增加了5%，尽管这一增长让大家看到了希望，但是这依然不能表示中国参赛作品少的空缺被填补，因为中国的作品在这个节日以及其他的一些节日都出现较少。
For years, previous CEO of Cannes Lions, Terry Savage, was personally making efforts to attract and bring China further into the Festival. This push translated for two previous years into a “China Day” on the official program where the country was praised for being at the “forefront of the mobile revolution”. The festival also celebrated China’s efforts and innovations from QR codes to augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Some of China’s biggest companies such as Alibaba, Tencent and BlueFocus were big sponsors of the festival, buying main billboards and throwing China-themed parties.
几年来，戛纳节的前CEO Terry Savage，亲自努力吸引中国，将中国的作品带到戛纳。基于这种努力，前两年官方节目中确定了“中国日”，中国因处于“移动革命前沿”而受到称赞。这个节日也在庆祝中国的努力和创新，从二维码到增强现实技术到人工智能。阿里巴巴(Alibaba)、腾讯(Tencent)和蓝色光标(BlueFocus)等中国大公司都成为该节日的重要赞助商，他们购买了主要广告牌，举办了中国主题派对。
China Day party hosted by Blue Focus on the Croisette in 2017
So, we would like to know where the effort is this year!? There is no official “China Day”, and only seven China-focused talks are proposed out of hundreds of lectures. The first lectures, including “An Insiders Guide to China : The Land of Digital Opportunity” , “China and the Health Explosion”, and “Connecting Culturally in China and Awakening the Lioness: The Battlefront for Asian Women” were held already on the first two days of the Festival, but we must admit the attendance was really poor.
所以，我们想看看今年的努力在哪里。不幸的是今年不再有“中国日”，在数百个讲座之中，仅仅有七个是关于中国的。第一批讲座包括“一个圈内人的中国指南：数字机遇的土地”，“中国和健康热潮”，“中国和觉醒的狮子的文化关联：亚洲女性的战场”已经于节日的头两天举行，但是我们必须承认出席真的少得可怜。
The Land of Digital Opportunity | 一个圈内人的中国指南：数字机遇的土地
Generally speaking, each year we’ve seen the traditional advertising companies lose their ground to the rise of social media companies at the Festival. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, Twitter and Pinterest, to mention a few, are taking over the best placements along the Croisette, making the beaches their main display of money and market power. With many other Chinese counterparts to these massive social media brands it’s puzzling not to see them alongside these other platforms. One of the only Chinese companies making appearance is a new successful mobile short video sharing app, TikTok. Representing a major lucrative opportunity for the advertisers, with their numbers going up to 37 billon views per month, the company is taking different non splashy authentic approach. In Cannes they are focusing on panels and other intimate meetings with brands and agencies on the main stage and new CLX space.
总的来讲，每年我们都会看到一些传统的广告公司在节日上败给正在崛起的社交媒体公司。比如，谷歌，YouTube，脸书，声破天，推特和品趣志正在占据克鲁瓦塞特(Croisette)沿线的最佳位置，使海滩成为他们展示资金和市场实力的主场。相较于这些不断崛起的大型社交媒体品牌，在戛纳节上看不到其他中国同行与其他的这些平台并驾齐驱真是令人费解。仅有的几家出席了本次节日的中国公司之一，是一款成功的手机短视频分享应用TikTok。对于广告商来说，这是一个巨大的盈利机会，他们的浏览量每月将达到370亿次。反其道而行之，这家公司采用的是低调的可靠方法。在戛纳节上，他们比较关注展板，也注重和在主舞台上的以及在新CLX空间的品牌和代理商举行的亲密会议。
Philip Thomas
Philip Thomas, the new CEO of Cannes Lions mentioned on CNBC that “What we see from Chinese companies and agencies is the desire to learn and also to teach, because they are a head of the best in many areas, and not so much in creativity. They are reaching out, trying to learn and partner with the people in the West to become more creative and do better work. What we find always that the more barriers are in the way, the less creativity comes to the front”.
Philip Thomas，戛纳节的新任CEO，在CNBC上提到“我们从中国的公司和机构身上看到的是对学习和教学的渴望，因为他们在很多领域都是领头羊，除了创意领域。他们主动出击，努力学习并与西方人合作，变得更有创意，表现更出色。我们总是发现前进路上的障碍越多，前方出现的创造力就越少。”
While only two days in, on the surface the importance of China in Cannes this year seems to have declined, but let’s hope by the end of the week, we will witness that they have taught the global creative industry a new thing or two.
仅开展了两天，今年中国在戛纳节上的重要性从表面上看似乎显示出了下降的趋势。但我们希望到本周末，我们将会见证中国带给全球创意产业一些新的东西。
TikTok 抖音
BAM Music Library Brings Edgy, Indie Sounds to Chinese Creatives
