This year, the world’s largest festival of creativity had a different vibe than years before. Some critics are even saying it might need a structural rethink, but at its core, it’s still a thriving and rich environment for creative industry leaders to gather.
The crowd was incredible—more people attended than ever before, and you were sure to bump into stakeholders from the most influential organizations and companies in the industry.
We gathered some key learnings for brands and exhibitors to get the most out of their experience. Our team had two tips for brands to get the most out of their meetings on-site:
“What makes it worthwhile is to encourage networking,” Gary Singh, Senior Sales Manager, Media UK & Ireland for Taboola said. “Organizing happy hours in advance to increase foot traffic to our cabana was a huge win for us.”
“When you do schedule meetings, make the most of them—and I don’t mean you should expect to close deals,” Aaron Benor, Director of Media Sales for Taboola said. “The real value is the good, high-level discussions you’ll have at Cannes that will turn into proper business meetings back home.”
The atmosphere shifted a bit from the lavish partying (although there was plenty of that) to a focus on business and networking, and we were able to discover some of the best ways to be successful at the festival.
How to be Successful at Cannes
After Cannes, our team came home, regrouped (i.e. slept), and pulled out some of the best tips for brands and exhibitors to get the most out of the festival:
- Do your research on events ahead of time. Register for the events you think you want to go to, and pay attention to other attendees—the whole point is to network!
- Offer food at a sit-down restaurant. While most cabanas serve light food, there’s an opportunity for brands to offer a real meal, and get valuable one-on-one facetime with people they’d like to network with.
- Don’t be partnership shy. Brands always want to spend their budgets efficiently one-site, and reach the widest number of valuable partners, partnerships to host happy hours, parties, and to distribute content are key.
- Stay cool. It’s hot on the beach—next time you’re there, catch the frozé.
While we took all of these opportunities into consideration, our partnership with Cheddar was particularly successful. Broadcasting on site brought an exciting energy to our cabana and we had the opportunity to meet industry leaders outside of our traditional circle.
Here’s our CEO Adam Singolda speaking with Cheddar on how content distribution technology is changing the way the masses consume information.
With these strategic moves, we were able to make a festival that has grown massively in the wake of its success (some think too massively), much more valuable.
Taboola is the world’s leading content discovery platform, serving 360B recommendations to over 1B unique visitors each month on the web’s most innovative publisher sites. To learn more about how Taboola can help you, contact us or start your campaign today.
