We're Winning Awards But Losing Attention: The Real Conversation Cannes Lions Should Be Having

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

This weekend I sat on the couch with my kids, one Gen Z, the other Gen Alpha, two key demographics that most brands are desperately trying to reach. 

We streamed a show together. The content kept us engaged until the ad break arrived. I felt...nothing. No connection to the brand, the content, or the product but I thought, "ok I’m not the target audience." So I turned to my kids and asked which ads appealed to them: 

My Gen Alpha: “I don’t know, I don’t pay attention. That’s when I check my phone.” 

My Gen Z: “Some of the music is fun, I guess.”

Neither could recall a product but both complained about ads disrupting their content. 

I grew up with ads that made us feel something. The kind you found yourself singing weeks later…“I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us kid.” 

The kind that, just for a moment, made you feel like someone understood you.  Like the Folgers ad during the holidays, when a mom finds her son home from the military, brewing her a cup of coffee. You felt that ad. It welcomed you home for the holidays. 

“The best part of waking up…” was emotion and connection and yes it was “Folgers in your cup.”

I’ve spent decades creating content for global audiences, content that required intense planning, collaboration, and careful thought. When ad placement disrupted the rhythm of what we created, we changed it. When an ad didn’t align emotionally, it was moved. 

Ad placement was never an afterthought. It was a strategy. It was a craft. It was about respect. 

Respect for the audience

Respect for the content

Respect for the power of emotion and what it can achieve

Today, in the middle of streaming a movie, the content cuts away at an awkward spot to bright, disconnected ads that change the vibe of the entire room and take us completely out of the moment. 

Ad Tech is a powerful tool. It’s made advertising cheaper, easier and more scalable than ever. Unfortunately, it’s also made it emptier. 

Today, AI can whip up an ad in minutes. With a few clicks, it’s live, bidding its way onto screens everywhere. No humans needed.

In the process of progress, we’ve softened the impact. 

We’ve diluted the very thing that made advertising powerful: emotional connection. 

This week, many will arrive in Cannes, enjoying the beaches, the bands, the panels, the Lions, to celebrate the best of the industry. Before the champagne and rose are raised to toast the winners, I’d ask something quieter of us: 

Sit with your own work. Watch your own content.

Ask yourself not whether they performed on some dashboard…

but whether they mattered.

Would your kids remember them? Would you? 

If you are going to stand on a stage and claim to represent the power of storytelling, let’s make sure we are still telling stories that move people. 

I believe Ad tech made advertising more efficient and easier to forget. 

The brands that will win the Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers are those who know how to make advertising human again. 

What’s the last ad that genuinely moved you?