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HUMBLE PIE & HAIR SHIRTS ONLINE
Cannes' Interactive Advertising Forum a Year Later
June 19, 2001
By Stefano Hatfield
CANNES (AdAgeGlobal.com) -- The organizers of the Cannes/Jupiter Global Online Advertising forum must have enjoyed the white-knuckle ride of their lives in the midst of the recent dot-bomb.
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| A year after predictions of world domination, humility and a small crowd reigned.
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Last year some of the Masters of the Universe.com were heard hinting grandiosely that their inaugural event might one day become larger than the mother-ship advertising festival. This year, many discovered that the vengeful Universe can be a hostile place.
Still, there was a crowd -- just. Some said 300, others 250, but half of those seemed to be well-meaning and bright-as-a-button Jupiter MMXI analysts, or journalists from assorted international dot-com magazines enjoying their last major boondoggle before being pink-slipped.
If only anyone had really been listening and taking notes last year, what fun could be had throwing back some of the predictions. But last year everyone was too busy looking for the next big deal, and, anyway, we all know conferences don't really work like that.
More wake than festival
This year, there was hardly anyone to have coffee with during the coffee break, let alone conclude a huge deal. Where once at a conference like this the likes of DoubleClick, 24/7 and Yahoo! would have been coming at delegates with the full force of their belief in their own iconoclastic invincibility, this year the few, desultory stands completed the feeling
| this was more wake than festival.
So, it was a chastened gathering, worthy even -- particularly as those bright-as-a-button analysts are not the world's most feisty moderators. It was not really their fault -- sessions entitled "The triumph of the traditional: flourishing in the dot-com decline" set the tone -- downbeat. It made one grateful for Euro RSCG Worldwide CEO Bob Schmetterer and his by-now familiar evangelical pleading on behalf of the future of interactivity. At least Bob still says the same thing -- which means a) he believes in what he says with a commitment that allows him to speak with such passion, or b) he is dumb. And you don't get a year-round sun tan like his by being dumb.
Last year we were all blinded by the enthusiasm, the revolution, the jargon and the dollar signs. This year we just sat there thinking, "Why can't they just speak plain bloody English?" Try this for a rocking session: "The traditional agency reborn: optimizing interactive expertise in a consolidated competitive environment." That's a sure-fire way to keep delegates out of the glorious sun and away from the Domaine D'Ott.
American agency arrogance
Actually, that session redeemed the day -- albeit unintentionally. For it was there that the façade of hubris dropped in a performance of remarkable good old-fashioned American agency arrogance from Michael Windsor, president of OgilvyInteractive. Windsor simultaneously managed to wind up the rest of his panel, astonish various Europeans and Japanese in the audience (well, the Japanese would have been astonished if there had been any present) by stating repeatedly that there wasn't money to be made in wireless Internet yet, and then go on to belittle the smaller online agencies, whose representatives were asking questions from the floor.
The clear implication was "when WE get involved -- big agencies like Ogilvy with BIG clients like IBM -- then there's a wireless business. Then, you guys might not be around any more."
"No," said a resilient Brit voice, "that's because [your boss] Sir Martin Sorrell, keeps trying to buy us!"
It was reassuring to see that beneath all the hubris, the chest-beating, the hair-shirt-wearing and the mea culpa that we imagined was the order of the day, the new paradigm in the online world is really: "My willy is bigger than your willy."
Stefano Hatfield is managing director and editorial director of Ad Age Global.
© 2001, Crain Communications Inc.
Editor@AdAge.com
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