The Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity is a global event held every year for those working in the advertising and creative sectors.
This year was the year of big consulting with huge presence from Accenture, Deloitte and PWC as the line between agency and consulting blurred. The consulting firms not only set out their stalls and demonstrated their stuff, but they also sent out a clear message that they are focused on disrupting and shaking up the industry.
The growth and presence of consultancy companies at Cannes aka ‘cagencies’ has created some unease within the industry while others look forward to the challenge. Rothco, the Irish agency bought by Accenture Interactive last year, had a great Cannes, finishing with no lesser than seven Cannes Lions, that included a Gold Lion and a Grand Prix and Rothco’s campaign ‘JFK Unsilenced’ leading the way. With ‘JFK Unsilenced,’ Rothco and The Times made use of AI to digitally pull together the voice of John F. Kennedy to recite the speech he was supposed to deliver on the day of his assassination.
To create this speech, Rothco analysed the recordings of JFK’s speech to understand his tone, timbre, and quirks for an authentic delivery of the speech. 831 analogue recordings of JFK speeches and interviews were compiled and given to the system and the benchmark was set for the creation of the masterpiece.
The speech by JFK is quite relevant today as well. In case you have not heard the speech, I encourage you to do so. Here is the link to the video.
Accenture Interactive is growing at an exponential rate…
The Ad Age’s annual agency report 2018 declared Accenture Interactive as the largest digital network in the world for the three consecutive years. Its global revenue is $6.5 billion this year to the end of August. This corporation has a string of strategic acquisitions that include Rothco.
Accenture’s headquarter is in Dublin, Ireland with reported revenue of $34.85 billion and $4.456 billion in profit. Accenture operates in over 120 nations, offering a wide range of services to its clients in various industries, including marketing.
Accenture’s sales angle is to help clients’ companies change their strategy to a customer centric one. This starts with marketing and advertising but also focuses on technology and process.This helps Accenture get a complete view of a company and is a significant advantage to the cagency model.
Cagencies have raised their bar…
Some players within the advertising industry still doubt the ability of Cagencies like Accenture to make an impact on the wider landscape. However, client feedback suggests Accenture is helping challenge the industry, raising standards throughout. Ireland as Accenture’s Global HQ and Centre for Innovation is well placed to take advantage of this new disruptive business model and I look forward to seeing how the cagency model expands globally from Ireland.
