Was this year’s Cannes Lions a virtual success? Depends who you ask

Today, Cannes Lions is no longer the exclusive the domain of very well-heeled and well-connected VIPs. The five-day festival celebrates creative work in the ad industry and related fields. This year, it was virtual and available to the whole world (for a price), through daily YouTube broadcasts across the globe. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is hosted by Lions. The decades-old organization benchmarks creativity and was acquired by the data and information company, Ascential, in 2004. "Cannes off the Croisette," AdAge called it, seemed to rankle some and work well for others. Ad industry leaders told Adweek that the IRL Cannes experience is irreplaceable. However, they appreciated the accessibility of the virtual festival, its "greater transparency" and deep insights behind the award-winning work. Ad Age reported other executives said that the endless content made the experience less than compelling. There were also grumblings about technical glitches in both the live and pre-recorded segments. The latter of which is pretty hard to excuse. In terms of how the virtual format played out... The winners of each awards category (all 28 of them) were announced during 90-minute "Daily Award Shows." Afterwards, the broadcasts were complemented by "Debrief" sessions that featured...