Cannes I be bothered?

It's the standard conversation opener in media and adland at the moment. 'You going to Cannes?' My email is full of invites to parties on yachts and exotic sounding villas, to panel sessions on hotel roof terraces. Promises of cool rosé and hot days, celebrity entertainment and the opportunity to see the media world's finest in ill-fitting shorts and hats that seemed a great idea after a few carafes. It all seems such a good idea.

So why aren't I going this year?

I've been lucky enough to go to Cannes many times in my career with Informa, NMA and The Drum. Even though I'm no longer part of the trade media I'm also lucky enough to be in receipt of several offers of accommodation and party invites this year. However, I've turned them all down this year. Why? Because I think that the event has lost sight of what it is supposed to be about, has got too big, too bloated and too controlled by the organisers. Last year as I sat on a wonderful yacht, drinking lovely wine and chatting with a bunch of industry pals I joked that frankly there's was nobody here that I couldn't have caught up with on Charlotte Street or in Soho. Later as I sat on an overpriced and horribly late EasyJet flight I thought back to that and realised that it wasn't actually that funny. I'd travelled 900 miles to have 20 meetings, half of which never happened, hosted three panels which had many no-shows from both speakers and attendees and reported on one session in the Palais. It didn't seem a great deal of return on my employer's investment.

Yesterday I read in the WSJ that WPP and Dentsu Aegis were cutting costs at Cannes and frankly I'm not surprised. It's really very difficult to quantify what ROI you get from Cannes. When I used to work on MWC many years ago we used to tell people that you would be conspicuous by your absence if you didn't make a big splash. At this stage its worth pointing out that Apple never exhibited at MWC and they seem to have done ok..

So when my clients ask if they should be in Cannes I ask them this. What do you think you can do there that you cannot achieve in London? How much more value do you think you could get out of the marketing budget you would spend in Cannes? Bear in mind everything from venues to catering is going to cost you a lot more. And how much do you need to spend to actually get heard? With everybody vying for time with the press, trying to get attendees to events, trying to get announcements out when everyone else is, it's not an easy task. Trust me, the press will still be looking for stories the week Cannes. And the week after that as well.