It’s that time of the year again. South France is bustling with advertising professionals from around the world at the Palais des Festivals at Cannes, which hosts the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Some of the faces that have already collected their delegate badges this year include the likes of creative agencies like O&M, McCann Erickson and JWT, among others.

From allied mediums, Madison Media’s Punitha Arumugam, Radio Mirchi’s Kaushik Ghosh, senior member of Times of India and even media professionals like Zee Enterprises’ Joy Chakraborthy, representing the broadcast fraternity, are already present here. The Indian delegation so far is looking good here considering it is the beginning Sunday of the festival, and how many more join in from June 18 would be interesting to see.

At the overall level, however, the year is definitely a good one for the festival with a record 11,000 delegates attending the festival. Over 25,000 entries, which is an increase of 3.2 per cent from last year and is an all time high, from 80 countries will compete this year. Nine jury teams are already looking at some of the categories entries to decide who takes home the ‘Lion’.

What’s new at Cannes Lions IAF 2007?

Some of the new elements added this year include a ‘Content Showcase’. A dedicated exhibition area inside the Palais des Festivals has been created where content creators and providers across all media platforms can display their products and capabilities to the attendees. The objective is to create a showcase that is informative and educational and would be supported by a series of content related workshops.

Another new feature comes in the much spoken about Titanium Lions category. The category, which is a brainchild of Dan Wieden, has seen various changes since the year of its inception in 2003, last year’s jury making it clear that a Titanium was not a integrated campaign but a breakthrough idea that was unprecedented in the history of global advertising.

This year, the category has evolved further and both integrated and breakthrough entries can be submitted. Consequently, the jury can award ‘Titanium Lion’ or ‘Integrated Lion’ to the entry in question.

A new award has been introduced this year, which is the Network of the Year Award. This Award would be decided on the combined points earned by an agency for all their shortlisted entries and awards won. The Cannes Lions IAF has also introduced a Student Delegate Package this year. The first group of students attending the festival this year is from the Alfred University in New York.

What is planned on June 18, 2007 at Cannes Lions?

Amongst some more shortlists, the winners of the Promo Lions and the Direct Lions would be announced on June 18, 2007. There are seven high profiled seminars on that day. These include ‘From media Feudalism to Media Youcracy’ from Goviral, focusing on consumer engagement. Agency.com will attempt to present a different view on web 2.0 and social media in ‘A look behind the scenes of social media – the informer’s story’.

ZenithOptimedia has a presentation on the day on ‘The perfect storm – navigating through the choppy and often uncharted waters of today’s communication channels’. Isobar has a seminar on ‘Creating Time: the new currency of communication’ and Starcom Mediavest Group and Microsoft have collaborated on a multi-pronged study that sought to discover and uncover the new currencies of message receptivity in an era of ad aversion in their session.