Press: MMA UK - Looking Back at Cannes 2016

Cannes Lions is unique in the advertising calendar. No other trade event comes close for the creativity, number or sheer quality of those in attendance.

While the creativity and artistic merit of the advertising industry is acclaimed and discussed in the Palais, the outskirts of the festival are where it becomes interesting for the technology providers. This year questions around measurement, verification and optimisation came to the fore, as brands and agencies attempt to determine the value of their advertising.

Measurement in online advertising has almost been a victim of its own success, unlike any medium, online can reveal precisely how many people have viewed an advert, for what length of time, and what action was taken following that exposure. The extent of measurement has led to most digital advertising being used in a performance capacity – how many views, clicks or engagements did the ad generate – and these metrics used as the principle KPIs for campaigns. But just because we can measure these metrics does not mean we necessarily should; they are not always the best way to judge a campaign’s success.

For some brands the only metric which should be used to determine effectiveness is the impact the campaign has on sales over time. For others it should be the effect the campaign has upon brand metrics, such as brand recall and affinity. Many of the conversations at Cannes revolved around how the industry can move measurement away from metrics like views, towards KPIs which really matter to brands, allowing them to easily judge the return on investment delivered by digital.

Read the full article on the MMA Blog here.