Cannes from the cheap seats: read the coverage, not the panels

If you're heading to Cannes Lions next week, you'll already know which conversations are mattering and which ones aren't by the time you're in the room, because you'll be able to see who's in it.

If you're not - which is most of the industry, despite the LinkedIn feed - there's a more useful place to spend next week than watching the panel videos go up two days late.

The trade press coverage of Cannes is where the signal lives. Specifically, three patterns to watch.

Which themes the publications are returning to all week, not just on day one. Day-one Cannes coverage is mostly hot takes from morning panels. By day three, the same publication is testing which themes have legs - what they keep coming back to in features, in editor's-letter pieces, in roundtables. The themes that survive past day three are the ones the publication thinks will matter for the next year.

Which awards conversations are being written about, separately from which awards are being given. Sometimes a category produces more discourse than wins. The arguments about what should have won and what the jury reset means are usually richer than the shortlist itself. Those conversations tell you where the industry's definition of good work is moving.

Which agencies are absent from the coverage despite being present at the festival. The published reports name a recurring set of agency leaders and creative directors. If a major holdco's name keeps not appearing in the week's biggest pieces, that's a signal - usually that the holdco's PR team isn't pitching well, occasionally that the work just isn't there to talk about. Either way it's information.

A pattern from previous years: the work that wins big at Cannes does not always become the work most talked about in the months after Cannes. The conversations that the trade press carries through July and into the autumn are the ones that started in the coverage during the week, not in the ceremonies. Pay attention to the coverage if you're trying to read where attention is moving.

For agencies not attending: this is a cheaper way to get most of what attending teaches. Read Campaign, Shots, Creative Boom, The Drum and Adweek daily across next week. Not the headlines - the pieces. Note what's recurring. Note who's being quoted in features more than once.

That's most of the value of being there, available for the price of an hour a day and a newsletter subscription.

The metal, the parties and the rosé pricing are what you miss. The conversation, mostly, you don't.

If you are in Cannes - come and say hello, or drop me a line for a coffee.