Day two of Cannes Lions continued the theme of dealing with new channels with a big focus on digital and Internet possiblilites.
One old channel using new technologies is the movies.
The future of Cinema with SAWA was an entertaining session that showed how movie theatres are going to bring together various technologies to enhance the audience’s experience.
These new experiences offer great opportunities for producers, studios and marketers and while naturally the audience were more interested in the marketing angles, it’s clear that everyone involved in movies will be focussed on how they can make these features work for them.
Jimmy Mayman from Go Viral showed some of the successes in viral marketing, including T-Mobile’s Dance and Sing clips.
I have to admit I was left cold by these examples. I’m not contrived flash mobbing events are even truly viral marketing as such.
Monday’s highlight was one of Twitter’s founders, Biz Stone, discussing the future of Twitter to a full auditorium.
The big news from the session was how Biz hopes to have a revenue based on advanced API functions for commercial users.
This is an innovative twist on the “freemium” business model. Where individual users are subsidised by the sale of aggregated data to businesses.
It will be interesting to see how Biz and his team deal with the inevitable privacy concerns that will be raised.
While the session was promoted as a tweet-up, it was limited by the lousy Wi-Fi access in the venue. In fact it’s surprising how little a role Twitter’s playing in the event given how it’s being used at Australian events like the Future Summit and CeBIT.
Wi-Fi problems illustrate just how event organisers are struggling with the demands of a modern market. It’s a theme we’re going to see continue.