Marketing Procurement

Marketing Procurement: To Be or not To Be at Cannes Lions?

Building long term relationships

“The biggest value of Cannes is the conversations you have when you stop rushing, the relationships that continue to grow and what we build together long after everyone has gone home.”

Ekaterina Kharitonova – Global Media Procurement Lead, Bayer 

Every June, thousands of marketers, agencies and technology partners descend on Cannes. Marketing Procurement usually watches from afar.

With all the Côte d’Azur glamour, film festival legacy and advertising industry hype, Cannes Lions conjures up a myriad of emotions. Among the inspiration and intrigue — perhaps imposter syndrome too. Do I really belong there? Wasn’t the event just for CMOs, Producers and Creative Directors? Yet nowadays it is flooded by tech partners, publishers and consultancies too… so who is the festival really for these days?

Is the festival actually a place for Marketing Procurement professionals or not?

Owning a Seat at the Table

With 15,000 official registered delegates and actual attendance estimated at 20–30,000, the scale is undeniable. If our marketing stakeholders, agencies and consultant partners are all there — should we should join them?

As a Cannes Lions delegate this year, Steve Lightfoot – Marketing Procurement Agencies, L’Oreal Luxe shared his perspective “Marketing sourcing talks a lot about driving value and building true win-win partnerships… I argue there’s nowhere better than Cannes to see the fruits of excellent agency and client work, to get inspired by different companies from other sectors doing fabulous things with media, tech & platforms, and to meet new talents, start-ups and solution providers”

Lightfoot continues “All of this knowledge helps build credibility with marketing leadership and agency stakeholders.”

However, Traci Dunne – Founder of Transform-Renew-Sustain, has heard hesitation from the community firsthand: “Marketing Procurement people still feel Cannes Lions isn’t for them — that it’s a creative playground rather than a place where they belong.”

While perhaps Cannes is not suitable for all Marketing Procurement professionals depending on their specific role, their organization, if their stakeholders are also attending and what value they can get from participating. My goal is to try to dispel the mystery to make Cannes accessible and encourage you to make an honest assessment about whether or not to attend.

“For me to see so many agency friends, trade bodies, other consultants, media platforms and industry communities whilst trying to sit and learn for a few hours is well worth the investment” said Tina Fegent FCIPS, Marketing Procurement Consultant, Tina Fegent Limited.

Fegent also helped to organize an Agency lunch for the handful of Marketing Procurement professionals attending Cannes this year – hopefully next time there will be more of us at the table. “It would be good to see more Marketing Procurement colleagues from big Brands making their presences known at Cannes.”

Ekaterina Kharitonova, Global Media Procurement Lead, Bayer added her own experience “Procurement belongs at Cannes – not because it’s where the advertising world gathers, but because it’s where relationships grow stronger… it creates the space for strengthening existing partnerships, connecting with industry peers and meeting future partners”

“The biggest value of Cannes is the conversations you have when you stop rushing, the relationships that continue to grow and what we build together long after everyone has gone home.”Kharitonova says.

So if Procurement always talks about “owning a seat at the table“, then Cannes Lions is arguably the ultimate dinner party without needing a formal invitation. If all our key contacts from the entire partner ecosystem are in town, isn’t that simply a great opportunity to be productive together?

A Personal Journey: From Imposter to Insider

The first time I attended Cannes, I was overwhelmed by the scale and frankly the ostentatiousness of the whole thing — Imposter syndrome was real.

On my very first trip I literally flew in for one meeting with an agency, together with our CMO, to finalise a very challenging and strategic agency negotiation. Finally, in Cannes, we did it — with a glass of rosé in hand and a view of the sea before us.

That same afternoon, walking along the Croisette before my flight, I bumped into a tech supplier partner with whom I had also been trying to close a deal for many weeks. Working across different time zones, the process had become protracted. In that chance encounter, we sat down, worked through the outstanding topics, and landed an agreement in principle within 20 minutes.

The lightbulb went on. I realised the incredible value of in-person connection at this event — for relationship building, productivity and sheer efficiency.

My second Cannes experience was entirely the other extreme: an entire week as part of our eBay company delegation. I shared an apartment with key business partners and kept a completely full daily schedule — meetings with Growth and Advertising teams by day, dinners, parties and concerts in the evenings.

Our week involved beaches, yachts, villas, rosé, sun and swag. *Fun fact: we negotiated our way into a private concert where Ed Sheeran ended up pouring us glasses of wine.*

It was intense, exciting and Procurement — alongside our closest business partners — was right in the middle of the action.

The Procurement Lens – Exhibitor & Partner Spend: What Does It Actually Cost?

The investment required to show up at Cannes as an exhibitor or sponsor is considerable, and as Procurement professionals we should understand what our partners are spending — because ultimately, it feeds into the cost of us doing business with them.

• A basic beach cabana or branded space on the Croisette is estimated from €90,000 to over €500,000 for the week, depending on size and location.
• Official Lions sponsorship packages start in the hundreds of thousands of euros and can reach into the millions for headline partnerships.
• Yacht and villa hospitality, a staple of agency and tech company entertaining can even top €500,000+ for the week once staffing, catering, branding and events are factored in.
• Delegate passes alone cost several thousand euros per person before travel and accommodation.

For an agency or technology partner fielding a team of 20–50 people across a week, total investment can easily reach €1–3 million or more. These are not trivial sums — during my meetings at the festival I asked several agencies if they believe that exhibiting at Cannes is ROI positive for them. The answer was overwhelmingly and consistently “YES”.

So if the investment for our agencies and partners is high, and if ultimately those costs will be funded through the scopes of work that we negotiate everyday, then it is important to get the most value out of Cannes for us as Clients too.

Zoë Senior – Chief Client Officer, CRC – “To succeed in Marketing Procurement you need to have in-depth knowledge of agencies, media, production and how technology now orchestrates and optimises marketing spend. The role of Cannes has expanded far beyond the Festival of Creativity and the Lions, with the Beaches acting as a tech trade show”

“I would suggest that it’s imperative that Marketing Procurement, as decision makers, are present.” says Senior

ROI for Procurement: Running the Numbers

Cannes Lions festival is absolutely over-the-top, but your trip there doesn’t need to be. In my experience, attending the festival need not be cost prohibitive for Procurement if we plan smartly. Naturally, travel is expensive and accommodation prices are inflated to eye-watering levels owing to simple supply and demand economics.

But plan in advance and organise a smart schedule, and you can make it work. Overall costs are broadly in line with attending any other large industry conference but the outcomes can bring even more returns.

Consider:

• Time — How long would it take to schedule all those Exec-level in-person Agency / Partner / Client meetings in the traditional way?
• Cost — How much would it cost to travel individually to hold each of these meetings?
• ROI — My rough calculation for my latest Cannes trip put the cost at under €150 per formal meeting when amortised (€1200 ÷ 8 formal meetings). That excludes attending additional talks / presentations and all the spontaneous informal meetings or dinners that deliver significant additional learning and collaboration value. But this ROI only holds up of course, if you are filling your agenda with high-value conversations.

So, if you apply two of our core metrics — efficiency and effectiveness — the business case for attending Cannes can be extremely ROI positive.

Sustainability and Waste: The Elephant on the Beach

Any honest assessment of Cannes Lions must also confront its sustainability footprint — an area where Procurement has both oversight responsibility and an opportunity to lead.

The event generates significant environmental impact across several dimensions and steps are being taken to address them including: Carbon emissions: Single-use materials: Waste: Energy consumption – without even mentioning helicopters or super yachts…

Procurement is often tasked with enforcing ESG commitments through the supply chain. Cannes is a high-visibility, high-spend moment — and therefore a high-leverage point for driving good behaviour from our own businesses and our partners.

Questions we should be asking:

• What is your sustainability policy for events and hospitality?
• How are you managing waste from branded activations and merchandise?
• Are you offsetting travel emissions for your delegation?
• Is swag and promotional material produced responsibly — and is it actually useful to recipients? I was very pleasantly surprised to receive an email following the event saying that an Agency whom I met had planted a tree on my behalf rather than giving out physical swag or wrist bands in Cannes.

In recent years, the Lions organisation has made efforts to address this — introducing sustainability tracks, encouraging more responsible activations and publishing guidance for exhibitors. Traci Dunne – added some context “Cannes Lions has made significant progress — both in how it runs the event and in how it recognises more inclusive, sustainable work”

Dunne continued “But of course, the elephant in the room is travel. Most of the industry still flies. I’ve taken the train for several years now … If more of us made that switch, the impact would be significant”

A Balanced and Pragmatic Approach to evaluating if you should attend Cannes

Overall, I have concluded that there is a balanced approach to Cannes – a sweet spot. Go for just as long as you need to be productive, efficient and effective — then get out before you burn out.

For Marketing Procurement professionals, the festival represents something genuinely valuable: a concentrated, human moment in an increasingly AI-lead, digital and transactional world.

One of Cannes’ greatest strengths is reminding us that Marketing Procurement remains a people business. Contracts are negotiated between people. Trust is built between people. Partnerships grow through conversations that rarely happen over Teams.

So, if you cut through the glamour, rosé and the yachts. Being at Cannes is about showing up where the ideas are ignited, the relationships are developed and the industry moves forward. We should make sure Procurement is on stage together with the rest of the actors in this huge Advertising industry theatre.

About the author

Amy Redford-Ninghetto MCIPS, is the Founder Optiwise Marketing Procurement Consulting

Amy Redford is an advocate for the Marketing Procurement industry having worked 23 years in Senior Global roles with brands including Peugoet-Citroën, KraftHeinz and eBay. She now supports clients across all industry sectors as an independent Consultant for Optiwise and ECIMMC.

In 2024 she founded the Market Procurement Network – a community for connection and collaboration within the industry across central Europe – membership includes many of the world’s biggest brands. She curates events, writes articles and is a regular speaker at industry conferences.