Was this year’s Cannes Lions a virtual success? Depends who you ask

Cannes Lions is no longer exclusively the domain of very well-heeled and well-connected VIPs in advertising. The five-day awards festival celebrates creative work in the ad industry and related fields. Virtual this year, it was available to the whole world (for a price), with daily YouTube broadcasts from locales across the globe. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is hosted by Lions. The decades-old organization focused on creativity was acquired by the data and information company Ascential in 2004. The group canceled last year's awards festivities but returned this year from June 21 to 25 in a virtual format. "Cannes off the Croisette," as AdAge called it seemed to rankle some and work well for others. Ad industry leaders told Adweek that the IRL Cannes experience is irreplaceable. However, they appreciated the accessibility of the virtual festival and the "greater transparency" it provided. But other executives said that the endless content made the experience less than compelling, AdAge reported. There were also grumblings about technical glitches in both the live and pre-recorded segments, the latter of which is pretty hard to excuse. Then, the winners of each awards category (all 28 of them) were announced during 90-minute "Daily Award...