Despite being entirely virtual for a second year due to Covid-19 restrictions, Cannes Lions 2021 generated a revenue of $47.7 million (34.4 million pounds)—just under half of the amount generated in 2019 when it was last held in person.
Revealed within owner Ascential’s half-year results, the fully digital version of the annual festival, which included the return of the awards after two years, ran through a customer-built website with a newly introduced Cannes Lions membership element.
The last time the event ran in person in Cannes, in the south of France, in 2019, the festival itself generated $94 million (67.8 million pounds).
Cannes Lions sits within the marketing division of Ascential alongside data publication Warc and MediaLink, its strategic advisory and business services firm. In total, the division generated $88.62 million (63.9 million pounds) between them during H1, an increase of 158% in organic revenue year-over-year.
The marketing division’s unaudited figures for H1 also included an adjusted operating profit of $39 million (28.1 million pounds) for the six-month period.
In his statement to the market, Ascential chief executive Duncan Painter highlighted the building of its digital commerce business alongside “strong demand” from its markets and the work of the people as having helped it “through a period of unprecedented macro-environmental challenges.”
He added: “We expect these factors to underpin continued positive progress throughout the rest of 2021. Furthermore, as we emerge from the pandemic, our Marketing and Retail & Financial Services segments are both very well positioned to benefit over successive years from a post-Covid recovery in activity levels.”
Following a shares placement, the company is also set to continue being acquisitive to enhance its growth having raised around $216 million (156 million pounds) in a shares option. China and LATAM are two regions where it aims to focus on growth as well as helping strengthen its digital commerce offer which grew by a reported 25% during H1, according to the market statement.
Cannes Lions this year received 29,074 entries across 90 countries, while its membership program attracted over 13,000 participants ahead of the online event near the end of June. In 2019, the competition received 30,953 entries.
Earlier this week, the company confirmed that it would drop charging subscription fees to under 30s to continue to give them access to the part of the Cannes Lions site that held case studies of winning entries—The Work—after a junior creative team from Vietnam created a rival site compiling the work online for free.
Credit: Ad Week