, Columnist
Google and Facebook Turn On the Fake Riviera Charm
The Silicon Valley giants want to cut out the ad agencies, and new EU data rules will help them.
Clouds over the Cote D’Azur.
Photographer: Richard Baker/In PicturesThis article is for subscribers only.
Last week at Cannes Lions, the advertising world’s yearly schmooze-fest on the Cote d’Azur, the industry tried to present a unified front.
Internet ads have their place, went the message, but as something that complements rather than replaces traditional media such as television and billboards. And there will be a role for everybody — from incumbent ad giants such as WPP Plc and Publicis SA to interloper consulting firms like Accenture — in making sure that creative campaigns are distributed in winning ways across the media old and new.