• by Jack Feuer , June 20, 2007

The Cannes Media Lions probably will have been announced by the time you read this, and I doubt you'll find much joy in the news.

I don't know how many of the few U.S. entries short-listed --25 out of a bit less than 200 -- will win. But I have no doubt that if any prevail, OMD's Super Bowl shtick for Doritos will be one of them.

The consumer-generated gambit was a predictably lame attempt to penetrate the murky bog that passes for consciousness in young Americans, but what the hell. At least we'll win something. This, along with the unparalleled thrill of getting drunk with your clients in a gutter at four in the morning, is the most you will get out of the International Advertising Festival.

Creatives are the Norma Desmonds of the marketing world, living off past glory and refusing to accept that they can't get the best table in the restaurant any more. So why do they persist in taking a sidekick role in this surf-and-turf satire?

It's time for media agencies to boycott Cannes. Even good beat reporters and dynamic top executives lose their minds down there.

On the Ad Age site, for example, Matthew Creamer is reduced to writing nonsense about his first trip to Cannes, which includes an almost incomprehensible riff on the music played at an Initiative party. The ending reads: "walking back to my hotel, La Croisette still except for a rival journo hooking up on a street corner, I realized I'd been given some truth: There really are angels out there."

Sweet Jesus.

Then there's Adweek's Brian Morrissey, breathlessly informing us of a study released at the festival from Microsoft and Starcom MediaVest that found one in three consumers aged 17-35 actively try to avoid advertising.

No way! How'd that insight slip by everybody before now?

Even David Verklin, normally a cinch to say something smart, or at least entertaining, is sun-addled. His Adweek Cannes diary begins: "Have you ever been to the South of France? Wow. What a gorgeous spot Cannes is." Thank you, Mr. Zagat. Have you ever been to the North of New Jersey?

Well, you get the point. Everybody turns clueless on the Croissette. Except the French, who already are. So let's switch our allegiance to the Italians. Let's bid adieu to the travesty that is Cannes, and say ciao to the Venice Festival of Media. Let's turn it into a celebration of media creativity and forget about those has-beens at the Hotel Du Cap.

You can still get drunk. You can still hook up. You can still congratulate yourself on living la dolce vita, while your readers swelter in subways. And you won't have to suffer through any more Lee Clow interviews ever again.

That alone is worth the switch.