• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, June 22, 2015

This week, of course, is Cannes Lions week -- that annual Festival of Creativity thingy to which the entire advertising industry heads each year to consume massive quantities of rose, bask in the sun, mingle at the Gutter Bar and oh yeah -- hopefully take home a few Lions.

Alas, not everyone can make the trek to Cannes and for those who don't, witnessing all the fun everyone else in the ad world is having is, well, excruciatingly painful -- yielding a major case of FOMO. So what's an unlucky soul to do when the biggest event in advertising is occurring without them? Ignore it all, of course.

Well, thanks to Union Creative, that's now entirely possible. The agency has created a Chrome plugin called Cannescellation  which will eliminate the deluge of Cannes Lions-related tweets flowing from the South of France -- which, in the case of a non-attendee, accomplish nothing but to make the blood boil with raging jealousy.

Now, if only there were similar solutions for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Periscope, Meerkat and Pinterest. But hey, at least it's a start.