Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This year\u2019s Cannes Lions festival wants to restore humour to advertising, but underpinning a new category celebrating witty work is wider unease over the creative future of an industry rapidly adopting artificial intelligence tools.For the first time, humour will be added as a category in the annual awards in the south of France, which showcases the industry\u2019s best campaigns in the past year.\u00a0Organisers are seeking examples of \u201cwit and satire to provide amusement and create memorable, laughter-inducing connections with audiences\u201d, according to the awards criteria. The festival begins on Monday. \u00a0But this new category also reflects the underlying insecurities of a sector going through a crisis in creativity. Industry executives say it will help highlight the importance of the human element in advertising, with AI seen as struggling to create funny advertising campaigns that combine creativity with irreverence and silliness.\u201cAI can produce jokes, but they aren\u2019t yet very funny,\u201d says Rory Sutherland, vice-chair of Ogilvy UK. \u201cWhich I think is evidence that there is still a missing human connection \u2014 some level of shared understanding in AI that is not yet quite there.\u201dThis missing component \u2014 the importance of human creativity \u2014 will be the talk of much of the Cannes\u2019 Croisette this week as the large ad agencies show off their latest investments in AI.Agencies from Havas and Publicis to WPP and Dentsu will all unveil plans to adopt and integrate AI, putting new technology at the heart of how advertising executives plan, make and roll out campaigns.\u00a0Executives say that AI technology is proving useful in creating realistic images at scale, and optimising advertising for use across platforms spanning social media to TV and billboards. AI has already started to replace some jobs, say insiders, such as in helping to quickly source images and mock up potential campaigns \u2014 work that would have once taken days now can be done in hours.\u00a0Executives are, however, also keen to exploit the additional benefit that great creative minds can bring to advertising. Humorous campaigns, executives say, can often prove more effective.Karen Martin, boss of UK-based ad agency BBH, says that this year could be the \u201creturn of funny\u201d, with humour a rarer differentiator in the advertising world than it used to be. BBH is this month rolling out a campaign for Paddy Power around the Euro 2024 football tournament featuring English actor Danny Dyer that is aimed at finding the humour in being an England fan.\u201cSome of the best advertising always made you laugh,\u201d she said, adding that it also served as a counterpoint to the more sober economic, political and social issues in news and current affairs. \u201cCan advertising make you laugh in a world of permanent crisis? We have lost our way a little bit.\u201dThe introduction of a humour category also reflects a second shift in tone at this year\u2019s Cannes, with many executives frustrated by what they see as a focus on giving awards to more weighty, purpose-driven work rather than to effective campaigns that better serve to sell products and brands.\u00a0The past 20 years have seen a steady decline in the use of humour in advertising, according to Kantar, the research company, with the pandemic accelerating this fall in use. This slide has occurred despite humour being the \u201cmost powerful creative enhancer of receptivity\u201d, says Kantar, being more expressive, more involving and more distinct.Simon Cook, chief executive of Cannes Lions, the event\u2019s organiser, agreed that there was a return to using humour in this year\u2019s campaigns after several years of more \u201cserious, sombre\u201d work.\u00a0Many of the best regarded ads in this year\u2019s Super Bowl \u2014 a banner occasion for the creative advertising industry \u2014 sought to use humour.\u00a0\u201cHumour works,\u201d Cook said. \u201cWe will see the continued renaissance of humour this year. The sorts of silliness, zaniness and irreverence we\u2019d expect from human creativity.\u201d\u201cThere is a shift to effectiveness,\u201d said Miranda Hipwell, chief executive of adam&eveDDB, with marketing bosses under pressure to show their boards the value of spending on creative campaigns.\u00a0\u201cAds have been trying to make people cry for some time. But making them laugh can be just as effective,\u201d said Hipwell. \u201cWhatever the emotion, campaigns need to show results, not just be purpose-led.\u201dHowever, she also warned how hard it was to be \u201cglobally funny\u201d given that not all regions find the same things humorous.It can also prove divisive given how subjective humour can be, as witnessed last week in a short film launched by advertising agency Publicis that features many of the world\u2019s top AI experts and ad executives.Described by Publicis boss Arthur Sadoun in an email as a \u201cnot so serious film\u201d about the AI hype of Cannes, some of those featured in the film failed to see the funny side, according to advertising executives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This year\u2019s Cannes Lions festival wants to restore humour to advertising, but underpinning a new category celebrating witty work is wider unease over the creative future<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-127062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}