LONDON — By the time Steve Parker gets to Cannes, he will have earned a glass or wine or two on a yacht. The UK joint CEO of media agency Starcom MediaVest will have completed a 500km, multi-day bicycle ride from the center of France, across a series of mountains and down to the Cote D’Azur.
It’s a charity ride in which Parker is one of 11 competitors. “We’re hoping to raise over £100,000. We’re racing our friends and colleagues at GroupM,” he says.
When he gets to the Cannes Lions advertising festival, creativity will be the watchword on the industry’s lips. Nothing new there – Cannes has been discussing creativity every year since its inception. But achieving that is changing over time, Parker says.
“Creativity now comes from collaboration … different people from different departments in different businesses coming together to try and bring simplicity,” he tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“We have a couple of media owner partners who work on this floor (of our office). We’ve also got clients on this floor. We are in a world where you have to be more naturally open and collaborative. One or two people just do not own the answer. You have to remove all the walls. Cannes is a great celebration of that.”
We interviewed Parker as part of the series The Road to Cannes, our lead-up to the Cannes Lions Festival presented by Coull. Please visit this page for additional segments.