Amazon will finally have a presence at Cannes - but not in the same fashion as rivals like Google and Facebook

YouTube/Amazon

Amazon's Super Bowl ad featured actress Rebel Wilson.

• Amazon will make its first formal appearance at Cannes Lions this year with a hackathon involving seven ad agencies.
• It's a departure for Amazon, which typically shies away from flashy ad festivals.
• At the same time, agencies are pulling back and refocusing their investment into Cannes Lions.

Over the past few years, Cannes Lions-the advertising industry's big conference in Cannes, France-has increasingly become overridden with tech companies looking to connect with brands, agencies and potentially make a few deals. Indeed, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Pinterest shell out millions to set up elaborate beach cabanas to hold meetings and entice advertisers with their latest ad products.

But one tech giant notoriously absent from the festival? Amazon-until this year.

Amazon famously maintains a low profile at major advertising gatherings and doesn't pack its executives on panels, so the company's involvement this year is particularly noteworthy for marketers who are intrigued by the ecommerce giant's data and search capabilities as an alternative to the duopoly of Google and Facebook.

According to a spokeswoman, Amazon will not have a physical presence on Cannes beach but the company is partnering with Brooklyn-based ad agency Huge and non-profit Global Citizen for a two-day "hackathon" event at the festival.

Next week, staffers from seven ad agencies and consultancies including 360i, Grey New York, McCann Worldgroup Europe, Xandra and Mobiquity will form five-person teams. The teams are tasked with developing a product or service that fits into one of Global Citizens' six ongoing campaigns to help: poverty, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, food and hunger, education and health.

Amazon wants to cozy up to marketers

Amazon's branding will be front and center at the hackathon because each team will be given Amazon's tech to make their product. Specifically, they'll play around with Amazon's artificial intelligence platform Alexa and cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services.

Huge's president of technology, Gela Fridman, said that the agency has partnered with Amazon for previous hackathons and the idea is to give creatives and strategists hands-on experience with technology. "The tech component to this is critical," Fridman said. "Based on previous relationships, we brought [Amazon] into the conversation at Cannes."

A panel of judges from the ad industry will then pick a winning team, which will partner with Amazon, Huge and Global Citizen to potentially make and market their product after the conference ends. The six judges are:

• Michael Koziol, global CEO of Huge
• Fabrice Rousseau, director of Alexa for Amazon EU
• Mark Lehmann, chief technology officer of Global Citizen
• Anna Bager, executive vice president of industry initiatives at the IAB
• Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia
• Dr. Sue Black, computer scientist, academic and social entrepreneur

Shutterstock

Agencies are under pressure to make Cannes worth it

The idea might seem like pie-in-the-sky thinking, but Fridman said that the hackathon is designed to create tangible work that outlasts the ephemeral conference. The winning idea must be a product that can be sold in the market within 12 to 18 months, she said.

"The format is about making things and finding solutions to problems that have multiple facets," she said. "The idea is that the team have to find the idea that they are most passionate about and the value that they can get from solving this problem."

This Amazon/Huge hackathon is happening as the agency world is going through massive change with new competition from consultancies that promise marketers the answer to complex digital challenges that underpin businesses. As agencies look to cut spending in places, holding companies like Publicis Groupe have slashed their budgets for participating in ad festivals like Cannes, citing the high costs involved in submitting awards and sending staffers.

That's why Interpublic Group-owned Huge wants to use the hackathon to "add value to the festival," said Jason Musante, Huge's chief creative officer. Huge is sending 15 staffers to Southern France this year.

"This is Huge's POV on the future state of working teams and extreme collaboration making real, tangible things that help consumers make the world a better place," he said. "As Cannes is evolving as well as the industry, this is a natural place to add value-a hackathon is how we see the world moving forward."