As soon as we identified the problem, we had a solution. After the first hundred shots of yachts and parties from the 2014 festival, we thought, “What if there was a way to block all of this crap from our feeds?”

On the opening day of the 2015 festival, we launched The Cannescellation, a Chrome plugin that could intercept tweets that it determined to be originating from Cannes and keep the user’s Twitter feed completely Cannes-free. Not only did the plugin block Cannes-related tweets, it showed them being destroyed, making it even more satisfying for the Cannes-Nots.

The Cannescellation works by analyzing tweets in real time as they load in Chrome. The content of each tweet is compared to a list of keywords related to Cannes. If there’s a match, an image of the tweet is captured, resized, and superimposed into a video. The video is then placed over the offending tweet in the user’s timeline.

As an agency self-promo, the Cannescellation was intended to create a reaction within the advertising and marketing community. It succeeded, with coverage in North American publications including Creativity, Campaign, and AgencySpy; and coverage in countries such as France, Brazil, Russia, and Japan. The Cannescellation video was viewed over 5,000 times and downloads of the actual extension far exceeded expectations.