It’s (too) early Sunday morning and time to wrap up our week-long coverage of the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival. Last night was the grand finale with top awards for “Film,” Integrated Campaign, the overall Grand Prix, and things like agency and agency network of the year.

One of the highlights was Procter & Gamble winning “Advertiser of the Year.” P&G CEO A.G. Lafley, and CMO Jim Stengel were gracious in accepting the award. First, Stengel gave all of the credit to the advertising agencies that helped them produce great work and results. Then Lafley finished up by asking the crowd to “come join us” in taking the work further.

As for the big winners, I was happy to see the Halo 3 “Believe” campaign co-win the big prize last night. As a Halo 3 player and fan, I can say that the marketing was especially meaningful. I spent hours interacting with the website and videos, which were something out of the History Channel 500 years from now. The marketing built an emotional experience, and helped the game rake in $170 million in first-weekend sales.

I do have to say that this final event seemed a little overdone. Guys in tuxes were handing out awards to guys in T-shirts. Lots of comments about how wonderful the “films” were. And seeing the ads on a movie screen versus in a pod of commercials during a TV show was completely unrealistic.

In conclusion, I’m very glad we came to Cannes this year and I look forward to future visits. Clearly the crowd wants awards and recognition – but a spirit of change is in the air. What everyone seems to agree on is that we will succeed by producing work that consumers enjoy and choose to engage with. The industry is ready for marketing with meaning.