We're delighted to be able to announce that Mondelez International has awarded Wieden + Kennedy its Halls account globally. The account will be run out of W+K London and work starts immediately.

Halls is the leading sugar confectionery brand in the world and accounts for more than 50 percent of cough-drop sales worldwide. The Halls brand was born in 1893 and in 1930 invented its patented Mentho-Lyptus recipe.  It is sold as a cold relief product in the northern hemisphere but in hotter and drier countries Halls is used as a refreshing and tasty candy. Halls products are available in more than 26 flavours.

The Halls business joins other Mondelez brands at W+K. Earlier this year, W+K was handed Trident's US business. W+K London also has the marketer’s Stride gum brand.

As previously promised, all this week our own correspondent Alex Rogers is reporting from the 2013 Cannes Festival of Creativity. Here's her first report:

If you are anything like me you will spend a lot of your day in the agency discussing 'creative direction' and 'production estimates'. Yet when such conversations are overheard out of context, say on BA 346 from Heathrow to Nice, we sound a lot less Mad Men and much more sad men. This morning I sat alone aboard that very Adland Express, grimacing in silence listening to such 'ad wank' conversations. There I sat, one of six uniform girls sporting pastel coloured maxi dresses, denim jackets and the type of manicure that comes with the promise of not chipping before the closing gala. Full of self-loathing at what I represented, I feared the 60th Cannes, my first, may be everything I hate about our industry.

Then I landed and the bubble burst. In a good way. No heatwave, no yachts, no boozing in sight. Instead, overcast skies, a French train strike and missing luggage. Perhaps the reality of being here may outweigh the horrid hype. Perhaps this wouldn't be Soho-by-sea after all.

Registration at the Palais allayed all my concerns. This is a truly global festival. Most of the participants I met today hail from South America and Asia. Possibly as they have furthest to travel they've decided to set out sooner but reassuringly this isn't just the regular faces from Campaign spotted in 3-D. In fact the first seminar I went to focussed on the importance of global culture in advertising.

Not just in the work we produce, but also in the relationships we build. As we travel more frequently, and increasingly work in a greater number of countries, the panel talked about appreciating, respecting and immersing ourselves in the environments we enter as well as taking our own reference points with us. It was interesting to hear about the stark contrasts between US, Brazilian and British ways of working and our social interaction, let alone the differences in our respective creative output.

So as the sun starts to set over the Croisette and I unpack my remaining maxi dresses, I'm heading out to sample some of the riviera rosé I have heard so much about. Between you and me, I'm secretly hoping at least that stereotype about Cannes is on the money.