Twitter is hoping to make a splash in at the Cannes international advertising festival this week having had a low key appearance last year.

The feeling looks like it might well be mutual as Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder and executive chairman, is honoured as the media person of the year.

Philip Thomas, chief executive of Cannes Lions, said: “Since inventing Twitter in 2006, Jack Dorsey has, in an incredibly short space of time, brought to the world an entirely new way for people to communicate, share ideas, and learn new things.

“It has become, in the meantime, a powerful social and political force, and is now part of the everyday global media language. The power and simplicity of what he has created has made Twitter a social phenomenon.”

Twitter will be hoping it can translate that social phenomenon into an advertising one.

With its pre-Cannes roadshow in London last week, the Twitter4brands event, Twitter is flying across the channel in force. It has stuck up a big billboard proudly displaying the #canneslions hashtag above the Cannes’ Palais de Festivals to greet ad execs and announce that it is in town.

Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief executive, will be giving the company’s first keynote speech in the Palais on Wednesday”. It is likely to be a hot ticket.

His appearance comes as the FT reports speech comes as  Twitter ramps up its international ad plans:

Now the California-based company is escalating its plans for international expansion into continental Europe and Latin America. In February, Twitter poached Shailesh Rao, Google’s head of display advertising in Asia, to lead this international sales effort.

“What I like about the way Twitter has approached things in general is we have erred on the side of caution,” Mr Rao told the Financial Times, stressing that its ads “keep the user in mind always” to allay initial concerns that they may be put off by marketing messages on the site after so many years without commercial interruption, the FT reports.