On the ground in Cannes: Editorial director's diary

Day Five: Friday, June 23

A particularly Publicis morning
9am, 11am, 12pm
Le Majestic Barriere & La Maison

You know it’s the last day of Cannes Lions when fatigue sets in and you continually forget to snap photos of your meetings for your running blog. Or maybe it’s just that you’re too engrossed in great conversation to remember. In any case, Friday morning was largely spent meeting and catching up with incredible folks from across APAC at Publicis Groupe. Thanks so much to APAC & MEA creative PR lead Barbara Messer for setting these up.

Fantastic conversations on the patio of the Majestic with ANZ CEO Michael Rebelo and CCO David Bowman about the Australian market, as well as Leo Burnett South Asia CEO Dheeraj Sinha, fresh off of winning four Lions, including a Gold for Airtel and a Silver and Bronze for Lay’s about the Indian market.

A couple of hours later, I caught up with more Publicis Groupe torch bearers over a lovely lunch at La Maison including APAC CEO Jane Lin Baden, APAC & MEA CCO Natalie Lam, South Asia CEO Anupriya Acharya, Korea CEO Nicole Roe and Korea CCO Soo Hee Yang. So many great discussions here including the role of K-content in marketing, Asia’s performance at Cannes and the role of AI and more.

It was during my particularly Publicis morning that I caught up who else but Publicis South Asia CEO Amrita Randhawa about her experience presiding over the Creative Strategy jury. Watch out for upcoming video.

Awards Press Conference
10am
Palais

Journalists get a sneak peek at the Lions winners under embargo. I took in the final press conference to see who was walking away with some of the biggest awards from the festival and why.

McCann in Cannes
3pm
Martinez Hotel

My first interview with McCann Worldgroup CEO Daryl Lee since he moved over from IPG Mediabrands and took over the global reins nine months ago.  We spoke about what he’s been able to bring to the creative agency from his former media role. I was able to coax a smile and admission that the Festival is more fun when heading a creative agency, but the smile may have had more to do with the agency group’s multiple purpose-driven big wins for Microsoft (two Grand Prix) and Mastercard (Grand Prix and Titanium). Watch for the upcoming full story.

Klick and win
5pm
Byron

After breaking the news about Klick Health’s entry into APAC earlier this month, I now caught up with Rich Levy, who leads the world’s largest independent health agency’s creative efforts. His goal was to be among the top three health agency winners at Cannes and they indeed finished second thanks to winning four Lions, including its first Gold in Design for The Congregation, and a Silver in Digital Craft for The Bridge.

To Levy, the wins outside of health and pharma categories symbolize the ongoing “mainstreaming” of health marketing by agencies. As someone who spent 70% of his time in Cannes looking through the work in the Palais basement, we discussed what he saw and inspired him, and looked at whether health agencies have a leg up when it comes to producing purposeful work, which has been their MO all along.
 

Day Four: Thursday, June 22

Connecting with Japan and Korea
9 & 9:30am
Palais & Connections Lounge

Was able to follow up with communications leads Mariko Fujimoto from Hakuhodo Inc in Japan and Shin Bi Kim from Innocean in Korea (selfie with Shin Bi above) to learn a lot more about how the industry operates in Japan and Korea, what trends are hot and which players are making waves. Super practical and helpful for our daily work and for future cooperation on coverage.

Creative Business Transformation jury lowdown
11am
Palais

Justin Peyton may have just relocated to Seattle from Singapore, but  as Jury president of the Creative Business Transformation Lions he’s still really proud of the work coming out of Asia, which won four of ten Lions in his category, as evidenced in the above clip. See our full conversation with video clips about what stood out in the work and what it takes to succeed.

Welcome to the Beach Dept.
12:30pm
Bamboo Beach

Time to hit the beach to hear what happening at Dept, one of the fastest-rising independents globally and in Asia thanks to Carlyle Group financial backing. Happy to meet wit Ines Saraiva, global head of communications at Dept. I learned they’re still very much in growth mode as evidenced by their first Cannes beach house activation with a very tiki vibe. While there I was able to reconnect with global CEO Dimi Albers as well as you see in the photo.

Global cooperation
2pm
Gray D’Albion

Much of Thursday afternoon was spent in multiple meetings with my global colleagues and other teams from Haymarket, working out how we can best serve our audiences globally. These are sometimes some of the most valuable face-to-face meetings we can have in Cannes. And I’m pleased to say that what’s in store for the Campaign brand and its audiences is exciting indeed. Stay tuned.

Campaign global podcast recording
5pm
7 Blvd de la Croisette

Listen to it here.

Publicis Groupe Party
11pm
3.14 Plage

Popped into the Publicis Groupe party as it celebrated Marcel’s 6^th anniversary at Cannes (in a ‘we’ve been using AI for a long time already’ kind of way). Winners of the most artistic invite award.
 

Day Three: Wednesday, June 22

The IPG Inclusion Breakfast
8:30am
Hotel Martinez

This event is usually the most inspiring of the festival and once again it didn’t disappoint. Channing Martin, IPG’s chief diversity and social impact officer kicked off by introducing the theme: SHOUT, Don’t Whisper. This theme was underlined when Unilever’s chief brand and equity, diversity and inclusion officer Aline Santos introduced a new set of campaign videos for Unstereotype Alliance where she’s deputy vice chair that focused on not staying silent in the face of discrimination and stereotyping.

The was followed up by a fascinating conversation entitled ‘Say Nothing, Do Nothing’ with actor, playwright and UN Goodwill Ambassador Danai Gurira and Talk to Jess founder and CEO Jess Weiner. Gurira had no time for those who let one setback or bad experience halt DEI efforts and urged everyone to tackle their most difficult issue that continues to bother them.

Earlier a panel of marketers discussing accessibility included Mattel president and COO Richard Dickson presenting each attendee with a new line of Barbie that included many different dolls with different disabilities. But the standouts for me were Microsoft's principal director of inclusive design Christina Mallon who discussed how her own disability helps her in her role to work to develop new products and services for disabled communities. Also, Amazon Studios’ head of diversity, equity and inclusion Latisha Gillespie who discussed their efforts to insist on inclusive casts who implored the audience never to shy from doing the right thing because it affects their P&L given how the long-term stakes are too great.

And the showstopper of the morning was designer Fe Noel and her stories behind her stunning fashion designs with The Martin Agency chief creative officer Danny Robinson. These included The Dre$$, a corset dress with $1.6 million in bills sewed into it to represent the $1.6 million in retirement income women leave on the table due to the pay gap that they can’t invest.

TikTok’s Wonderful World of Commerce
11:30am
TikTok Garden, Carlton Hotel

Are brands interested in selling on TikTok? You bet they are. This was a standing room only crowd to hear how to do it. TikTok’s head of global business solutions Shant Oknayan and GM of e-commcerce operations Sandie Hawkins discussed how consumers want their shopping to be more entertaining and feel like they’re making discoveries, which inspire them to purchase.

They were followed by SEA head of brand partnerships Delilah Chan, joined by Wavemaker global D2C and social commerce head Rita Hartnett and L’Oreal UK’s ecommerce activation director Jack Timpany who showed examples of live shopping and streaming, why shoppers were attracted to it, and what the returns on spend were. Watch for the full upcoming article in Campaign.

BBDO Asia’s Creative All-Stars
1pm
The Annexe

Now this was a treat. Lunch with BBDO’s creative all-stars from across Asia including Josy Paul from India, Thasorn Boonyanate from Thailand, David Guerrero from the Philippines, Arthur Tsang and Nicole Ma from China. Fun, relaxed, incredible discussion about all things Cannes and creativity. Thanks to Asia CEO Tze Kiat Tan for arranging.

Creative Data jury lowdown
3pm
Palais

Time to check back into the awards programme with Jocelyn Tse, UM China’s chief strategy officer who served on the Creative Data jury to unpack their deliberations and awards. Listen to the video (to be posted shortly) as she talks about what stood out about the work, why The Artois Probability was selected as the Grand Prix winner and what learnings there are on how to succeed in this category.

Hakuhodo DY Party
4pm
Belle Plage Hotel

The party was only getting started at this early hour but Hakuhodo International CCO Kentaro Kimura, management planning director Mariko Fujimoto and others all had smiles on their faces about Hakuhodo’s multiple golds including Shellmet. The venue was on a stunning rooftop overlooking the Mediterranean which you can’t really get a sense of from these photos.

I had to make an early exit to meet up with creative and business leaders from yet another leading Japanese agency at 5pm at the Mondrian where I probably tripled my knowledge of the Japanese market and those working in it. Then it was time for…

The Campaign Party
6:30pm
Carlton Beach

Bit of a boast here—Campaign’s party was the place to be along the beach for the sunset hours. Friends, colleagues, and the who’s who of industry from around the world were there for drinks, catching up, dancing and good times all around. See the full photo gallery with no less than 189 photos here. 

Day Two: Tuesday, June 21

Chinese post-pandemic marketing
9:00am
Cannes Clubhouse, Palais

On a bright but windy morning I met with leaders from Tencent Marketing Solutions including general manager Kiki Fan, deputy general manager Ethen Zhang and Dan Shu, head of its luxury and beauty industry practice. We talked about the changes in post-pandemic consumer and marketing trends. One of them is the declining market share of online sales from the big ecommerce giants like Alibaba and JD as social commerce picks up steam. We also heard how marketers in the luxury and beauty category are having success reaching younger consumers with creative content, influencers and more digital connections with live activations. Watch for a full upcoming story in Campaign. The winds of change meanwhile kept blowing the doors shut to the nearby patio with increasing force.

About Schmitt
11:00am
WPP Beach

Just three weeks fresh into his job as the new global chief creative officer of Grey Group, I caught up with Gabriel Schmitt, known for his considerable success at Cannes Lions while ECD of FCB New York with campaigns like Whopper Detour for Burger King and this year’s Lion-winning McEnroe vs McEnroe campaign for Michelob Ultra. 

So how does he plan to translate that success at his new agency? Leaning into Grey’s “famously effective” mantra, he tells me all his past successful campaigns revolve around solving a business problem. A believer that recent big awards shows have over-indexed on purpose alone, he says work has to have a succinct brief to create tangible solutions. Full story to come. 

Celebrity sighting
12:30pm
Carlton Beach

Spotted Kevin Hart before lunch (mine and his - sadly not together). He’s attending the Festival to pick up the Entertainment Person of the Year Award 2023.

Are TikTok videos the next creative renaissance?
1:00pm
TikTok Garden, Carlton Hotel

The platform certainly thinks they’re The Next Creative Renaissance, so titling their session. This was fun one, with TikTok bringing on creator MC Taka to gamify marketing tidbits about rise in brand impact combining TikTok with TV campaigns. Andy Yang, TikTok’s head of product and engineering for Ads Creative was asked if TikTok videos might be winning Cannes awards any time soon.  While the brand itself already won a Lion this year, Yang figured that it should only be a short time before TikTok content for brands is ready to roar at Cannes. 

Jury duty: Game On
3pm
Mondrian

After sneaking in a productive meeting with a strong agency player it was time to get the low-down on what happened in the inaugural gaming jury room with Claire Waring, ECD at RGA Australia. With no prior awards in this category, the jury felt plenty of pressure. And yes there was some disagreement (they needed to ask for more metal) but mostly healthy debate. See who was awarded and why in this full article. 

Campaign Global Podcast recording
4pm 
7 Blvd de la Croisette

Listen to it here.

Day One: Monday, June 20 

D&I drives digitisation at Shiseido
9:30am
Jetée Albert Edouard

All aboard the Catamaran 'Rivage Croisiere 2', the giant yacht that's home to Accenture Song this week. It's there I met up with Angelica Munson, global chief digital officer of Shiseido and Yumi Matsuzaki, managing director of Accenture Song Japan.

They're speaking in the Palais this week about Shiseido's mission to take diversity and inclusion out of the marketing department and into the company's DNA. I was fascinated to hear about how AI and technology was being applied to their beauty services and loyalty programmes through services like Beauty DNA and Beauty Key to create highly personal products and regimens for all individual consumers. More in a full story to come later. 

AI drives recruiting at Accenture Song
11:30am
Lumiere Theatre 

After catching up with some fellow journalists in the press centre, it was over to the Lumiere Theatre to hear Accenture Song's CEO David Droga, creative chairperson Nick Law, and global data and AI lead Lan Guan talk about the future of talent.  It has a lot to do with AI.

Droga didn't stay on stage long, but he did explain how one of the reasons why he came to Accenture was because of the growing role of technology. He shared how Accenture's $3 billion investment in AI has led them to hire 40,000 people with AI-specific expertise and they plan to double that figure.

Lan Guan, who built a robot at age 16 to teach Chinese children in rural villages to speak English, elaborated on their AI capabilities, noting that they've had 600 conversations with C-suite executives about what generative AI can do for them.

Nick Law then elaborated on what AI meant for creative work. It will likely cut down the amount of really bad work, but will lead to an explosion of average work, he said, and somewhat more outstanding work by those who can leverage it properly. Yes, more talent will be called on to do a lot of curating, editing and refining, but they will also need value added with breakthrough creativity. He urged creatives to be audacious and have fun with robots. 

The next new normal 
12:15pm
Debussy Theatre

Switching from one big stage to the next, Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital took to the stage after maybe 3 hours of sleep (his delayed flight got into Cannes at 3am) on what to expect in the next new normal. In short, the outlook isn't great. He dwelt on geopolitical tensions with the US and China, Russia, Iran going into details on global lithium deposits before bringing it back to the industry and the shifts we're seeing in technology. 

The metaverse has been unfairly labelled as a bust, he argued, though he divulged much more detail around his outlook for AI and the marketing industry. Artificial intelligence will make copywriting more efficient and will make many functions of media planning and buying redundant. "Why would a client trust a 25 year-old media planner or buyer, when he or she could trust an algorithm?"

AI will also help enable far more hyper-personalisation of content and will spread knowledge far more quickly across companies. In the new normal, organisations will need to be more agile and we'll see more brands needing to take back control of their customer communications through in-housing, using their first-party data. See full article in Campaign India.

The encore
2:45pm 
Les.Monks Café

I was able to follow up with 'SMS' as he's known to colleagues at the Media Monks headquarters in Cannes, at their sunny street cafe near the Palais. He was joined by Media Monks' managing director for China, Rogier Bikker as well. Sorrell went into greater detail on some earlier themes and explained why he delves so far into geopolitics when assessing his business outlook. "Clients think we, in the industry, are too tactical and not strategic enough," he said. "They think about these things." 

He stressed the growing importance of Asian markets, especially India, while Bikker delved into the Chinese market, its speed and agility which has opened up new gaps with Western marketers —although he spoke of how many Western brands still have great relevance and further potential. 

Finally, I asked Sorrell for his views on Cannes Lions this year. He noted the degree to which CES and Cannes had come closer together and how the big tech companies all had a greater presence. "They call it a creativity festival but it's really a tech festival," he said, noting it was becoming increasingly expensive for agencies. 

Global Campaign podcast recording 
4pm 
7 Blvd de la Croisette

Happy to join fellow editors and producers from UK and India on today's global podcast from Cannes. Check it out. We gave a nod to the two Grand Prix won by New Zealand agencies on day one. Congrats to Special Group Auckland and Colenso BBDO for their top nods in Health & Wellness and Radio & Audio. 

Golden moment for Bayer's Diversitree
6:00pm 
Palais Press Centre

Back to the press centre to catch up with Patricia Corsi, global chief marketing, digital and information officer for Bayer Consumer Health, fresh off of sharing a mainstage with Hollywood superstar Halle Berry. She explained how she was "over the moon" to win a Gold Lion in Health & Wellness for its Diversitree campaign for Claritin, aiming to plant more female trees in urban areas to absorb the pollen from male trees. We also spoke about how her role in stimulating more creative work and what keeps her up at night as a CMO.  

That's all for the first day. Back tomorrow with more insights, interviews and interesting snippets from Cannes.