Day 1
Conversations in Context: What Internet Communities Tell Us about Consumers
Reddit CEO and Co-Founder Steve Huffman gave a talk about how influential and impactful Reddit has become, as the majority of people who now use Google for questions, add “reddit” at the end of their search. He spoke about the importance of having real people answer your questions, the power of community and the impact its had on so many people. He went on to discuss the variety of different “subreddit” communities and how there’s a subreddit for just about anything you can think of.
When AI Challenges and Champions Human Creativity
CEO of Accenture Song David Droga along with Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI Mira Murati discussed how OpenAI’s technology is quickly advancing and its impact into creativity, as well as the pro’s and cons of their product. They went on to discuss OpenAI’s ChatGPT model which has evolved into a household name in just the span of 2 years and its only getting better. Mira went on to talk about how OpenAI is aware of how their technology can be used for bad intentions and how the company is working on taking preventative measures in order to prevent scenarios that may cause harm. The topic of how it can drastically change the advertising world came up as David Droga mentioned that his team is already implementing it as a tool in their everyday work.
The Contrarian’s Compass: Navigating Tech Hype
Chairman and CEO of Stagwell Mark Penn spoke on how even in the face of new booming technology such as AI, marketing still prevails. If anything, technology advancing has helped marketing and in fact go hand in hand. “You can’t democratize technology anymore than you can democratize television or radio” Penn mentioned. “Marketing makes technology possible, not the other way around” Penn stated before going on to talk about how social media has created a paradox of choice. Its given choices to people, however at the cost of division amongst consumers. He gave some great points on how even though AI is very powerful, it will never come close to human ingenuity, counterintuitive ideas, evidence based decision makers and original thinking.
Creatives on the Terrace: Edelman, rethink, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia
Judy John(CCO of Edelman, Mandie van der Merwe(CCO of Saatchi & Saatchi), and Aaron Starkman(CCO of Rethink) took to the Terrace stage and spoke on how to overcome creative blocks and negative mindsets. Judy went over identifying problems but also seeing the solutions and what the actions are behind the advertisements. Mandie did a great job about finding positivity in the face of of constant rejection stating “Pessimists see problems, optimists see solutions”. It really opened my eyes to how much even established names can face rejection along with how common it is. Aaron spoke about how the awards make a difference when it comes to how your agency gets sought after. Establishing great relationships with your clients can make the biggest difference with how your work gets done.
Day 2
WORKSHOP: Winning in Social
Chief Strategy Officer for VaynerMedia Wanda Pogue was the host of a workshop that talked about a bunch of different ads and how to make stories out of them. She showcased a few ads ran by VaynerMedia ad had while also showcasing different social media outlets with users expressing their love for the ads. From that info, they were able to put together stories for their ads to make more engagement. Once she showed a few more, she asked the crowd to participate in putting together an idea for a commercial for toilet paper. Once that was done, she showed the crowd what VaynerMedia had done with that ad.
Creatives on the Terrace: Publicis Groupe, South Asia, Uncharted, Canva
Laura Jordan Bambach (Founder & CCO of Uncharted), Rajdeepak Das (Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Groupe, South Asia and Chairman, Leo Burnett, South Asia), and Cameron Adams(Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Canva) took to the Terrace stage to go over secrets on how to fuel success in the advertising industry. One of the things I really liked that Laura talked about is how everyone has a fear in the industry, be it fear of rejection, failure, or other factors but having a love for what your do coupled with optimism will surpass those fears. Cameron spoke about how AI will be an amazing tool for us creatives moving forward. We need to harness and utilize it because it won’t go away. Rajdeepak hit it on the nail for me when he talked about having a structure that can impact someones life in real time every single day.
Finding Creativity in the Everyday
Chief Brand Officer of P&G Marc Pritchard gave a talk in the Lumiere Theatre to discuss how P&G uses everyday situations as an influence for their advertisements. Pritchard gave multiple examples of commercials that displayed scenarios where people go about their daily life using P&G products and the effect it has on their lives. He expressed that everyday a product from their company is being used without a second thought and in that, is the potential for creativity.
Katherine o’brien
ecd @ GUt
We met Katherine to close our day for a private meeting to ask her questions about the industry and learn about her career experience as an Executive Creative Director. She told us about how she started and what it was like getting her first brief. She mentioned to take anything, even if its not a “sexy” brief, and give it your all. Its the things that people normally pass up that sometimes get noticed the most. She was a sweetheart and very open to all the questions she was asked.
1 on 1 coaching
This had to have been the most eye opening experience for me in this entire festival. I signed up for this thinking I was going to talk to this coach about personal career goals and how to achieve them and instead walked away with a much bigger understanding of what I really needed…communication/networking skills. I met Abbie Jackson who sat with me for a little over 45 minutes where we broke down a major wall I had when it came to my approach with people. I have(had?) a major case of imposter syndrome where I didn’t feel relevant enough to talk to anyone because I was a student, let alone one who was 34 years old. I didn’t feel like I was equipped with enough knowledge or information on the industry as a whole to even have a proper conversation. I was so overwhelmed just on the first day by seeing so much and so many people who have been established that it almost didn’t make sense for me to be there. Abbie helped break this wall down for me by helping me understand that all of this was in the back of my head and literally no one was there to judge me. We went over many ways to help break ice and to approach conversations, no matter who I was speaking to. Its an ability I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I’m eternally grateful for those life changing 45 minutes. Easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Day 3
How To: Unlock Lo-Fi and Power Your Creativity through Photography
To start my day I went to one of the most interesting talks/workshops of the week that was hosted by Denstu and their CCO Riccardo Fregoso. Riccardo talked about how the power of analog photography can greatly impact how ads work these days giving them a feel of realism and warmth that is unmatched by digital. He went on to show us a short film ad that was completely shot in 35mm which was incredible. At the end, Riccardo asked us if we’d like to take pictures with a medium format film camera and of course, I was the first to raise my hand to give it a shot. Having shot in 35mm film before, this was a first in 120mm but it felt natural to take my first shot. Still waiting on the result!
Creatives on the Terrace: Snap Inc., McCann Worldgroup, Amazon
Resh Sidhu(Global Director Arcadia Creative Studio-Snapchat), Javier Campopiano(Global Chief Creative Officer-McCann Worldgroup and McCann), and Jo Shoesmith(Global Chief Creative Officer-Amazon) spoke on the Terrace stage with some topics that really hit home for me. Resh spoke heavy on imposter syndrome as well as the feeling of not fitting in. Her experiences were different from mine but at the same time similar in the sense that she was very different in her life experiences and interests. I loved how she was able to wear her individuality as an armor and use it as a strength; her ability to become comfortable in the uncomfortable is some of the best advice I’ve heard. I had a great 1 on 1 with Javier after the talk and he gave me solid advice on not worrying about being the older one coming in fresh, its more of advantage than I think.
Unlock Your Creative Genius with Visual Alchemy
Filmmaker, Director, and Creative, Romaine Reid had a great talk about tapping into your personal and authentic self as a creator. He provided great advice on what to do in order to reach that “alchemy” in order for us to evolve as creators. He presented an excellent film he made about his experience here in Cannes not just as a speaker, but as a photographer and person recording the events. A lot of what he does really resonated with me as a multi-disciplinary creative. He inspired me to know that I could do way more than I think I can.
Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in Conversation with Elon Musk
Probably the most interesting, yet scariest talk of the whole week was watching Elon Musk. He spoke on how AI is essentially inevitable and how powerful its getting. Musk talked about how old school Twitter originally had no targeting for audience and mostly just big brands like Coca Cola and McDonalds, where now they’re working on more audience target based system using AI. Having mentioned that AI is going to get extremely powerful in the next year or so wasn’t the most inspiring thing to hear but it just means we as humans need to utilize it now and get head of the curve in order to not get left behind. Elon also mentioned how X(Twitter) is the best place to reach out to the most influential people of all the social media platforms. “We’re at the most interesting time in history” -Elon Musk
The AI Era: Supercharging Marketing and Creativity
General Manager and Vice President of Google Advertising Vidhya Srinivasan and Director of Creative Labs at Google Alexander Chen spoke about how Googles new AI tools are revolutionizing how our creativity can be put to use. AI being the major topic this year at the festival, Google didn’t fall short on their presentations. Alexander Chen showcased how their new AI tools can create whole videos based on prompts and make ads with them. He showed different use cases for creating some clever letters made form food to help enhance a website or menu. Vidhya showed some really interesting tech with how Googles AI recognizes images that are drawn and gives a description of said image. It will read menus and give you a recommendation and so many other things that blew my mind.
Day 4
Let's Get Unfashionable
This talk involved Patagonia’s Director of Marketing and Product Tyler LaMotte and Stuart Trevor of STUART TREVOR. I’m just going to be honest about this one..I was bored out of my mind. I went in thinking it was about how to brand yourself as an up and coming clothing brand and maybe some sort of design talk but it was mostly about the ecosystem and what happens to clothes when it gets thrown out. I was FRONT ROW and left midway because I was falling asleep. I don’t know what was more difficult, hearing the talk or sneaking out in front of literally everyone.
From Inspiration to Manifestation: Behind the Scenes with 'Poor Things'
I was in here shortly for about half the talk since some of my friends wanted to check it out and I had time to kill. Super interesting talk with James Price, the Production Designer of the Oscar-Winning 'Poor Things' and Shona Heath, the Production Designer and Set Designer of the Oscar-winning 'Poor Things'. They went over their Pinterest mood boards for the movie as Shina had never worked on a movie before and James has on multiple occasions. Their dynamic was incredible; with only 20 weeks to put together the set for Poor Things, a masterpiece was made. Their process was broken down as they explained their vision and inspirations with a lot of images from different eras of art and architecture.
Freewheel
The whole class had the opportunity to have a 1 on 1 session with Grail Mortillaro Freewheel (Comcast Advertising) and he gave out a lot of gems of info. He reminded me a lot of myself when he started speaking on his interests in punk rock, skateboarding and hip hop. He used to own a magazine for skateboarding and talked about how his beginnings were very rough but how he made it to where he is today.
How to Build an Empire Like a Creator?
In this Terrace talk, the guys from Yes Theory (Ammar Kandil, Thomas Brag, and Zack Honarvar) took to the stage to speak on how they created their massive following and worldwide impct with their Youtube videos that show them going through immense levels of breaking their comfort zone. The talk was filled many points on how just saying yes to things you would’ve never thought, could expand your horizons and help you learn more about yourself as well as help you break barriers in your life you never thought you’d overcome.
WORKSHOP: The Logic behind the Magic of Creative Bravery
Ravid Kuperberg, a train er at Mindscapes gave an amazing talk regarding how to change the way you think when it came to solving problems. He taught us to create a new dynamic connection between variables of a system which were not connected before. His talk was very useful when it came to reshaping the way I look at negative situations and how I can overcome it and sometimes even use it to my advantage for an idea. He provided examples of an ad and how we would fix it and asked the crowd to participate which made for a fun exercise to get us thinking.
Day 5
Cara Mia & MIa Rafowitz
Cara and Mia were both students under my professor Meryl Blau who now work at Droga5 as Art and Creative Directors. They met with us in the morning to talk about their experiences in their respective positions in the company and how they made it this far. Both of them were super charismatic and open to our questions. Mia and Cara gave a lot of great insight into how the industry works and how each of their positions work n a day by day basis which helped me solidify my choice to be an Art Director, specifically via Cara who is the Art Director. Grateful to have met the both of them and really looking forward to having our paths cross in the future.
After we met with Cara and Mia, we went off on our way to do whatever we needed since Professor Blau gave us the day to enjoy before the awards ceremony at night. The students went off to go buy new outfits for the night and some went off to do whatever they needed to do. Me personally? I needed a new shirt haha. I went to Zara and bought a new shirt, grabbed a bite to eat then went back to the hotel. Around 5pm-ish we met up where we normally met to attend the award ceremony, only this time we dressed to impress. After all, there was a massive party right after. Awards ceremony finished off with a bang after honoring Jacques Seguela who gave the most amazing speech ever. “WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW”
The after party was insane. I’ll just leave it at that.
