Canes in Cannes
DAY SEVEN
FESTIVAL DAY TWO!!!
I woke up around 7am because I had scheduled a one-on-one meeting with London Monty, Award-Winning Product & Brand Innovation Leader for the Project Management Institute (PMI). I scheduled the appointment directly through the Cannes Lions App and we had a 40 minute coaching session. I scheduled the meeting because I wanted to improve my project management skills specifically in my role as Vice President of Programming for my sorority. Monty gave me pointers on processes to use when approaching a project how to make sure all potential problems or shortfalls are accounted for when project planning. It was especially helpful because he taught using exercises in the context of planning for a sorority philanthropy week which made it easier to understand and apply.
After my meeting I headed outside the student center for a free iced coffee and then met up with my friends to find a good spot to watch the Olympic Torch. The Olympic torch was a once in a lifetime experience and Halle Berry was the one to carry it which was so cool to see. Once the ceremony was done we ran quickly to the Palais to get in line for Kenan Thompsons talk “Ready to Laugh Again” with other hosts John Cook, John Cook, Debbie Vandeem, Chris Symmes. The talk had us all laughing the entire time, Kenan Thompson is great and he even woke up a sleeping audience member which was hysterical. My main takeaways were that humor is connection and humor never goes away our taste just evolves.
Then we headed over to the Rotande Stage for Marcus Collins and E.L.F | Is The Brand Era Really Dead? I loved this talk I thought Marcus Collins had the best energy and was such an engaging speaker. We also got a free e.l.f sunscreen setting spray as a giveaway. My biggest takeaways from this talk is that brands are signifiers or vessels of meaning and that brands have evolved and are more important than ever. Collins used this analogy that most water brands are just really tap water but their branding is why consumers pay more for a certain kind.
After the Marcus Collins talk, we explored the Meta tent and the Tik Tok tent. The Meta tent had a lot of cool exhibits about AI but the TikTok tent was overrated in my opinion and was really hot so we didn’t stay long. Next we headed over to Sports Beach and watched Leveraging Sport Fandom to Engage Youth Community hosted by Joe Burrow, Julie Bowerman, Diana Haussling, Maggie Schmerin, Evin Shutt. In all honesty, I went to the talk to see Joe Burrow but I found that I was more interested in Diana Hausslings points about becoming best friends with your consumer.
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Then I met some friends back at the Woman’s Equality Lounge for Beyond the Bleachers Championing Woman’s Sports hosted by Jonny Sonkin, Jamie Stenziano, Rich Routman, Kevin Arrix, Damaune Journey and Federico Salvitti. They talked about the importance of normalizing woman’s sports in mainstream culture with the support of influential male figures in the industry.
Lastly, our class had the opportunity to meet with Katherine O’Brien the executive creative director of GUT. I loved hearing her story about where she started her career and what positions she had before she became the executive creative director, especially the story about her first successful campaign as a copywriter that ended up getting a super bowl ad spot. She gave us the advice of dabbling in different roles or finding an agency that lets you try different roles and types of advertising before you choose your exact career path.
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After meeting with Katherine we enjoyed another happy hour, randomly met DeAndre Hopkins (so cool!) saw the award show and then went to bed.