"Lex, you gotta come to Cannes," Lucy Werner told me in April.
I first heard of Cannes Lions through my cousin, Ashley Rutstein, who is now a full time creator but was previously an ad agency Creative Director. Ashley's a perfect representation of the trajectory the festival has taken in recent years. Cannes Lions spun off the similarly named film festival in 1954 as an opportunity for advertising creatives to show off their own cinematic work. They spent the next several decades expanding the festival, adding more categories of awards and eventually including educational content like panels and talks. In the last few years, Lions has been overtaken by the creator explosion.
Cannes Lions isn't just for ad people anymore. It's become a meeting place for tech, media, creators and creatives to come together...around advertising.
Ashley being there made sense, but it didn't occur to me that I should go until last year when beehiiv rented a villa and flew several team members over. beehiiv's in the newsletter business. I'm in the newsletter business. If it's relevant to them, it just might have something for me too.
This year, I noticed that Rebooting was hosting several of their own events there. Rebooting is an indie publisher like me, though founder Brian Morrissey has a deep journalism background and significantly more brand cachet than I do. But still, if an indie media company—and one that covers the reinvention of media—finds it important to not only be at Cannes Lions but throw their own events there, that says something about what's happening at this festival. And more importantly who is showing up.
In the recap of this year's fest, Morrissey addresses something that inexperienced creators misunderstand. Lots of people make Cannes seem like the culmination of something. The reward for your hard work. A brand trip to brag home about. But Cannes Lions is for selling. Cannes, the film fest, is too. You have to go into it with a plan about who you're trying to meet.
Writer Lucy Werner understands this which is why she planted her book in places around the festival and got her own press pass. I respect her game. Lucy spent the week reporting for Creative Boom, which gave her both a purpose for her conversations and a way to avoid the very expensive Creator Pass. (Those are nearly $2k USD AND you have to apply for them.) With a background in PR, Lucy's savvier about working her assets than your average creator, but she also wrote us newbies a guide if you have no idea how you'd swing this.
I saw other creators online talking about what kinds of experiences they were having at Cannes too. Rachel Karten, who writes Link In Bio, wrote about how she's "more bullish on the creative work we do in organic social media" after watching companies sell themselves too hard. Creator agency owner Lissette Calveiro said she focused on making brand deals, which is a good, straightforward use of the festival. If you can meet a brand face to face, it's much easier to do a deal online later.
AI educator and landline phone maker Cat Goetze said it's not about the networking at all. It's about being near people who are at the top of their game and letting their energy dissipate your intrusive thoughts. I felt her comments in my soul. I miss that energy I used to get from living in the hub of my industry. That's why it's becoming more important for me to link up with it wherever it convenes in the world. There's something about having to take yourself more seriously and present yourself in an impressive way that I rarely have to do these days. That muscle is beginning to atrophy.
The core of Cannes Lions culture is still about advertising and the announcements this year reinforce that. Yes, brands create cool experiences like Reddit's deli and LinkedIn's rooftop and it was all very fun and offline. But all of the product releases were for advertisers. LinkedIn launched a creator marketplace and collab posts (both tools for creators to work with brands.) TikTok announced something similar. Reddit and Pinterest revamped their ad platforms. Canva launched their own ad publishing system. Open AI announced they're in the ad biz now. No one really knows what to build for creators beyond this and my cousin Ashley pointed out the festival doesn't either.
The big names all over Cannes Lions and what they're talking about have made me feel like I don't belong there. I have no interest in meeting anyone from TikTok or playing a game at Pinterest's boardwalk. LinkedIn's creator marketplace is not for me. I work with smaller, more independent brands on purpose and I have nothing to do with the agency side of advertising like my cousin. But we're starting to see a new generation of people come to this festival. Not just creators. But new media companies like Morrissey's Rebooting, Karten's Link in Bio and The Press Publish team. And smaller tech companies like beehiiv and Kit.
beehiiv released the most creator-centric features of the week with group subscriptions and AI crawling blockers. I don't think they're syncing their release announcements to Cannes in the same way as bigger tech companies, and we'll see in the years to come if they conform to their brethren or help the old guard break free of their tired ways. Kit founder Nathan Barry showed up last minute, convinced by his colleague that they needed to start getting involved.
No conference really feels like it's made for entrepreneurs like me. But Lions gets pretty close. I like that it attracts other media business owners like me and that it has the potential for finding new brand partnerships. Worst case, I'd tap into that energy that Cat Goetze talked about and take myself more seriously in rooms. If I'm being deeply honest, I think there's something appealing about the amount of barriers I have to clear to make it to the festival too. It's expensive. It's halfway around the world from where I live. You have to apply or find a side door in. I definitely have to plan how best to use my time there. None of these things are natural for me to overcome, being a quitter who hates elitism. I wish I could punk out with a more independent version of what I'm looking to gain here but until I find that, I've set my sights on going to Cannes Lions next year.
