“Oh, I thought you all worked at a Zoo”. Response from a tourist in Cannes after spotting my delegate badge on the street and asking me what this ‘Cannes Lions’ thing is.
A LinkedIn post by Jacques Burger, CEO of the Up&Up Group (formerly M&C Saatchi Abel), inspired much mirth. “Might be some truth in that,” remarked the IAS’s Johanna McDowell.
Jokes aside, Burger was in Cannes for the business of creativity. He filed a daily wrap, delivering his thoughts on what he had seen and experienced. In a word, a quote and a piece of work.
DAY ONE: The Upside from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Here’s the first of our daily wraps from Cannes. In a word, a quote and a piece of work.
> IN A WORD <
Human
As Mike Abel put it on LinkedIn: “If there’s one thing that emerged most clearly from the sessions, it’s that in a world equally seduced and terrified by AI, data, and short-term metrics, it’s still the human pulse that drives great work.” And better outcomes.
One of the clearest wake-up calls came from Dr. Karen Nelson-Field PhD and Adam Morgan: the staggering cost of dull. Their talk laid bare the real price of media that fails to engage real people. For every R1 of digital spend, 43c is effectively wasted on dullness. Their message? We need to be radically more intolerant of mediocrity. Dull isn’t just boring, it’s very, very expensive.
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“Size is no longer a strategy” – Sir John Hegarty
In an age obsessed with scale, Hegarty made a sharp distinction: size can stifle. Big businesses, he argued, often drift from inspiration to operation. His call to arms? Reconnect with the philosophy of the business. Build a culture that’s creatively driven, not just structurally sound. Boldness, not bigness, is the new advantage.
On the other end of the spectrum, the team behind eco-conscious start-up Wild showed what bold looks like in action. They broke the rules of both the deodorant and eco space: fun, cheeky, and community-obsessed. Their growth? 200% YoY over five years. 25 million refills sold. And now, a Unilever acquisition. A brand that succeeded by staying human, and staying wild.
>IN A PIECE OF WORK <
Apple Privacy
Apple Vice President of Marketing, Tor Myhren, kicked off the week by being named Marketer of the Year. Tor’s opening keynote had one overwhelming message: that human connection is the difference maker. From the biggest brand in the world, which also happens to be a technology brand, it was remarkable to hear the human craft and obsession with detail that they apply to everything.
As Tor said, “extreme detail is a human thing”. Their latest privacy campaign is another great piece of work, taking an abstract concept and bringing it to life in the most human of ways. And those cameras you see flying around in the ad, those aren’t animated, every one was hand-built and painted. Because it’s those details that set the winning brands apart.
Watch the latest Apple ad: https://lnkd.in/g7XiQ7HS
DAY TWO: The Upside from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Enjoy the second of our daily wraps from Cannes. In a word, a quote and a piece of work.
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More
The theme of day 2 at Cannes Lions was perfectly articulated by a fascinating talk from the founder of Goodles Mac&Cheese, highlighting the value of applying a ‘More’ philosophy in the consumer world, subscribing to the idea of ‘And’ rather than ‘Or’.
Inspiring a brand that is not associated with a single colour, but rather many, the attitude extends beyond marketing and comms to product development, where they subscribe to a Maximum Viable Product approach rather than the usual MVP one executed by so many companies these days – refreshing in a world where everyone is always trying to do less, the strategy has proven highly successful with the business selling a pack of their product every second in the USA!
> IN A QUOTE <
‘CMO’s should spend more time in their jobs so they get to live with their results’ – Jim Stengel – The CMO Podcast with Jim Stengel
A great conversation with the global CMOs of American Express and Nestlé about committing to the job of marketing for an extended period to deliver meaningful long-term brand-building initiatives and results. (And on the subject of More, some good advice on spending more time being a marketer and less time being a chief.)
> IN A PIECE OF WORK <
Nothing demonstrates the power of building distinctive brand assets better than the award-winning outdoor work for Kraft Heinz ketchup. No logo, no packaging — just a distinctive font and attitude, placed in the right visual context. Building these kinds of assets doesn’t happen overnight — it requires more time, more investment, and more focus. In a world where attention comes at a premium, few things are more powerful than building, owning, and protecting distinctive brand assets.
DAY THREE: The Upside from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Here’s the third of our daily wraps from Cannes. In a word, a quote and a piece of work.
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Balance
A lot has been said previously (and again at Cannes this year) about the balance between brand and performance marketing. The shift in discussions this year focused on ‘AND’ vs. ‘OR’ as the approach to winning. Perfectly summed up by Laura Jones, CMO at Instacart, talking about how they have completely integrated and folded these disciplines into one, because: “Consumers just don’t think like that, so why should we?”
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“A lot of people think about the world with a scarcity mindset. We need to change our mindset to one of abundance and collaboration”. – Peter Jackson, Film Director of The Lord of the Rings
In the pursuit of balance, there was an absolute recognition that logic was overriding magic and that the scales had tipped far too much in favor of “data” and “metrics,” instilling a risk-averse stance on all marketing and brand-building activities.
A conundrum indeed, because the more conservative and risk-averse the marketing and media choices, the bigger the danger to “Drift into Dull”, which was quantified by Karen Nelson-Field PhD, as costing brands $198 billion a year. This is a staggering amount of money…to not be seen!
And to the magic makers, a plea from marketers to agencies to “release the idea” and partner with the creator economy in far more interesting ways to build campaigns and brands beyond the paid media metrics. Again, finding a careful balance between curatorship and collaboration. As Todd Kaplan, the CMO of Kraft Heinz said, “We need to start living beyond the walls of paid, where life really happens”.
> IN A PIECE OF WORK <
The amount of great work is simply staggering, so to find one piece is a hard job indeed. But in the world today, we’ve always believed that absolute clarity wins. So we’re going back to the future with some good old-fashioned print work from Cornetto, which is achingly simple and beautiful. Why do we love it? It simply makes you FEEL something.
DAY FOUR: The Upside from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Here’s the fourth of our daily wraps from Cannes. In a word, a quote and a piece of work.
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Same-same
A lot of what you see on stage at Cannes comes from the biggest, most mature advertising markets. It’s natural to ask: how relevant is this to a developing, diverse market like ours?
Enter the team from WARC, who shared their latest APAC-focused report, including data from markets like India. The key takeaway? The principles of modern brand building are universal. What changes is the execution. And that’s where local nuance, creativity, and culture play their part.
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“When you create emotion, you make money.” – Mark Ritson
Mark Ritson was at his provocative best, cutting through the noise with a call to return to brand fundamentals. In a world where digital platforms often peddle the idea that “everything has changed” (conveniently for them), Ritson delivered a reality check: great marketing still starts with creating emotion.
If your audience doesn’t feel something, then, as he bluntly put it, “you’re f***d.”
> IN A PIECE OF WORK <
The CMO of global Kiwi fruit giant Zespri International (a $3B brand) spoke about balancing the “twin principles” of marketing: Sell trays today. Build brand for tomorrow.
His point was powerful:
- Long-term investment in building a strong brand lifts conversion today
- Short-term smart activations build the brand for tomorrow
Loved this example of packaging innovation that embodies both goals, a great reminder that brand and performance can, and should, work hand in hand.
DAY FIVE: The Upside from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Here’s the fifth and final of our daily wraps from Cannes. In a word, a quote, and a chart.
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Intentional
Our final wrap comes from the last talk of the five-day Cannes Lions Festival, and it closed the week as powerfully as it began. The session featured the CMO of South American e-commerce giant Mercado Libre and the head of strategy from their agency GUT, sharing their six-year journey of transformation.
Once driven solely by performance marketing, Mercado Libre made a decisive shift: investing in long-term brand building. A shift that wasn’t just strategic, it was intentional.
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“Treat your assets like heroes.” – Fernando Ribeiro
The clarity of their brand focus was striking: they identified four distinctive brand assets, all centred on what they defined as the ‘real moment of truth’: the delivery moment.
• The van
• The doorbell
• The handover
• The box
These assets show up again and again, creatively and consistently, proof that distinctiveness doesn’t need to be complex. It just needs to be focused.
>IN A CHART <
We’re closing not with a piece of work, but with a chart.
It mapped the six-year journey Mercado Libre and GUT have taken: from 0 Cannes Lions to 27, and a 300% increase in market value.
CMO Sean Summers was crystal clear: this success is a direct result of being intentional about creativity and using brand to stand apart, even from giants like Amazon.
