My mind and heart are truly full.
This was the exact phrase I was thinking as I was enjoying the view from the beach on the French Riviera. This past week attending and working at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity was one of the most rewarding, inspiring, and educational professional and personal experiences I have ever had.
I had only attended Cannes Lions once before, and it was amazing. It was this trip back in 2017 that sparked the idea of creating and launching an Educators Summit at Cannes Lions. Fast forward two years later, we finally did it for 2019.
Why was the Educators Summit created? Because there was a huge gap missing in our industry. I’ve been to a ton of educator related events with the promise that these events will help bridge the gap. Some provided good starting points, but no follow through. Others promoted this broadly, but certain opportunities were only available if you were friends with key leadership members of the organizing group.
For me, this didn’t feel right and I have learned over the years in academia – if you are not seeing what you want to see in the field, you just have to do it yourself.
The Cannes Lions Educators Summit was created with the purpose of building collaborative and sustainable partnerships with academia and industry worldwide. After this past week, I think we were able to do this very successfully.
Being able to soak in all of the great insights from the past week, here are some of the main takeaways I was able to get from Cannes Lions:
Level of access to conversation and networking is unlike anything else in the industry. This is why Cannes Lions is such a draw and a must go to event. This is why we wanted to have an Educators Summit here. The access to people, brands, and agencies is unlike anything else I have seen in my career.
For example, for the summit, we had a full agenda filled with amazing speakers from agencies, platforms, and companies to share their insights, expertise, and advice on how we can come together and solve the problems and address opportunities. We had talks with representatives from McCann, Publicis, Whaler, WPP, Edelman, and many more.
We had an exclusive talk by Nick Law, Creative Director at Publicis as well for the Educators Summit. How cool is that?! He was the nicest guy as well – making sure to answer all of our questions and we even got a picture with him. So cool!
I was able to have some great chats this past week across the board in various places, but some of the best experiences happened on the beach and with some leading professionals.
The level of access you have here for some speakers is truly epic. For example, I got to sit in hearing Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook talk about equality in advertising at Facebook Beach. I was able to get a drink with a friend of mine from Twitter with the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi. I had the chance to talk directly with the Facebook and Pinterest leadership teams about what I was doing in and out of my classes. I spent a ton of time at Facebook Beach for this very reason – the conversations and networking that came out of this one space alone was amazing!
Again – this level of access and opportunity for face time is not available any where else, except for Cannes Lions.
Consistent themes coming across all of the sessions. This was the interesting part – from what we were able to see from the sessions from the Educators Summit to the main stage, there were several themes that emerged here that we had to pay attention to. I want to highlight a few of them. First, we are seeing brands gravitating more towards purpose marketing, tying in specific issues related to causes they believe in and what to support. Unilever and P&G are two companies that are doing this for their brands across the way. Second, diversity and representation continue to be key trends many brands and agencies are looking at not just for their campaigns, but also for their work.
The last theme I heard was particularly interesting pertaining to academia. Professionals I spoke to said they were trying to get away from recruiting just from “legacy programs” and establishing more connections with schools they had NOT reached out to previously.
For me, this was music to my ears. I have seen many times over the years how certain programs have these opportunities because of their “reputation.” However, the brands and companies here in Cannes are realizing they have to get more creative, get different perspectives, and bring in new ideas. This can only be done if you are looking for talent in other places.
I lost count of how many people I talked to who wanted to not only learn more about the University of Louisville, but work with my students specifically on real world projects for class. I was blown away – but I hope this gives other professors at other universities hope that yes – legacy programs may have a strong reputation, but companies are wanting to make connections with other programs.
On another note – activations were HUGE at Cannes! Loved all of them, but I have to say, as a big Game of Thrones fan, having the chance to sit on the hashtag throne on Twitter Beach was pretty epic!
Meeting face-to-face. There are some people I have on my list – that’s ever growing – I want to meet in person. One person on that list was Gary Vaynerchuk. I have been connected with Gary for years on Twitter – and I had the opportunity to review a few of his books (Ask Gary Vee and Crush It) as well. However, with our schedules, I was never able to attend one of his talks in person – but always wanted to.
Until Cannes.
I was able to head over to Gary’s session, where I was able to get a front row seat (!!!!). I had tweeted at him I was excited to hear him talk for the first time. He replied – we should hug after his talk. Gary did not disappoint at all in his talk – very energetic, honest and real. He was definitely a hit with the audience, and he took the time to do videos and selfies afterwords with the attendees.
I waited my turn and finally, I was able to meet Gary face to face. We talked and I thanked him for the work he was doing – and how he has a huge fan base in my classes and in the city of Louisville. He mentioned how it as cool to finally meet after knowing each other on Twitter for 10+ years. I really appreciated Gary taking the time to chat with me, and of course getting a picture.
Thank you Gary for taking a moment to chat with me during your time in Cannes.
Formulating collaborative partnerships. One of the panels we had – which is one of the first I think we have seen at an educators event such as this – with four major technology leaders in the industry. We had a panel with Adobe, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest to talk about creating sustainable partnerships with each of the brands. We had a very energized conversation, and we were able to walk away with some great action steps for how to work together especially on learning and certification programs. We got to hear about the new developments for Facebook Blueprint (very exciting – will be working with the great team at FB on this for my #FrebergPR class this fall!) and how Pinterest is now starting the process of creating materials and wants to work with educators.
Thank you Colleen, Rishi, Simon, Noha, and Jann for sharing your insights and expertise with all of us. We are thrilled to be working with you
Innovation comes by taking a different path in your creativity. I found that I was able to attend a bunch of sessions, but most of them were related to food products. I consider myself to be a foodie, so there’s that! However, there were two presentations I was able to see of brands going to new heights with their strategy, brand voice, and campaigning. I am talking about Burger King and Dunkin. Burger King’s talk was amazing – we were able to see how they really innovated over the past few months not just their design and product innovation, but took marketing to new heights with fresh ideas. For example, their Whopper Detour campaign was indeed hilarious, but it was routed in creative strategy – and presented the brand in a new way. As a result, the brand was named Creative Brand of the Year by Cannes Lions, beating both Nike and IKEA for the award.
The other brand that was creative and entertaining was Dunkin, and this talk showcased the transition the brand took when they decided to drop Donuts from their name. I remember when this happened – there was a lot of discussion and focus on where the brand would go, how people would react, and what they had to do next. It was indeed one of my favorite presentations. Plus, Dunkin did win the award for best product launch (well, it was only available for a day!).
They created Coffee Rose – yes, you read that correctly – for one day in Cannes. I of course had to try some, and it was not too bad! Great way to create a memorable experience that was indeed going to be shared worldwide on social by the attendees.
Building a movement through an event. This was the very first year of the Educators Summit at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. This has never been done before – and there was a lot of things to plan, organize, learn and execute not only the past week, but past year and a half.
From early morning conference calls to coordinating efforts with speakers, to being the contact on the ground – seeing this idea come to life has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Seeing an event come together that is not only successful, but is sparking an incredible movement in our industry amongst educators and professionals is truly transformational.
The past week, I was able to serve in a variety of different capacities as a moderator, chair, speaker, event planner, content creator, storyteller, and much more! It was truly a wonderful professional experience for me. I am forever grateful to Steve and Cannes Lions for allowing me to be part of this.
This event sparked not only great friendships and community, but it really did spark a movement. Everyone said how this was super beneficial for them, and how they not only will be back next year, but want to help out even more promoting and organizing the event.
I am forever grateful to the 25+ educators from around the world who came to Cannes because they believed this event would be special. It was special due to the collaboration, engagement, and support each educator brought to the table. We came together in Cannes for a common reason, and we left as dear friends and colleagues.
I would like to take a moment to thank two friends who really made this all come to life. Steve Latham was our fearless leader, and really made this event come to life. He was such a dedicated supporter of this idea, and really was the key to make this all happen. You are the best, Steve! I am forever grateful to you for your friendship and support. Also, I would like to thank Bill Ward (@Dr4Ward) for being a great co-chair of the Educators Summit. Bill was great to bounce around ideas and helped promote the session remotely for us. Thank you so much, Bill!
So – you may be asking – what is next?!
Well, there’s always next year’s event and we know the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity will be held June 22 – 26, 2020. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the Educators Summit, please reach out. I’d love to chat more about this with you. We have a year to plan and coordinate efforts to bring more educators, students, and professionals to Cannes.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
