Cannes Lions Is an Endless Times Square

[Music] All right, welcome to a special edition of the SideProjects podcast in Canline alongside Bendits, one half of HIPR placement. I see that you have your proper glass of wine, proper shape. Well, I not only was furnished with the proper wine glass, but also the proper the proper wine flavor, which is pink, of course. And I am enjoying it all up you seen because it is quite warm here in Can, quite warm. Heat wave. Heat wave. I mean, heat check. Yeah, I would, I'm, it was more of a heat wave than a heat check. I got to tell you, I don't know if I've seen anything that really qualifies as a heat check yet. No. And this is your 30th can? I, I, as a 75 year old, I have been here 55 times. No, I think this is 13. Wow. I think this is 13. I started coming in 2011 and it is really, it's interesting. I ran into the journalist Foster Kamer earlier this morning and he was saying, by his investigation, he has determined that this is the most ostentatious display of wealth anywhere in the world. Mm-hmm. Partially can, partially can lines. And it's funny to reflect back to 2011 when you could just swim off the end of the Carlton pier and you didn't have to like fight a Pinterest brand representative out of the way or whatever. So anyway, it's strangled by lanyards. Tripping over lanyards. Strangled by, I mean, yeah, maybe that's, that's, there's something to that. That's like a newsletter title or something like I can imagine you riffing on that. That's what we're doing here at the side projects, ex-hip replacement, one-off podcast, but Claire, go for it. Well, no, I was just going to ask, yeah, like what was the scene like in 2011? Well, okay, so can as people hopefully remember started out as a festival of creativity awarding the greatest advertising and marketing crew. Never know it today. No, no, you certainly wouldn't. It's a, it's, it's best a marketing trade show and at worst, like a kind of gross display of, of excess from people who have to pay their way into interesting conversations. I just walked here by a pink Chrysler. What's the name of that? Or is maybe it's the Plymouth Prouller? Or something like that? You know these ridiculous, ridiculous cars like cars that should never have been made, turned into a limousine. Oh my god. What does that say? Making science? An AI company called Making Science. Guys that making science don't do that again. That's a very, it was a bad use of your marketing money. But in 2011, when I first came, it felt like a gathering of creative people with some, you know, salespeople and platform people, the agency groups kind of like on the sidelines a little bit, but it felt very organic and now it is the opposite of that. So much so that I think we're, what I was just having lunch about this, I think we're moving back to a space where the thing to do is to show up by not showing up. And it's just to ride the wave that exists without having to put much into it because everybody else will allow you to find a access, find a platform, find someone else will provide you lunch. Someone else will provide you a pop up. Yeah, exactly. Shout out to Bloomberg Media. Yeah. That's how I would read it. Yeah. Well, I mean, this was Eli's question. I don't mean to crib it, but it kind of goes to that. Like if you didn't know that Cannes was an advertising festival, what would you think it was a festival? Just a celebration of money, like a celebration of wealth? Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's much more stupid than that. That is an interesting thing to ponder because it feels like a trade show or a convention, but for anybody who's never been to a trade show or a convention of this magnitude, it just feels sort of incomprehensible. It's like, I guess it feels like Times Square or something, like endless Times Square. People walk really slow here too. So that's one thing. Everything is slow. We, it became the secret weapon of breakfast club this morning actually that it took so long to get coffee that people were forced to interact with one another in line, just standing there for hours, which turned out to be really fun, but it was, yeah, this is, it operates at a different scale. So I were really about IRL community and tactility and getting people together, Ben. Look, you know, friction, friction and culture. Well, you know, it's funny. We were talking early in the week and my experience is that over the course of the week, themes emerge, you know, the tenors sort of changes or realizations happen and it's, you know, through conversation throughout. And I mean, that's why this is valuable. That's why we're all here. But last year, I remembered distinctly that on Sunday, when I got here early into Monday, everybody felt really shook about AI. There was this sort of underlying feeling of, this is the end. This is the last time we're coming to Cans. This is, you know, AI's, the robots are going to eat our lunch. By the end of the week, I think everybody had sort of settled into the idea that here we are in this idyllic place, we get to see all of our friends from the industry. It's going to be cool. Actually, this is all fine. We'll be okay. And I think what has happened in the year since is that we have seen the A.A. Empire or Emperor has maybe fewer clothes than we thought might have at that point. And so it's interesting to see how like the trend cycle starts and then comes to fulfillment a year later at the same time as we strike all of the words from our vocabulary that we can't use anymore after this week because they have been burned to death by overuse. Yeah, enjoying the visual of the A.I. Emperor's Stripokers situation. I can have the drive of the quarters of last year. Yeah, I mean, well, I think it was, I think people just realize ultimately it's like as much as human in the loop is like a catchphrase, we see that this ecosystem runs on relationship and it runs on in person and ultimately we're seeing that the technology is created a lot of things but it's not, it's not great at Rose. Yeah, well, speaking of humans too, I feel like last night we were talking about a new theory of yours, about mammals. Ranses mammals. Yeah, this is a great human. I have to give credit to my great friend and the marketer, Drika, Linknacht, who said yesterday she described brands as mammals and what she meant was that they were living organisms that need to be nurtured and taken care of and that they need to be, you know, fed and sustained, you don't just set them off rolling and have them, you know, just exist in perpetuity. Drika is Belgian and so the choice of mammal as the word, not brands are human, not brands. This is what we were talking about last night. It was kind of fascinating because it creates this sort of liminal state in between human and inhuman that brands operate in like a, you know, like a really cute doodle or something. Well, I feel like it was interesting to me and I'm not sure if this is how you were, she meant it, but like that I think so often when we talk about like brands being human, quote unquote, a lot of that is sort of also that like brands need to have a personality, they need to have a PV, they need to have a tone of voice and I feel like it's interesting to think about like making them not necessarily so anthropomorphized, I guess, like treating them as something that is like has needs and is maybe something like a little bit more than unsentient, I guess, but is not a human level. It should not be operating on a human level of like jokes, consciousness, etc. Yeah, I think we've reached the end of the brand jokes thing, you know, I love, I love, I love jokes. I wonder though, I think we, I think we have got, so speaking of this, Foster was showing me a video last night of the drone show that happened out over the, I've got a lot of thoughts. Yeah. So he showed me video of the Pillsbury Doeboy having its stomach poked. Yeah, and then of Two Can Sam snorting a line of stars through its giant feet and you're, and Foster's, you know, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but his rhetorical was, could that be anything else other than a cocaine joke about Two Can Sam at King? And I don't know the answer. I can see how that might have been misinterpreted. I'm sure there's somebody at General, who is Fruit Loops at General Mills brand? Yeah, I think so. I think it's Kellogg's. Yeah, because I know. Yeah, I mean, so the Doeboy is Pillsbury, well, whatever, we're going to find out our brand hierarchy later. Yeah, the pyramid. Well, I actually was walking, went to a dinner last night and walked all the way around where they deploy the drones. Okay, and it looks like it was like 500 Pelican case looking things. Right. And it was, it was like a war. It felt like what I imagine living by a data center or like the straight-of-horn mousse. It was kind of had like a Dennis villain-a-wave backing track sound. And it was like, damn, what is that? And they're like, oh, it's his drones. And then as we were like going back for us, how many are in there? 1500 drones, which is quite impressive. And I was doing some research. It's run by the company that is from Kimball Musk, Elon Musk's brother, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Okay. So they do like sky stories is what it's called. And I was actually quite impressed. You know, for how much people clamor to get into the chain smokers or whatever on the cross set, I was fine seeing the Pillsbury Doeboy get his little tummy tickled. And it was very reactive. It was good. It was entertaining. I had a good time. Fireworks for nerds, we were saying. Yeah, I mean, this, well, okay. You know, the whole drone thing illustrates something interesting about this ecosystem, right? And the Quasette and this whole over-the-top branding of everything is a testament to the marketing industry's desire to find surface area wherever it can to brand into market. But the interesting thing about the drone thing is that obviously that is new surface area that is, you know, as yet unsaturated. But it also begs the question, like, where is the logical end of like this is gonna be a little bit of a left turn to despair with me but the Ukraine war has deployed millions of drones so 1500 makes a cool Pillsbury doboy right a thousand times as many drones could just cover the whole sky and then you could have the villain new wave movie dark plane dark can't wow dark can I like where we're going this is feels like an innovation for 2027 yeah can 2036 listen there's probably a lot of money hidden on those yachts off the cross set I don't think it's hidden I think it's on display you think it's very clear I think it's on display yeah well this is also a little bit of a left turn but I'm sure you saw the Allison Kruger piece in airmail did you see this I did which tell me about it so it was basically talking about how it's like move over can film festival like can lion's oh yeah yeah sorry yes I guess I get and I'm curious what your take on that is because like I'm not I haven't been to can film festival I've like no sense of that whatsoever but like in terms of can lions emerging as a cultural force like as someone who's been here for longer like does it feel like it has a different level of influence beyond marketing than it did prior yeah I mean I think that's I think the jury no pun intended is still out on that the thing that is interesting though about it is that it presupposes that media is creators and where you have seen the pipeline a la backrooms and obsession and iron lung from creator to mainstream Hollywood communication or box office success or whatever I think you could you can make the argument that this is the place that all of those people come from partially because they're shut out of that by virtue of budget or of access or just simple hierarchy but also because I don't think young people this is something we talk on a hit per place when all the time it like are bound by the strictures of previous generations decisions around whether advertising can be art whether art can be advertising so on and so forth I think they just come in and they go look I make stuff let's figure out where the stuff can go live let's figure out how to extend the stuff into the future so I buy the argument I but I think that's more an indictment of the can film festival and the existing entertainment system then it is a endorsement of this whole situation yeah that makes sense I mean I think we were talking about it too because we went to the the talk at UTA yesterday with the the CEO of Mr. Beast Industries and Sarah Fisher did you hear about this I did not no big big fan of Sarah Fisher shout out not a big fan of Mr. Beast the cleaners and I would say she is ridiculous I mean that is a compliment yeah it's like like a GPT coming back at you I know I know I know you want to know what's interesting about Sarah just as a quick aside because I want to hear about the talk yeah Sarah started on the sales side interesting I didn't know that yeah Sarah was a commercial person first and then she became a reporter afterwards and part of she and I've talked a little bit about this I don't want to put words in her mouth but part of what makes her a great reporter is that she understands incentive and so she looks for incentive and she also is not afraid of being told no and so yeah there's a level of perseverance that gets built into you when you're when you sit on that side for a while and so anyway I just think I'm long Sarah usually and then we can get back to the actual panel usually why the ones that she does hear a great is because she actually asks like real questions and pushes on that's what I mean yeah yeah which should be like a baseline well you know a lot of things should be a baseline but yeah I mean I think the conversation yesterday was revolving a lot around like what's next for Mr. Beast like I think he hit what like 70 million like some ridiculous number of subscribers it was like 500 million he's like going Gangnam style yeah he's got like a ridiculous amount and they were talking about you know like the theme park and re-aad and the movie and apparently as like the biggest studio in North America which I also think is an indictment of Hollywood more than yeah well for sure well that or an indictment of American tax incentives because you can build something like that in North Carolina and you know another win for the abundance crowd another win for the Ezra Clients of the world I know well I guess it's just like I think and going back to the can film festival to like Jordan Firstman his movie like performed really well at can film and then like he started out as a creator obviously too and then thinking about Mr. Beast and these people that are like sort of building really interesting things far away from the platforms where they originally started and I feel like that was a big conversation sort of like early not maybe early days of TikTok but like when there was like the TikTok house and like the TikTok shows and like oh I guess this like this talent doesn't really like evolve from one thing into the next like that we're seeing that that isn't necessarily true like of course some people are like more a deaf-doubted than others in terms of like taking their audience into a new place but I wonder if sort of also what's happening with can-to is like creators like what's the urge for them to come here is like it's also perhaps a way of for them to meet people who could help them get out of the sort of content pipe like I I don't really know what's that's not like rather than just searching for the next brand deals like they're trying to get a deal with like a media company or like somebody that's gonna be like oh I love your whatever like I want to make a show with you yeah I mean this is this is a corollary to what I said earlier but it's like I think those young people tend to view opportunity as agnostic of source or pedigree right like opportunity is opportunity there's a young woman who came to breakfast club today who is a designer she called herself a creator designer but she's primarily like literally like a graphic designer I think art director type person who is just here because she's heard it was a good place to meet people so she's just here cruising around socializing she's lovely young woman and it feels like that thing right there was another the other article recently and I forget the source of it but it was about VidCon coming for Hollywood right like the future of Hollywood is VidCon kind of thing and I think it's a similar sort of motivation we I go because I'm gonna encounter opportunity in some way or another opportunity to see somebody that I like or to say thank you to somebody that I have learned from or to get a new job or get a distribution deal or whatever it is so I think that's the way it's being viewed I'm curious to like do you think hand is a good place to meet people because last night you were saying you do one new person oh I was joking about that but I know what I'm saying like do you think it is like the people like you know that it's like friendly social like lasting connections I think it depends on how many rosé's deep you are yeah how much you remember after when that's the other thing I've always been good at remembering after you know me too after a mothuzola but the I do think it's a good place to meet people and I because and again this gets to the sort of doom earth feeling that we had at the beginning or that some people had I didn't but some people had it the last year was it is like yeah it's hot yeah panels are often dumb and boring yeah it's a disgusting display of money but on the other hand it's not a bad place to be let's be honest and so and so that's right and so people they let down their guard they are more open to conversation and possibility unless they are highly transactional like sales people who you don't want to hang out with anyway so yeah in some ways the ultimate IRL experience you know I would say so I mean I mean what can't you do was that a pun yeah kind of okay I wasn't going to land or not yeah I mean I don't know the thing that I find interesting is is the oscillations of the the marketplace here sometimes it's up in the hills sometimes it's all on the closet some you know obviously there's a bunch of stuff in and Teebe now I went as far south as I have ever gone to go to your party the other night which was a lovely venue and was kind of a great stroll back and from a vantage point that in 13 years I've never really seen so like things move around but ultimately it is hard to find anything you can't do yeah where do you think like the heat map is this year in terms of like where people are because I noticed just like anecdotally like it feels like there's a lot fewer people in the Palais been then like last year like in the Palais like in the Palais proper like in the building oh well yeah I mean that's a reflection of the fact that this isn't a festival of creativity anymore it's a it's a marketing conference there's also less work right I think there's 8000 less entrances here is that right yeah apparently due to the more rigorous submission standards for data or like metrics and all the whole yeah well did you read about how like last year there are a lot of rewards rewards awards that were rescinded due to you know data that was either manufactured or couldn't be backed up or couldn't be verified there were some case studies that had been previously aired before and so both from like knowledge of our own clients and like others for it it's very very hard interesting okay no I'm expensive so yeah well that's I was that was where my head went was that I think one of the things that that is going to be a well you sort of wonder if at some point we hit a tipping point on the total cost of this thing because obviously you don't have to activate in any particular way to come here and have a productive experience but if you want to go and have an official ticket and you want to stay in an official hotel and you want to travel in some degree of style and comfort like that's a $25,000 $30,000 expense per person at least to be here and so it feels like the festival is going to have to figure out a way to get that under control in somewhere another the problem is that their business incentive is to continue to raise prices and the same goes for submission like this feels like the juice ceases to be worth the squeeze past a certain point of cars do you think that there's a a, a, um, what is that? The film festival, they do the like 15-minute standing ovation. Is there like a similar thing that people do here? We, they're, uh, uh, when I was at vice, Shane got given the fucking man of the festival award or whatever it was one year. And I think there was a standing o for that. I don't think it got anywhere near, you know, eight, 10, 12 minutes. Diveran era. I mean, it, it's that, that is certainly true. But it wasn't, it was no reflection on Shane. It was just that that wasn't, it's not the custom. Yeah. I find that whole thing, you know, obviously, mass of a Tory to the end degree, but I also, okay, fine. When in Rome, if someone wants to clap for me for 15 minutes, you wouldn't find that. I mean, what sort of a dessert point? It's like, it's just a noina stand there. Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. I have to stand there and just be like, well, it gets, it's funny. Actually, speaking of theories, right, the one of the, one of the things that I have been thinking about a lot separately to can. And I said, we talked about this a little bit the other night was it was that I feel like we're starting to get maybe to a new era of understanding around the natural size of brands and businesses that the myth of the scale era, I think, has been exposed. And there are certainly winners that have come through that. But you don't have to look very far to see a bunch of people who thought I have to chase scale for the sake of chasing scale and have lost that bet. It feels like we are starting to get to a place where brand management, directors, executives, so on and so forth are starting to go, hang on a second. How big can we be without changing what we are entirely and selling that idea into a new set of owners or, you know, board members are executive management, that kind of stuff, which I hope is a positive thing because clearly, like, exponential growth doesn't proceed forever. Can't proceed. It's interesting because at the at the beast industry's panel, the, it was I have a CEO or one of the other guys was essentially like, if you're a creator, you're almost a bitch made. If you reach four million subscribers and you stop going and said, the algorithm's going to chew you up and spit you out, you got to keep going. They obviously have a very different theory on culture and virality. And it is about scale. It's about mass. The whole Mr. Beast thing is like one V one million exponential growth, but there does seem to be an interesting contrast. It's like you go to a panel or whatever and it's all about niche and, you know, data, data doesn't allow for interesting creative decisions when that whole behemoth is built on data. It's built on like taking a tweezer to the algorithm, like surgically. I don't know. It's an interesting contract. Well, I mean, look, I think he can ride that rail until it's end at his own peril. But the minute they decide that the algorithm doesn't want to do that anymore, that is the wrong answer. You know what I mean? And we've seen that before, num on many occasions, right? Where somebody at IG or wherever makes a tweaks to the algorithm and somebody's business model disappears overnight. Right. I think human nature is a big driver of why we consume. I don't think human nature is monolithic. And I don't think that what, you know, has worked to get them to this point is going to be the thing that makes the next person work, right? Doesn't mean that they have to change, but I just think somebody else will find a way to success that doesn't have to do with following that advice. Yeah. Well, Ben, as much as I'd love to do a Sarah Fisher style close out, my brain does not work like that. Thank you so much for joining. Of course. Yeah. Or of war. My pleasure. And thank you for having me. And we'll see you all next time on here for placement. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for listening to this episode from the side projects podcast. Our show is produced by Jamila Jalow and it hosted by me, Clara Malley, Eli Williams, and Trey Taylor. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and rate us five stars. It helps us reach more people and spread the good word. See you next time.