Thursday at the Cannes Lions started for some, as it should on the French Riviera, on the beach. This time at the Meta Beach as the metaverse was again central to a Festival session.
This time it was a session hosted by Meta’s director of marketing for avatars, Monica Chander. The session discussed how identity and representation are converging to create opportunities in the metaverse.
Chander was joined by colleagues from Facebook and Instagram who talked about Meta’s vision on how brands and creators can explore those themes, participating in a more inclusive internet.
Visitors were given the chance to create their own avatar’s in Facebook or Instagram before the session commenced.
David Droga spruiking new company
Australian advertising guru David Droga has been a familiar face at Cannes Lions over the years. In recent times he was representing his agency Droga5. As Cameron Stewart reported in The Australian earlier this year: “In global advertising he is a colossus, having won more Cannes Lions awards than anyone else on the planet.” Stewart also quoted one of his clients who had been with him on a visit to the south of France: “Being in Cannes with David Droga, honestly you would think he was the biggest rock star on the planet.”
Today Droga was participating in his role as CEO and creative chairman of Accenture Song. (Accenture paid a reported US$475 for his agency Droga5 in 2019.)
Accenture recently announced that Accenture Interactive will now go to market as Accenture Song. The move is claimed to “reflect the company’s post-pandemic world-class services that reinvent customer connections, sales, commerce and marketing and business innovation to meet clients’ accelerated demand for business growth through sustained customer relevance at the ever-changing speed of life”. Phew!
The name? “The name Accenture Song conveys an enduring and universal form of human craft, connection, inspiration, technical prowess and experience —unleashing the imagination and ideas of its people to deliver tangible results.”
There are over 40 acquisitions that have been rolled into Accenture Song. However, Droga5 will continue to operate under its own brand name.
Onstage at Cannes to explain the new business, David Droga was joined by Accenture Song colleagues – described as technologists, innovators, engineers, scientists and daydreamers!
• After hosting a session yesterday – Virtual Influencers – WGSN was back with another – Split Personality: The Two Sides of Gen Z.
Hosted by WGSN VP of consumer insight, Andrea Bell, she explained Gen Z makes up 30% of the world’s population, and by 2024 this diverse, ambitious and vocal demographic will be aged from 12 to 27. “It is easy to think of them as the Greta generation, and that everyone in Gen Z will be following a similar path of activism, but the group is much more polarised than we think.”
Kara Swisher interviewing Ted Sarandos from Netflix
Ted Sarandos arrives in Cannes
There always seems to be a lot going on at Netflix. This week was no exception. Ted Sarandos was a guest at Cannes Lions. He spoke in a session with soon-to-depart New York Times columnist and podcaster Kara Swisher.
Back in the US, Netflix’s other CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings was dealing with the layoff of some 300 workers. That happened the same week Reed was on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter as Philanthropist of the Year.
During his time on stage in Cannes, Sarandos confirmed an ad-supported low-cost Netflix subscription would be added at some stage. He also noted there was still room to grow the business as streaming accounts for around 10% of average viewing time. He also defended the broadcast of controversial content on Netflix.
The Festival presented Sarandos with the Cannes Lions’ Entertainment Person of the Year award.
On his way to Cannes, Sarandos spoke to students at Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School on Tuesday night in a conversation moderated by Israeli actress Shira Haas.
Patrick Stewart in Cannes
Trekkie time
There were fewer actors around the Palais on day four, but Patrick Stewart drew a crowd of Trekkies.
As the program explained: Star Trek’s enduring legacy is 55+ years strong due to its commitment to telling stories that champion diversity, inclusion, acceptance and hope for a brighter future.
The sessions featured Alex Kurtzman, the producer and creative architect of the Star Trek franchise, and Sir Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Picard) as they discussed why the Star Trek universe continues to resonate with multigenerational audiences.
Stewart is a powerful brand advocate and he told a moving sorry about a letter from a police officer who experienced all sorts of horrors some days on the job. When that happened he’d watch an episode of Star Trek after work and have his faith in humanity restored.
Megan Thee Stallion found time for a little shopping during her Cannes Lions visit
Megan Thee Stallion and snack food
Another younger pop culture icon appeared later in the day. A late afternoon session was called If You’re Not First, You’re Last with Megan Thee Stallion.
The rapper has a commercial relationship with Pepsico division Frito-Lay. The session heard how the brand, its agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Megan Thee Stallion are evolving and innovating together to sell more snack food. Or in their official Festival-speak, “create a roadmap for the future of brand partnerships”.
See also:
Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity: Day 1 and Ukraine’s fight for freedom
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity: Day 2 starts to heat up
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Day 3: Actors and virtual worlds