This is the first part of SKMG’s Cannes-edition of its newsletter COMMPRESS, CANNESPRESS, covering the Cannes Lions from La Croisette.
It’s Day 1 at the Palais and we’re yet to experience a session that doesn’t touch on generative AI. From Nick Law’s warning that it will synthesise everything to Chrissy Teigen’s concern that people won’t be able to know what’s real, to Open AI’s CTO Mira Murati chatting us through how the very definition of intelligence is changing. Because when 90% of internet content is predicted to be AI-generated by 2025, how should a person feel?
The gist we’re getting so far is that we should have faith in our own abilities to recognise authentic, real and relatable content. In fact, consumers are demanding it already. The return to real isn’t new, but our standards for authenticity are becoming more sophisticated as gen AI takes hold.
In other news, we’re seeing a shift in searches: less Google and more internet communities (think: Reddit), especially when it comes to seeking reviews. And speaking of authenticity, it can be nuanced: Snoop Dogg’s super stunt for Solo Stoves outraged the comms industry but sold a firestorm of stoves. It wasn’t him genuinely giving up smoking so much as it was a game of smoke and mirrors, and yet, the customers loved it.
Overheard in Cannes
“My therapist says that online time was almost a euphoric time for me. It was so fun, I was so connected, it was the wild west, and my therapist says I’m still chasing that high” – Chrissy Teigen
“They were born in the spotlight and they have a responsibility to be part of it” – Chrissy Teigen again, about why she and John Legend post about their kids so much.
“Make what the customer values valuable to the business” – Accenture Song’s Nick Law on putting the customer first.
“The tribes of performance marketing and brand marketing pull apart like oil and water. But we have vacated the middle, the understanding [of what consumers want]” – Nick Law again.
“Cultural impact can be engineered” – Danny Robinson from The Martin Agency, on Snoop Dogg’s controversial “smokeless” campaign for Solo Stoves.
“A lot of advertising is not creative. It’s written by something much worse than AI: research” – Accenture Song’s David Droga.
“You can’t um or ah and be spectators. You have to get ahead of it” – David Droga on generative AI, which both terrifies and excites him.
“The worst way to build your brand is to try and take market share from someone else. Why? Cause they’ll come at you. They’ll come at you on price, and more, and that’s bad for your market” – Procter & Gamble’s Marc Pritchard.
No quotes from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, one of today’s keynote speakers. There aren’t any because his presentation was a 30-minute sales pitch for Reddit. Clearly no one vetted what he was going to say.
Picks & Recs
Food of the day
Mozzarella bagel, a cookie that, according to Neil [Shoebridge], tasted vaguely of fish and a choke-a-pony-sized chicken baguette.
Determination, Cannes-style
Dragging a heavy steel chair from one end of the boardwalk to the other, in the blazing sun.
Oleanders, everywhere
We’re seeing Cannes’ most ubiquitous flower as a metaphor for the place itself: beautiful, yet poisonous if eaten.
Longest Palais queue
Getting it to hear Chrissy Teigen, John Legend and a lacklustre interviewer whose name fell out of our heads the moment after we heard it. Chrissy nailed it. John phoned it in.
A WTF moment
The person who spent the entire Chrissy Teigen-John Legend session taking selfies. See above: Cannes, poisonous, beautiful.
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