The Cannes paradox, Pinterest's first product, Jony Ive redacted and the latest brand news
Issue #62
Weekly Exhale
I’ve never been to Cannes. For over two decades, I’ve been the insider watching it from the outside. No surprise, the reasons for the event have gotten a little blurred during that time. It draws its strength from the frames-per-second days: cinematic scale, palm trees, the panache of French words, and lots of well-lit stages. But those attending with true advertising roots are now a rarity. Sure, the tech platforms turn up in force to woo creators and court global brands. But beyond that, it’s hard to find anyone entirely sure why they’re there at all.
The data spills the rosé: Cannes Lions peaked in 2016 with 43,101. This year? Just 26,900, a 40% drop in under a decade. And yet revenues have soared past $100 million, up by the same percentage in just five years. Interest in being there is growing. Interest in picking up a gong? Not so much.
So, people aren’t going to win. Nor, it seems, to unlock some bold new vision. The panels all circle the same themes; it’s performative, there’s nothing fresh or radical. Even the Creative Company of the year, WPP, is minus a future CEO right now.
But Cannes is still a signal that you matter. Everyone who’s anyone. The last advertising event with linen tablecloths and maître d’s who’ll remember your name. Even if mixing work with prestige locations and late-night parties carries a faint note of guilt. Friday night used to be the big one. These days, from what I can tell, most people spend it in the airport, nursing a flat white, waiting for delayed flights home.
For sure, the spectacle is something to behold. Thousands of flashing drones above the Croisette are, by all accounts, beautiful. But this year, those flying machines must have felt more ominous. The next wave of technology ready to take the beaches is here.
Perhaps that’s why, down on the ground, people seemed softer than usual with each other. A long-lost lunch. The serendipitous chats. A chance to reconnect with old friends, former clients, or just a former version of yourself. The one thing everyone seems to agree on, kissed with five days of sunshine, in a setting fit for royalty, is that “it really is all about the people”.
And that’s not nothing.
But, net, Cannes is a modern paradox. It’s purpose makes less and less sense, even as more and more people keep showing up. No-one seems to be able to articulate a new reason for Cannes, tongue-tied by former glories.
This kind of paradox doesn’t end at advertising festivals. Adam Curtis’s latest release, Shifty, stitches together 25 years of television archive into something that feels like a therapeutic dose of psychedelics. The viewer gets to step outside the storyline they are in, and look back in.
It begins with a feeling you’ll recognise: few things make sense, the people in charge seem to have lost direction, and everyone’s bracing for a future they can’t quite picture.
Curtis notes that as self-expression became the ultimate social goal (brands followed suit), people lost their footing. Consciously, or not, we stopped imagining and started referencing. The past became our only source material.
“All the culture of the past is sort of coming in towards us,” Curtis says, “like a station, piling up and piling up and blocking the future”.
In one sequence, we’re reminded how stuck committees got over what should go inside the Millennium Dome. Intended as a national symbol of creativity and renewal, everyone is confused about what the future should look like. One clip shows ministers getting excited about a display featuring...toad in the hole.
We know how it ends: A £789 million project, sold for £1 in 2001. By 2005, it was the O2 Arena, one of the world’s busiest music venues, propped up by acts who peaked decades ago. Elton. The Stones. The Spice Girls.
In that light, AI doesn’t look like a beginning. It looks like an ending. Trained on the vectorised embeddings of all prior human existence, it’s a super-server performing quintillions of calculations drawn entirely from the past.
Meanwhile, our yearning for a true horizon has never been stronger.
That’s the real story behind Cannes’s rising revenues. The gap between what we crave and what we settle for grows wider with every conference pass.
It was a nervous night in a budget room, in the kind of hotel that didn’t match anything I’d been told about ad people. No rooftop bar. No room service. Just me, my panic, and a set of polyester sheets.
This was the second round of interviews for a graduate job in advertising. Get in, and you’re set. Not just paying rent, but on the red carpet to the best party business can offer.
We’d made it down from 2,512 applicants to 41 hopefuls. Only 4 jobs. The final round began the evening before with a formal dinner in W1. Everyone was cooler than me. Smarter. Effortless in a way I wasn’t.
At 10 p.m., just as dessert was cleared, the firm sprang a surprise task. We’d be pitching an ad at 8 a.m. the next morning. We could stay at the table, have another glass of wine, and “wing it”—the way the real world worked, they said—or head back to prep.
I split the difference. A mistake. I didn’t stay long enough to enjoy the night out, but long enough to overhear one of the execs, loose from the bar, whisper a comment about me to a colleague: I’d need a “step change in energy” if I were to stand a chance.
Eeeeeeesh. Back in my room, I spiralled. I called my mom. She did what moms do, tried to steady me, reminded me there would be other chances. But I couldn’t see beyond this one. And it was looking doomed.
By 3 a.m., I had one idea. The problem was that it was too risky. A little theatre, involving the help of someone from the audience. But they all wanted the same thing I did. No one was there to help.
The next morning, I shared a cab with a guy way taller than me, six-five, calm energy, MBA student. I didn’t know yet, but this man would become one of the greatest friends of my life.
We got to the fifth floor of the firm’s gleaming offices. I was called up. Time to pitch a car ad. With no other option, I was forced to go with the risky idea. Someone would need to act out driving a car and mime it live. I scanned the room. It was a complete blur.
Front row, I locked on tall guy. “Sure,” he said. He stood up. Played along. And just like that, we were a double act.
The pitch landed. Big.
Later that day, we were—hilariously—tasked with imagining what should go inside the Millennium Dome.
Anyway, we were told we’d hear back soon. Don’t call us. We’ll call you. We all drifted across the road to a pub. Relief and adrenaline spilt into our pints and farewells. I said goodbye to tall guy—Ben.
“Hope you get it, man.”
“You too.”
We both smiled.
I hadn’t gotten as far as the station when the call came. I was in. I called Mum. She cried. A door to the future had opened. I’d walked through.
A few days later, I found out Ben hadn’t made it.
It didn’t compute. He’d helped me. He’d put his own chances to one side. How could they not see that? Even now, typing this, I can feel the lump in my throat at the willingness he showed to help me shine.
But the story wasn’t over.
That car ad we pitched? The agency won more of the business. Ben was eventually hired as the fifth person. We grew up together there. Ended up at another company together. He came to my agency’s launch party. We went to each other’s weddings. Still have lunch every month or so, usually at Gloria’s.
And every time I walk away from lunch with Ben, I remember what vision feels like. It’s like lifting each other. Faith in the long game.
He’s working on something new now. I can’t say more, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if, one day, it’s all our hands reaching out for his.
I know we’re struggling to imagine what comes next. But if we can’t yet see the shape of the world we need, then maybe we’re looking in the wrong places. Staring inward at ourselves instead of out to each other. The future doesn’t always arrive as a big idea. Sometimes, it’s just one person standing up and saying: “Sure, I’ll help.”
Ben, thank you, man.
Let's rise together with every issue. ♡
Market Moves
UK retail sales slump deals fresh blow to economy | Wall Street Journal
Bank holds interest rates | BBC
Stagflation on the Fed’s mind | CNBC
Brand Beat
CMOs vow AI platforms will have bigger Cannes presence | Digiday
John Wren on Omnicom’s not-so-original vision for the future | Campaign
As Sir Martin Sorrell is irked by journalists over Omnicom-IPG | The Drum
Five marketing truths Cannes insiders won’t tell you | Adweek
Do brands need a dedicated effectiveness department? | MarketingWeek
Pride month marks the end of rainbow capitalism | The New York Times
Too late for Mighty, but plant-based foods are bouncing back | The Grocery
‘Heart and soul of FedEx’, Fred Smith dies at 80 | The New York Times
Pinterest launches first-ever co-branded product with Emma Chamberlain | Pinterest
Sky, ITV, Channel 4 unite to challenge big tech ad dominance | The Guardian
Why brand desirability is the key to longevity | Financial Times
Donald Glover transports Moncler to a dreamlike Gilga Farm world | It’s Nice That
Hermès holds live murder mystery event | Outsider
Reese Weatherspoon is a branding genius | More About Advertising
Prada’s CEO Gianfranco D’Attis to step down | Vogue Business
Skims outlines plan to dominate global markets | Business of Fashion
Louis Vuitton’s AI yacht formation | X
The Better Brand accused of fraud | Snaxshot
John Lewis poaches M&S marketing director as chief customer officer | The Grocer
Starting Up
Inside Station F: Paris’s incubator for next tech and AI giants | Business Insider
PhysicsX raises €117.3 million to power AI-native manufacturing | EU Startups
Wix acquires solo founder’s six-month-old vibe coder Base44 for $80M | TechCrunch
British Business Bank invests £6.6bn in UK innovation | Startups Magazine
Gwyneth Paltrow-backed $55 million startup CEO goes zero waste | Fortune
Tech Tidbits
OpenAI pulls Jony Ive deal promos under court order | TechCrunch
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy admits AI’s positive impact on white-collar jobs | Business Insider
Zuckerberg leads AI hiring blitz with $100 million packages | The Wall Street Journal
First impressions of Tesla’s live robotaxi service | The Verge
SpaceX Starship explodes in test stand accident | Slashdot
The truth about Zuckerberg’s macho makeover | Financial Times
BBC threatens Perplexity AI | BBC
Venture Vibes
Former OpenAI CTO’s startup valued at $10 billion | fullcontentrss.com
Midyear 2025 VC forecast: accelerating collapse and $30B opportunity | johncowan.io
Recreating the conditions that electrified Sequoia’s hallways | Collab Fund
Merger creates venture £670m powerhouse for the North | Maddyness
Design Driven
Fusing Teenage Engineering design with accessible electric mobility | Wallpaper
The 11-year-old designer dressing Pharrell, A$AP and Elle Fanning | Dazed
Why good taste matters more than ever in the AI era | The Atlantic
Danny Boyle chose iPhones to film 28 Years Later | TechCrunch
Happiness
Could NHS ketamine therapy relieve severe depression? | BBC
Hope outshines happiness | Neuroscience News
6 easy habits from the happiest country on Earth | Stylist
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