The best part of Cannes Lions is in a basement

Some thoughts on my first time at the world's largest advertising and marketing conference.

Hello! I am back in Los Angeles and am sending a rare Friday newsletter. Instead of an interview or essay, I am reflecting on my time in Cannes.

By now, you’ve probably read the headlines from the annual Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity. Creators were everywhere. AI was a popular topic. It was hot. I will not be spending much time talking about those things. Instead, I want to share some thoughts on the festival’s relation to social media and why the highlight for me wasn’t found at a fancy beach party but instead in the basement of a convention center.

---

In partnership with Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity

I want to take a moment to thank the entire Cannes Lions team for selecting me as an ambassador this year! Link in Bio was born out of the idea of wanting to bring more respect and credibility to the work we do in organic social media. Getting the opportunity to also speak on the *official* programming and present work that essentially preaches that to a room full of execs is a career highlight.

---

To start, it’s important to make a distinction. There is the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity and then there is everything that happens around the Cannes Lions International Festival for Creativity.

The festival is anchored by an awards show paired with official programming of panels, presentations, live judging sessions, and more. Everything that happens around the festival is what you’ve probably seen on Instagram. Yacht parties thrown by ad tech companies called Zip Zap or something. Platforms taking over the entire beach to announce new ways for brands to spend more money with them. Drone shows that spell out “AI” in the sky.

Funny enough, the over-the-top effort from companies trying to get brands to advertise with them had somewhat of the opposite effect on me. It made me even more bullish on the creative work we do in organic social media. The algorithms essentially work like targeting right now—serving up content based on your interests. We’re in a moment where you can have 500 followers and still get 1M views. We know that momentum is built through sharing not boosting. Brave ideas break through. There has never been a better time to invest in organic social media.

I was reminded of this during my presentation at the Cannes Lions B2B Summit with Kendall from Ramp, Ari from Air, and Vin from Creatorbuzz. My favorite slide from Kendall read, “My job is to look for opportunities where creative can provide us with asymmetric upsides. The alpha in doing something weird, wild, and/or creative is that people will share it for free.” She certainly proved that with Ramp’s big stunt with Brian Baumgartner where he processed receipts for over six hours from a livestreamed glass box in the middle of NYC. She shared on the stage that it got 214M views, 4x ROAS, and ~$0 CPM. Kendall’s final point in the presentation was, “You can’t compete with a brand that’s having fun.”

I also loved getting to talk social during the in-between moments of my time in Cannes. I got coffee with Link in Bio reader Candice Beck who is the VP of Brand Engagement at Starbucks. She told me about the brand’s new employee-generated content program with TikTok. They are the first company to pilot a custom Creator Network within TikTok’s Content Suite where they can share briefs and compensate creators through ad revenue sharing. I caught up with Sarah Whittle about going independent during a Yahoo dinner hosted by Emily Sundberg. Mo Said from Mojo Supermarket told me about the agency’s docu-style work with Burger King. The prophecy was fulfilled and I finally met Gary Vaynerchuk. I even happened to fly back to LA next to Erin on Demand. It’s clear organic social teams want to be at Cannes and I hope to see even more official programming dedicated to that work next year.

For me though, the best part of the festival was in a basement. Every year, shortlisted and winning advertising work is displayed underground in the Palais convention center. I spent hours down there, specifically walking up and down the Social & Creator Lions section.

I learned that Gap’s Better in Denim campaign with KATSEYE led to not only 529K TikTok followers in a month but +22% growth in denim sales. I marveled at the Kit Kat heist results, which included that over 155 other brands joined in and created “free KitKat advertising, amplifying the story globally”. (Yes, the chocolate bars were actually stolen and they were awarded a Grand Prix in the PR category for it.) I smirked at Anthropic including a screenshot of a tweet from Sam Altman in their case study. Apple’s Neo rollout with Lil’ Finder Guy on TikTok? 100% organic, 176M views, and the most searched new Mac in history. Oh, and the creative was all done in-house. This Heineken campaign ended up winning the Grand Prix in Social & Creator.

I get asked all the time for agencies that do good social media work, so during one of my multiple laps around I also took note of the groups behind my favorite case studies. VML South Africa worked on this widely-shared Vaseline campaign. BBDO Chicago worked with M&M’s on one of my favorite social videos. CeraVe’s “The New Face of Legs” spot with Kevin Durant was done by OBB BOLDED. Burger King’s “There's A New King And It's You” campaign, which showed up on social with highly engaged videos of the CEO speaking with customers, was done by BarkleyOKRP. Mischief was behind NPR’s curiosity campaign. I made a folder with some of my favorite case studies here, in case you want to read through them.

It’s really easy to get stuck in the whirlwind happening on the ground level of Cannes. Expensive activations to woo brand leaders. The words “authenticity”, “taste”, and “human” thrown around more times than you can count. Creators buzzing about how much money they are making from AI brand deals. But down in the basement, it’s a bit more quiet. Big ideas displayed like a museum exhibition. Clever insights explained with clarity. Hushed conversations with strangers about why something resonated. It made me excited to get back to work.

---

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoy free essays like this one, you can upgrade to a paid Link in Bio subscription. You’ll get weekly strategy newsletters and quarterly trend reports, along with access to the Discord community.

If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you for making this newsletter possible!

A quick note that I’ll be taking next week off. (I am excited to get back to work, but I need a moment to recalibrate.) I’ll be back with the usual Tuesday newsletter on July 7th.