CANNES DAILY DIARY: Day 5 with Keri-Ann Stanton

Back to the clubhouse for a reprieve where a Japanese girl has her shoes off and is curled up on the sofa. I squeeze in next to her. Emails and whatsapps. Back to Debussy. Three Jury Presidents talking about tomorrow. One homes in on culture. Perfect soundbites roll off her tongue. Culture is the brief. AI is allowing us to move fast – culture is telling us to slow down. Her orange dress is mesmerising. I admire anyone who can hold a stage. Never mind speaking in tweets. Or X-ers. What do we call it now? I get distracted. AI can create anything, she says. culture creates what never existed. I nod furiously as I hold my phone to my page to make sure my notes are actually making sense. Debatable. I take a shot of her slides as back up. Culture arrives precisely when it needs to. Culture arrives before trends, reports, briefs – it’s the way we respond to change. Culture reveals what matters before it becomes measurable. Culture is not a market to conquer; it is a community to contribute to. Culture is a beacon not a billboard. Delicious. I like her. Statuesque.

Next is a very important global person with a background in reality TV who urges us to lean into maker culture and real-time solutions just like she had to in production meetings after the ratings came in. Oh honey, I think, you should see what PR people have to deal with in real-time. Reminds me to scroll my feed for updates on the national shutdown that may or may not happen, funded by – oops – let me check myself here. A very important client launch next week now looks tenuous. Back to the Jury President who is now speaking about the importance of culture and her time at Mother where the suits had to introduce themselves as mothers. I find this very amusing. I think I have heatstroke though. Another Jury President laments the lack of apprenticeship and mentorship in the industry, said we need sous chefs to work under chefs. Find mentors, be mentors, he says.

I don’t relate – I think South Africa is really good at this. Each one, teach one is a mantra I live by. And being teachable is good hiring criteria. There I go again. Let me quickly check whatsapps, mails, DM’s and yup, there is still a very persistent salesperson on LinkedIn that is convinced we need to meet on this last day in Cannes because I am the key to unlocking his sales targets. Am I going to rally myself for the upcoming 90min talk, the cheat sheet wrap up of the week that the Lions team is trialling. Reader, for you I killa da bull. They split the time across an editor’s team and another jury president team but it’s an impossible ask. It’s not a wrap up of the week. I’m not going to even try to capture it here. Because I’m either going to sound extremely clever or extremely confused. It’s a fine line in this jargon game I tell ya. Also there is an annoying man somewhere in our row that is having a loud conversation at key moments, and it is making me murderous. These are the things that made sense to me, the rest leaked out of my brain. A full screen of how many times humanity was mentioned in talks this year and how judges explicitly awarded it. Two audience problems – machine readable and humans – a really big emerging space that will affect how we build campaigns. Resonance not reach – with the nuance being that technology has democratised reach to consumers. Twitch and Reddit CEOs: community is what keeps people on our platforms, social is actually anti-social now.