Cannes Lions is the advertising industry’s most prestigious festival, bringing together creatives, marketers, and business leaders from around the world for a week of awards, talks, and networking. But Lions is so much more than a world-class networking event for the advertising world, and way more than social media can make it out to be. No images will capture it.
If you are considering going, the real question isn’t whether it’s worth the $5-10k investment—it’s whether you understand what you’re actually signing up for.
Table of Contents
Real-Time Think Tank
What sets Cannes apart is that the event is more a “real-time think tank” than a conference where you are saying hi and just hoping for the best that you’re talking to someone to help you with your business.
This isn’t your typical industry gathering where you exchange business cards and pray something sticks.
Present Moment
Part of what makes this work is that everyone is in the present moment. It’s the south of France in June. Immaculate vibes.
The setting itself forces you out of your usual conference mindset and into something more genuine and spontaneous.
Serendipity Over Strategy
Here’s what surprised me most: the massive ROI for this trip was 5% planning and betting on 95% serendipity, which is unlike the majority of conferences and what makes this one rather unique for the scale it’s at.
This approach flies in the face of traditional conference wisdom, but it’s exactly what makes Cannes Lions so powerful.
Here’s my short list of people I remembered to take selfies with:
- Ruslan Ranjabar
- Bobby Petkovski
- Paul Ben
Here’s the less shorter list of people I forgot to take selfies with because I was too in the moment:
- Patrick Cleary
- Joe Marston
- Jess Cervellon
- Kait Stephens
- Neal Jean
Conclusion
Going to Cannes changed the course of my business and I already look forward to going back next year, and planning better than booking my entire trip the day before it started.
Special thanks to Zack Honarvar for first touch attribution telling me about Cannes Lions Creators Track, and Contra for the best pre-Cannes swag (hat) that I could have asked for so my face did not get sunburned and looking trendy at the same time.
I did some free word of mouth marketing to your ICP for you because of said hat.