Cannes Lions Round-Up 2019: A week of thoughtful content around getting the future right

Each year, the advertising and marketing industry heads to the South of France to celebrate creativity. We were excited to return to this incredible venue with a number of Vox Media leaders from Concert, Epic, Eater and Vox Creative to share our thoughts on how Vox Media is Getting the Future Right. Through three curated events and a dozen speaking engagements, we were thrilled to be back to discuss Epic’s signature service of story hunting, growing capabilities on our premium ad marketplace, Concert and the importance of brand purpose in creating a legacy for marketers from Vox Creative.

We kicked off the week with a Monday night dinner hosted by our team at Villa Domergue featuring a conversation with Joshua Davis of Epic and Linda Boff, CMO of General Electric. Industry leaders from Hulu, Snap, Inc., IBM, SoulCycle, NBCU, Neuehouse and Twitter heard about the future of branded content, Epic’s work with GE, and the boots-on-the-ground approach of story hunting that sent the Epic team as far as Lebanon to tell the stories of five employees whose backgrounds and passions shape their approach to work at GE.

Grid View

• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media
• Alban Pichon, BOOPER SAS for Vox Media

We also announced our Story Hunting contest, where any marketer can enter to win a story hunt from Epic -- a chance to find the true voice behind your brand. (Deadline is July 1 ~ enter soon!)

The dinner kicked off a week of thoughtful conversations with leaders from across the industry, in between meeting stops at restaurants recommended to us from Eater’s guide to Cannes.

Vox Media’s Vanessa Fontanez, VP of Experiential Marketing, Renee Appelle, SVP of Global Partnerships & Strategy, Jess Carei, Executive Director of Brand Strategy, Courtney Glaze, VP of Revenue Operations, Heather Pieske, Executive Creative Director, Amanda Kludt, Editor-in-Chief of Eater and Peyton McCarthy, Communications Director hosted a special edition of “The Deep End” with our Refresh + Recharge event, inviting successful female leaders to escape from the Palais and Croisette for an intimate afternoon and conversation about the industry. We asked attendees to share what was most top of mind before the event in order to curate a thoughtful discussion. Many thanks to our partners Heretic Parfum, Boy Smells, Drunk Elephant and Slow North.

In partnership with Dentsu Aegis, we hosted our ‘Good Vibrations’ lunch at La Guérite in Ile Sainte Marguerite. An intimate group of 25 industry leaders joined Joshua Davis, co-founder of Epic, Amanda Kludt, Editor-in-Chief of Eater, and Vox Media and Dentsu Aegis executives for a seaside feast and lively conversation covering topics from the creative festival to getting the future of media right and Eater Travel to the importance of partnerships.

Joshua Davis, Co-Founder of Epic, sat on a panel in conversation with Verizon Media, the AdCouncil, P&G and Lydia Polgreen of the Huffington Post to discuss the building blocks of social change. The group dove into how brands can impact the next generation through empathy and storytelling, to which Joshua shared “It’s one thing to talk about your values. It’s another to go out and find people living it.”

Eater Editor-in-Chief, Amanda Kludt went abroad FCB’s yacht for a lunchtime sail with marketing leaders across the industry to speak to her role and new areas of expansion for the Eater network, including Eater Young Guns, built to showcase the up and comers who make the food and restaurant world worth obsessing over. The power of the Eater Young Gun content has extended to launching the first-ever Young Guns Summit sponsored by Grey Goose, taking place July 27 in Brooklyn.

Chief Revenue Officer, Ryan Pauley joined a panel hosted by Citi and moderated by Adweek discussing the current and future state of data across brands, publishers and advertisers with leaders from Nielson, NBCUniversal and Kraft Heinz.

SVP, Commerce and Content, Armando Turco attended the Goals House, hosted by the SDG Media Zone for a panel with Twitter, Edelman and Kindred, to discuss culture as a currency change, exploring how storytelling can affect positive change. Later in the week, Armando also moderated a panel on the Brand Innovators with members of advertising agency Deutsch’s creative and strategy team and client Derek Dabrowski, Vice President of Brand, Content and Digital Marketing, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) to learn more about the agency’s work for the Diet Dr. Pepper brand.

Executive Creative Director, Heather Pieske and SVP, Commerce and Content, Armando Turco joined FCB on the agency’s yacht for an Inspiration Session around imposters in the workplace and the belief that sometimes a career can, and should be, be a jungle gym rather than a ladder.

VP of Programmatic Advertising, AJ Frucci joined a round-table hosted by The Drum with executives from Nars Cosmetics, ABinBev, Intel to discuss how artificial intelligence is raising the bar in creativity and how Concert — Vox Media’s premium advertising marketplace — leverages creative intelligence to improve the user experience.

Thanks to everyone who attended our events and joined in on the conversations throughout the week!