Cannes Briefing: The Croisette class of the outpaced

Olympic icon Michael Johnson was spotted over at Dentsu beach. Sir Martin Sorrell held court above the Croisette, delivering his usual readout on the state of the holding companies. Jamie Olivier was grilling. The sun was out, the rosé was cold and everything looked the part.

The Cannes illusion has always been part of the draw. This year, fewer people are pretending it’s enough.

Well before the Palais opened its doors, the mood was already being recalibrated. At an 8 a.m. closed-door session hosted by MediaLink, more than 50 senior marketers gathered to compare notes — not on trends or creativity but on how to lead when the ground keeps shifting. 

“Cannes will always have the backdrop of creativity but this year it’s feeling more practical in so far as senior marketers are here with intention,” said Donna Sharp, MediaLink’s managing director and partner at UTA. 

While people are here to celebrate the work, they’re also here to figure out what’s actually working. 

Call them the Croisette Class of the outpaced: these are the industry’s senior execs — still respected, still relevant but no longer moving at the speed of the culture they helped build. They came up in a system that rewarded consensus and polish. Now they’re speaking in creator shorthand, being confused by AI pitches and trying to reconcile brand platforms with performance dashboards.

What binds them is bandwidth — or rather the lack of it. They’ve spent the last year grappling with platform volatility, the slow erosion of third-party data, fractured consumer attention, heightened regulatory scrutiny, economic headwinds, and a geopolitical environment that now regularly shows up in the marketing brief.

“This isn’t just a creative festival anymore — it’s a commercial one,” said Bruce Biegel, senior managing partner at Winterberry Group.

That’s been true for a while. The signs were there — the platform showcases, chief compliance officers and government affairs execs on the guest lists, and the 30-minute meeting obsession. But this year, the weight of it all feels heavier. It’s as if the soft warnings hardened into reality, from shrinking margins to real job displacement. 

Or as Sorrell bluntly put it plainly during a panel hosted by comms agency Bleustripe’s New Digital Age trade title: Uncertainty rules.”

The macro signals haven’t helped.

Tariffs are back in the headlines. Inflation remains stubborn. Rate cuts are more theoretical than guaranteed. And geopolitical tensions are now baked into marketing briefs.

Rob Torres, svp at Expedia Group, is now expecting those conversations to surface repeatedly this week — sometimes on panels, often over glasses of rosé. 

“Hopefully people focus on what we can do and what’s positive versus what we can’t do and can’t control,” continued Torres. “And that’s hard, depending on who you are and what you know and what you believe, but I think that’s where we just have to focus our time.”

Versions of this conversation played out across the Croisette all day. They likely won’t lead to anything immediate but they do offer a snapshot of how senior marketers are thinking right now. For many, it’s about recalibrating where growth is still possible. North America, South America, parts of Asia and the Middle East where the optimism lies. Europe, increasingly, is being viewed less as a growth engine and more as a place to cut costs. 

And underneath it all, efficiency still dominates. If there’s one throughline this week, it’s that: do more, spend smarter, hedge everything.

“CMOs are saying I want to personalise at scale and do it more efficiently,” said Sorrell.”

Still there’s a case to be made that we’re not at the beginning of something but at the messy beginning. Between the panels on AI, the pre-sunset mixers sponsored by every ad tech vendor under the sun and the poolside debates about creators versus craft, one idea kept resurfacing: maybe this is the start of something new, we just don’t have the language for it yet. 

“I think this year is a year of curiosity, that would have been the word I used to define it,” said Doug Rozen, president of Cadent. “This year, everyone’s here and now everyone’s kind of looking around, making sure that everyone’s kind of in the same spot, and everyone’s wanting more certainty. The one thing I can guarantee is there will not be more certainty.” — Seb Joseph

Out of the gutter, into the velvet rope

Kit Chilvers, co-founder of Gen Z publisher Pubity, was 24 when he first found himself at the Gutter Bar during the Cannes Lions festival. 

“It was a full experience,” he said, recalling a moment a visibility tipsy CEO of a “massive” media agency leaned in for an unusually candid conversation. 

“In the day-to-day, they’re very much in their corporate mindset,” he added. 

But not at Le Petit Majestic — more affectionately known as the Gutter Bar, where the corporate mask comes off somewhere between the third warm beer and the impromptu pitch about “reinventing attention”. Titles blur. Lanways become neckties. The best ideas scribbled into Notes apps at 2am. No one remembers how the night ended, only that it didn’t end early. 

Still, in an industry now trying to trade burnout for balance,  a new wave of attendees is beginning to ask: must we always end up in the gutter? 

Unik Ernest doesn’t think so. 

A certain nightlife curator and Cannes fixer, Ernest has launched a full-fledged alternative: a week-long series of curated, late night events La Fama, a plush bar tucked along the Croisette. His goal is to give Cannes attendees a space that still delivers energy but with better lighting, better sound, and ideally, fewer shoes lost to the sidewalk. 

Every night has its own energy, said Ernest. Monday kicks off with an opening night hosted by Steve Stoute of Translation, and Rashid Jones, former president of MSNBC. Tuesday leans on nostalgia with a 90s hip-hop theme. Wednesday brings Amaphobe — an Afrobears–meets-Amapiano celebration tied to a potential media partnership with Trace and a guest appearance from U.S. radio giant Hot 97. Thursday wraps the week with an open format blowout. 

It’s a bold effort to bottle the spontaneous spirit of the Gutter Bar — minus the stickiness. And it reflects a growing appetite for nightlife in Cannes that’s still social but slightly more selective, more styled, maybe even seated.  

Of course, the Gutter Bar isn’t going anywhere. Around 2am, the gravity of Le Petite Majestic still pulls people back. Someone’s balancing a half-spilled Heineken and a new business lead. Someone else is already barefoot 

But for the first time in a while it might not be the only palace left to go. — Sara Jerde contributed to this report.

— Krystal Scanlon

Digiday Video Studio at the Blockboard Suite

Day one, Cannes 2025 interviews with Samantha Avivi, CMO, Bayer N.A., Jeff Rauch, evp, global commercial marketing, American Express, and Don McGuire, CMO, Qualcomm touched on the importance of marketers’ building trust with consumers, the challenges and opportunities around AI, the rise of sports as marketing’s future and more. Please check back for more interviews throughout the week. — Jim Cooper

Elsewhere from Cannes

• On the second official day of the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Amazon continues its charm offensive on advertisers, announcing a partnership with Disney Advertising that brings its demand-side platform into Disney’s Real-Time Ad Exchange. — Ronan Shields
• Retail media and ad networks are pulling out all the stops at Cannes, but is it enough to woo media buyers? — Kimeko McCoy
• Omnicom partners with Amazon and Meta to build on live content and live shopping. — Michael Bürgi

Overheard

“I never thought I’d be this person.” — woman, jammed into a small elevator with four other people holding a battery-operated fan in front of her, trying to cool down.

“I’m an introverted extrovert. I hate people”

“Creators came here last year to try and go direct to brands and cut deals. It didn’t work. They found out the hard way you need relationships to make those moves.”

“While Google is fighting these antitrust cases it’s not able to focus completely on the business. Amazon, on the other hand, is making moves. They’re who Google should be worried about.”

What to do

10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. at Rotonde Stage, Rotonde
Hear from CMOs including Infosys, Nestlé and American Express.

12:45 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. at Debussy Theatre, The Palais.
Microsoft will speak on the power of AI and the future of creativity.

4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Terrace Stage, The Terrace
A look at the strategy behind Amelia Dimoldenberg’s Chicken Shop Date.

Nightcap

5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Le Studio 5 Rue des Belges
NBCU is hosting a Comcast Family Happy Hour.

9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at Hôtel Martinez rooftop.
FQ Lounge is hosting a nightcap on the rooftop.