Day 4-Wednesday, June 22nd

Wednesday was an incredible day where I felt like some things came full circle for me.

10:00 am: Ryan Reynolds on Next Generation Storytelling

MNTN/Maximum Effort

This talk was lead by Wendy Clark, the Global CEO of Dentsu, and Ryan Reynolds, Actor and Chief Creative Officer of MNTN/Maximum Effort. I've been a huge fan of Ryan Reynolds since my first time seeing him in the movie "Just Friends" as a child, so I was so excited to see him in person. Wendy came out at the beginning and started to say that unfortunately Ryan's flight was unable to make it to Cannes so he won't be joining her today, when all of a sudden he walks out from the other side of the stage (definitely seems like Ryan's style to start off with a joke like that). Ryan discussed the origins of his agency, and explained how it really "became a thing" when he left the set of Deadpool wearing the Deadpool suit and people thought it was a publicity stunt—after that he acquired a gym and needed to market that as well, so thus was born his agency. He based it off of the things that always inspired him and made him laugh his whole life—he said he told himself to remember the things about ads you love, and make your ads like them.

Ryan had a few pieces of advice to leave us with:

-always be kind, don't take yourself too seriously (literally my life motto!)

-the projects with lower budget/time actually end up turning out better because they require more effort from you creatively

-building off of that, always push your limits

-never give up: Deadpool took 10 years to be given a chance and became so successful

-simple=better

-come in prepared knowing that your best ideas are your worst ideas

Overall this talk was really inspiring and I loved getting to see Ryan talk about this kind of thing, since I've only ever seen him interviewed as an actor.

10:30 am: CMOs in the Spotlight: The Lego Group, L'Oréal, Marriott

Deloitte

This discussion was lead by Rebecca Stewart, Europe Brand Editor for Adweek, Julia Goldin, Chief Product and Marketing Officer for the Lego Group, Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer for L'Oreal, and Julius Robinson, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer for Marriott International. This talk was super interesting—we hadn't originally planned to go to it, but wanted to get to the Terrace Stage early for the next one. I'm so glad we ended up attending this one because it was really insightful. I was particularly interested by everything that Asmita from L'Oreal had to say because she focused heavily on the implications of being a woman in the industry, and how even for a beauty brand it can be hard to be taken seriously as a woman when starting out. Julius from Marriott International mostly spoke on the impact of covid-19 on Marriott, since when the pandemic hit they were practically out of business. Julie of Lego mostly discussed the dynamics of marketing a children's toy and making it bigger than that.

11:30 am: Influence 3.0-A New Wave of Influencers Have Entered the Chat

Elite World Group

This talk was given by Shelley Zalis, CEO of The Female Quotient, Emily Pero, Vice President of Marketing for Burberry, Erica Bartman, Co-Ceo of EWG Unlimited, and Alexis Ren, model and Entrepreneur. This talk was definitely one of my favorites all week. I think it really debunked some of the superficialness that some associate with "influencers" and showed the actual creativity that goes into it. We saw videos from EWG and Burberry, both of which were literally so dope. Similar to the NBA video, it inspired me to one day be able to watch something that gives you chills like that and be like "I made that". I was so excited to see Alexis Ren, since I've been a fan of her since I was literally 13 years old. I think she is so interesting because she is one of the first true "influencers"—she shot to fame when she was just 18 around 2013, and immediately gained a massive following which has only grown since then. I think she was kind of the "Blueprint" for a lot of social media influencers we see today. She seemed like such a genuine, sweet person and talked about how the key to not getting lost in the superficialness of social media is always remaining authentic. If you want to brand yourself as an influencer, influence people by being yourself—don't promote a product you don't like just for a money grab, be honest with your audience because it is the best thing you can do in the long run. She compared influencers and their social media accounts to "paid billboard space"—don't advertise something you aren't. I thought everything she had to say was really insightful especially since one of the biggest turn-offs of influencer culture for me is the idea that a lot of it is really superficial and fake. I even got to meet Alexis after and talk with her for a few minutes, which was literally unreal. She was so sweet and radiant and even took down my email because I told her I applied to an artist opportunity she posted a few days before. It was actually unreal having someone my 13 year old self was obsessed with take down my information for a potential job opportunity 8 years later. I really felt like everything had come full circle and was so elated the rest of the day.

1:30 pm: Mastercard's First Ever Album Premiere

Mastercard

This Mastercard talk was given by Raja Rajamannar, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Mastercard. We all hyped up this talk because we looked up Mastercard musical guests from years past and saw that they had people like Pharrell, Gwen Stefani, the Black Eyed Peas, etc., but we were seriously let down hahaha it was still cool though. The album was about each of the senses being a branded Mastercard element—an example being the notches on the credit cards for blind people being translated into a sound, things like that. I did think the campaign they did for those credit cards was beautiful and made a lot of sense. I ended up leaving a few minutes early to make it to the Meta talk, but I heard they had like T-Pain on zoom or something hahaha.