Cannes Lions 2022 — Day #3

1- Next Generation of Storytelling / Ryan Reynolds

2- When Women Tell Stories — Amazon / Regina Hall

3- Rise of Virtual Influencers — WGSN

4- Breaking the Barriers and Building Community — Meta /Lupito N’yongo

5- Don’t Choose Extinction — United Nations

Some highlights from the sessions.

1- Ryan Reynolds- Next Generation of StoryTelling

Traits of Ryan’s brands:

• Speed to culture
• Humour
• Creative work must hero the product
• Perfectionist

After watching an ad, if you are talking about the actor, but not the movie, this doesn’t work.

Everyone is trying make something other than an ad, it is not real and people can feel it. Make it an ad sincerely.

Killer of creativity is too much time & money

Right and light tone of work during heavy times helped our work to shine. Match Ad:

2- When Women Tell Stories — Amazon / Regina Hall

It is not important to be in the room, but important thing is to feel comfortable to speak up in a room.

Feeling valuable enough to express your ideas.

3- Rise of Virtual Influencers — WGSN

The large scale societal shift and change drivers effect society

Macro Trends:

• Digitization
• Environmentalism
• Degrowth
• Equitability
• Diversity
• Changing ideas of wealth and success
• Frugality
• Health
• Decentralisation
• Decoupling

96% of people don’t trust influencers.

While the repetitive nature of content (47%) and declining quality (23%) are now top customer concerns around influencer marketing.

-Fyre festival disaster with influencers. Note: You can watch it on Netflix

As priorities shift, platforms are changing. From instagram to TikTok, be real, pop shop live note: I have never heard any of the platforms other than TikTok, Hello dinasaur! :)

Social media evolution

2010 -> aspiration, (bloggers, celebrities)

2015 -> inspiration (influencers, celebrities)

2020 -> information/entertainment (Creators, influencers, thought leaders → advocates)

Just 9% of Gen Z want to stay on social media. Gen Z is going from influencers to creators

One of the top trends in social media is creator economy

52% of people identify themselves as creators while 32% describe as influencers

Virtual influencers:

What suits your brand in meta world? Personality building for virtual influencers — extend them to different platforms.

Virtual influencers, but real problems? How are you think about

• Ethics and identity — creating people with deepfake
• AI face — very idealized version of beauty. How it effects youngsters?
• Diversity — itskamisworld / Down syndrome , Will / World’s first homeless in Metaverse, Jesse Zhang/ flawed
• Language

Action points:

• Diversity and representation are key
• Reality privilege is increasing
• Go big on backstory
• Influencer is for life

4- Breaking the Barriers and Building Community — Meta /Lupito N’yongo

Many white films fail but we never talk about it. But there was a belief that black movies don’t sell.

Feeling down under success is not something that people feel sorry for.

Writing Sulwe was the result of my childhood wound. I was not happy with the skin I live in. I was not valuable just because of the color my (complextion)

Seeing Alec wec and seeing Oprah says that she is very beautiful was a validation like no other.

Trying to meet the expectations of an unforgiving world is hard for everyone.

Over emphasis of diversity is as uncomfortable as neglect. Just try to normalize it. because I am not spending days thinking about my difference.

5- Don’t Choose Extinction — United Nations

Don’t choose extinction campaign by UNDP

Above water film