I cover creators at Like & Subscribe, a standalone Ankler Media newsletter, and I’m on the ground at Cannes Lions this week. I covered all of Ankler Media’s conversations and convenings at Cannes Lions, listed 14 must-meet power players at the fest. I’m natalie@theankler.com
Wheels up! The extreme temperatures here in France haven’t let up quite yet, but it’s time for me to say au revoir to another Cannes Lions. This year’s International Festival of Creativity felt particularly frenzied, with panels and meetings and invite-only dinners and concerts and comedy shows crushing into every moment of the day. (Keep reading for my recap of Ankler CEO Janice Min’s Thursday morning conversation with YouTube chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe and comedian Brittany Broski, where Netflix’s comments about YouTube and the streamer’s attempts to swipe its podcasters were front of mind, CAA’s big debut, Ankler contributor Claire Atkinson’s sit-down with People Inc.’s Neil Vogel, and full videos of some of our other great Cannes conversations this week.)
Yes, the brands behind these events very much wanted to make it known that they were to thank for the Tiësto performance and the free sunglasses. But if you somehow still believe that Lions is just a tacky showcase for a bunch of corporate sellouts, you’re willfully missing the point.
Very real business is getting done at Lions, which has become the nexus for the decision makers pulling the purse strings of some of the most important companies in the world across entertainment, media, creators and advertising. It’s hard to argue that an event that draws Eddy Cue, Oprah Winfrey, Mel Robbins, Kevin Durant, Greg Peters and CMOs from Unilever, Walmart, Mastercard and other blue-chip brands isn’t as culturally defining as a film festival where the biggest acquisition was a $17 million indie dramedy (helmed by someone who knows his way around a TikTok post).
Even for those coming to the Croisette on a smaller scale, the expensive upfront cost of Lions pays dividends. This year, comedy creator Henry Smith showed up to Cannes with TikTok and will likely leave with a talent agent. I hear reps from multiple competing agencies were courting him throughout the week. It’s also a great place for podcast executives with expiring sales and distribution deals to kickstart their next round of talks, for Hollywood to close out its “postfronts” — with Fox the only Upfronts player to have closed out its inventory before Lions — and for stars of all sizes to cozy up to the brands that will help pay for their next project. Which brings me to…
Oprah Talks, Creators and Marketers Listen
Almost everywhere I went this week in Cannes, people asked me the same question: Did you meet Oprah? The onetime queen of daytime TV became the empress of the Croisette this week, and she charmed a lot of sweaty, harried Lions attendees along the way.
In front of a packed house inside the famed Lumière theater, she revealed to the crowd (including Claire, who reported from the scene) that festival organizers have been inviting her to attend for 14 years. This year, Winfrey finally had a good reason to say yes — an expansive new deal with Amazon for her podcast, book club and the back catalog of the TV show that shot her to global fame.
Winfrey in many ways paved a path for the modern-day creator in how she leveraged the popularity of The Oprah Winfrey Show into a comprehensive personality-driven media empire that grew to include a magazine and a TV network, not to mention a Favorite Things franchise that had brands swooning for her favor. So as she spent much of the week doling out wisdom to creators, people listened. In her onstage remarks at the Palais, this year’s Cannes LionHeart award recipient challenged creators: “Your bigger job here on the planet is to be the best human being you can be, not the best creator, not the best talk show host, not the best podcaster, but how are you evolving into what creation intended for you to be?”
Later, at a Google dinner where Keke Palmer presented Winfrey with a gold YouTube play button to celebrate reaching 1 million subscribers on the streamer, the honoree talked directly with creators. Brittany Broski (whose Thursday conversation with Janice I’ll detail more below) says she nearly blacked out from the experience. “She knew who I was,” she said, adding that she hopes to one day interview the veteran on her own talk show, Royal Court. “I would love to put Oprah in a robe.”
Winfrey wasn’t just in France to entertain; she was also there to do business, hosting more than 30 CMOs for a private closed-door luncheon where I hear she took time to shake hands and have a conversation with every single guest. It can’t have been cheap for Amazon to land a deal with her, but it sounds like it’s already paying off.
Netflix v. YouTube Spills Onto the Croisette
As Winfrey adopts more of the digital creator playbook, many creators have their sights set on becoming the next Oprah. In a conversation with YouTube’s Mary Ellen Coe at Rado Plage on Thursday morning, moderated by Janice, Broski said she didn’t see a lot of space for her voice or vibe in traditional late night, so she set out to make that space for herself on YouTube. “It’s the only place where you have the freedom [to do that],” she said. “You don’t have any red tape.”
Now Broski has her sights set on the Emmys. “There historically was some conversation about, is this real entertainment? Is this quality entertainment? And I think that’s not even a conversation anymore,” said Coe, pointing to the box office success of films Backrooms and Obsession as a sign that talent can be discovered anywhere. “It’s what the audience is most interested in, and they’re defining the quality. This is the future of entertainment.” (Check out Richard Rushfield’s latest for The Ankler, where he lambasts the film world for only just discovering the powers of YouTube.)
Coe called this the year of the filmmaker, but YouTube also continues to dominate living rooms with the largest share of streaming TV consumption, per Nielsen. And that’s put it in Netflix’s sights. A year ago at Cannes, Janice asked YouTube CEO Neal Mohan about comments Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos had made about YouTube being a place for “killing time.” Now, Netflix is going after YouTube’s top talent, commissioning original shows from them and asking them to remove their video podcasts from YouTube as part of new licensing deals.
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“We’ve noticed,” Coe said when asked about Netflix’s flurry of dealmaking. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” (To get Netflix’s side of the story, you can watch full video below of Janice’s conversation with Amy Reinhard, the streamer’s president of advertising.)
Coe said she’s spent a lot of time talking to creators about this. “What they consistently tell us is that YouTube is the home,” she continued, explaining that it’s where they can build audience at scale while also forming direct connections with their fans. “We feel really confident that YouTube plays a special and unique role, and we also know that they run businesses, and if they need opportunity to find additional audiences, we’re very supportive.”
When asked about Sarandos calling YouTube “a farm league” for creators to develop ideas they can then take to Netflix, Coe was quick to quip, “Tell Johnny Harris and Jorge Ramos that,” in a reference to the first YouTubers to win a News & Documentary Emmy.
Broski, who has a crew of about 11 people and operates out of Burbank, Calif., says she doesn’t think about going Hollywood as much as having Hollywood catch up to creators like her. “I choose to upload to YouTube because of the freedom it provides, the connection it provides, but also there’s no barrier to entry. Anyone can click on my video.”
YouTube wants to support creators like Broski without getting in their way, Coe added, because ultimately it’s the audience who is “voting with their viewership.”
WATCH: Janice’s full Q&A with Netflix ad president Amy Reinhard
CAA Was Ready for Its Cannes Closeup
There was a very visible new presence along the Croisette this year, and no, it wasn’t another AI company. It was CAA, the legendary talent agency that before this year was much more likely to be working the Croisette for Cannes Film than at Cannes Lions.
Under the leadership of Brent Weinstein, the veteran creator agent who joined CAA just ahead of Lions last year, the agency made a splashy debut by taking over the highly visible Café Roma, a Cannes institution that sits just across from the Palais, in partnership with Formula 1. The hybrid meeting-event space hosted soirees for clients and friends of the agency, including an invite-only creator dinner and World Cup watch parties that became a hot meeting spot as guests mingled into the wee hours. The space is a physical manifestation of what Weinstein tells me is “the breadth of our expertise and the growing influence our clients have across every corner of the global media and marketing ecosystem.”
The CAA presence on the ground in Cannes — agents from across multiple divisions, including creators, sports, entertainment partnerships, endorsements and CAA Community & Impact — was a notable shift for the conference, which rival UTA long had largely to itself. The agency’s clients — among them Oprah, Seth Meyers, Chris Paul, Hoda Kotb, the Stokes Twins and Airrack — were also all over the fest.
It was a big statement for CAA, which began the week with a lengthy feature in the New York Times about the powerful agency’s recent emphasis on its creator business and ended with one of its clients, Dhar Mann, gracing the cover of Forbes’ list of Top Creators.
With CAA and UTA branding taking over the fest, it’s hard not to wonder: When will WME join the fray?
People CEO: ‘Print Magazines Are the Vinyl Records of the Media Story’
Amid conversations up and down the Croisette about how AI is disrupting media and reshaping the ad wars, there’s one media mogul who, while shaping his company around a digital-first strategy, sees fresh signs of life in paper and ink.
Neil Vogel, the CEO of Barry Diller’s digital and print publishing behemoth — recently rebranded as People Inc. — played host to a ton of parties this week, including a Wednesday night bash co-hosted by Eva Longoria and People president Leah Wyar, in a villa a 10-minute walk outside of central Cannes. The company has restructured to no longer have an editor-in-chief sitting atop multiple brand extensions, but rather, for each social media player, there’s a dedicated People Inc. team that understands what connects and builds content natively for that platform. But even though People Inc. is one of the biggest creators of new content on the web, Vogel says print magazines are coming back into fashion.
“At the time of the acquisition of Meredith, we printed 700 million magazine copies across 14 weekly and monthly magazines,” said Vogel, who was named CEO of the business (fka IAC) last year after Diller kicked himself upstairs to executive chairman. “This past year we printed 250 million across seven titles. The difference is now all of our titles are profitable, and a few of our titles are even growing in print circulation. Beautiful print magazines are the vinyl records of the media story — a great expression of brands with a dedicated fanbase.”
Did he and Diller take a look at Vox Media’s New York magazine? Sure, but James Murdoch came in with a $300 million bid for most of the Vox Media assets. Is Vogel in the market to buy more content businesses? It sure sounds like it. He just bought a food and music festival in Austin called Hot Luck. — Claire Atkinson
FOX & Fandoms, Vice’s TV Push and How Brands Find Their Fit in Film & TV
Finally, before I share what’s been hitting my feed this week during the frenzy of activity here in the South of France, I’ve got full videos for you of some of the lively and memorable conversations Janice and I hosted at the Impact Lounge — I shared some of the highlights in my report on Day 3, but there’s much more to learn here from leading Hollywood and brand execs who are mapping the intersection of traditional entertainment, the creator economy and the booming ad business here at Cannes Lions and beyond.
WATCH: Janice interviews FOX Entertainment CEO Rob Wade and Head of Creators Billy Parks
WATCH: My panel with Vice Studios’ President Amy Powell, head of UTA Next Gen Ziad Ahmed and writer Nate Jones
WATCH: My conversation with MediaPlacement CEO Britt Johnson, Netflix VP Magno Herran and SharkNinja SVP Laura Dyer
You can catch the rest of our videos, including my lively and funny conversation with Summer House and In The City star Lindsay Hubbard and Frances Berwick, the chairman of Bravo & Peacock scripted, in my column next Tuesday.
MrBeast is building a platform to match creators and brands, and he hired a team from creator commerce platform Pietra to help him do it.
Ben Shapiro is in talks for a $100 million investment from Highmount Capital to grow his conservative media business The Daily Wire with an eye toward an IPO, Semafor’s Max Tani scooped.
Cinefile creators will have to wait to see The Odyssey opening weekend like everybody else. Universal is skipping influencer screenings for the highly-anticipated Christopher Nolan film.
Tubi will distribute its lineup of Creatorverse shows — including programming from Keith Lee, Joey Graceffa and Kinigra Deon — on Amazon’s Fire TV platforms.
Even Scott Galloway saw the creator surge at Lions.
