Good morning. Today marks our last day of Cannes coverage (until next year). We hope you enjoyed these special editions, and as always, feel free to hit reply and let us know your thoughts.

We’re taking the rest of this week off for a summer break to celebrate the 4th of July. We’ll be back next Monday with our regularly scheduled programming.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

With over 1,400 events happening at Cannes Lions, you’d be forgiven for getting distracted by the countless activations, parties, and brands vying for your attention. But even with all that noise, the clearest pattern we saw across creators, brands, and platforms was the value of simplicity—drilling down an idea to a single concept. 

Here’s how we saw that simplicity come to life →

From brands: Meta released a new style of its AI glasses in collaboration with Kylie Jenner. Instead of flexing all of the tech at once (like Snap, which released its own smart glasses by leaning into a laundry list of features earlier in the week), each Meta promo video focused on one thing the product does well, with Jenner as the centerpiece.

“There are very few billboards left in the world,” Colin said on The Daily Brief, “and Kylie Jenner is one of them.” Meta leaned into the simplicity of individual features and trusted one mega-creator to carry its messaging.

"Getting intentional around your brand—it's exceptionally hard to do something that's simple and cool," Samir said. 

From creators: Simplicity meant distilling thousands of hours of content into one sentence for potential brand partners, representation, or other creators.

“Everyone is meeting so many people, so having a quick one-liner as a brief introduction of what you do is very important,” engineering creator Colt Kirwan told us. “After three failed attempts, I ended up landing on ‘Bob the Builder of NYC,’ as my videos are diving more into the DIY/makers space.”

What success in simplicity looks like: "A mall looks the same wherever you are in the world," Colin said. "We want to make sure this event doesn't turn into a mall—and that what creators make doesn't turn into a mall, looking like everyone else. It's about getting the most minute morsel of what something is and not layering on so many things."

That extends beyond Cannes. A mall is what happens when everyone optimizes for everything. The creators and brands that stood out this week made a different choice—to be one thing, clearly, rather than everything, vaguely.

Creators and ad agencies are no longer operating in separate lanes, and the brands leveraging both are the ones succeeding. 

We spoke with Jack Westerkamp and Geno Schellenberger of Breaking & Entering, who cover ad industry news as creators themselves, about how a new model is taking shape around this creator x agency convergence at Cannes.

What creative agencies bring: The creative agencies making ads are increasingly expanded service offerings, from in-house influencer marketing teams to direct creator relationships to production studios, and you get a new hybrid that sits between traditional agency and creator. Think: shaping briefs that actually work for both sides and protecting creators from the brand's inclination for control. 

"Agencies have a great opportunity to be a really valuable middle liaison—to give creators the space to operate," Westerkamp said.

What creators bring: Trust. Some creator-run ad agencies like Anthpo's Pufferfish are offering creator instinct and strategy under one roof. "New media has disproportionately won attention because it's way more human," Westerkamp said. "You're not speaking to a legacy media company. You're speaking to this person every time."

How brands are leveraging both: Westerkamp and Shellenberg cited Pepsi, Gap, and Pinterest as brands succeeding at incorporating creators and agencies. For example, Gap’s viral Katseye campaign, made by Invisible Dynamics agency, leveraged dance creators and fan accounts to make its choreography go viral. 

But the impact of creators hasn’t made it to the top quite yet: At this year’s awards, Cannes Lions judging panels were stacked with traditional advertising veterans, and creator work was largely missing from the shortlists (though MrBeast’s Sales Force Super Bowl ad did get a nod). The creator x agency collaboration is happening on the ground—the awards just aren't reflecting it yet.

"It's all about the ability to tell really good stories on behalf of brands,” Schellenberg said. “The [media] are definitely changing—but that's absolutely fine, just to get really good stories out through all these different connection points."

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We asked a few of our creator friends, old and new, to share a bit about their experience at the festival. Here’s the rundown →

Everyone came prepped with a different target: Docuseries creator Tejas Hullur came to connect with platforms and distributors (landing meetings with YouTube, TikTok, and Disney), while film creator Kariza Santos told us she benefitted most from the exclusive events with brands she was eyeing.

The hot take? The creator pass might not be worth it. “The best events, connections, and moments were outside of the Lions security gates,” food creator TriggTube told us. “Considering the badge was almost 40% of the cost of the entire trip, the whole trip would have a much larger ROI without it.”

But overall, every creator we talked to said they would come back. 

“I booked my hotel for next year on the train ride home from Nice,” business education creator Lissette Calveiro told us. Her goals for next time? Pre-planning collaborations with other creators and attending more panels for the learning opportunities. “1,000% will return next year, especially knowing what I know now.”