Festival Day 4

I arrived at the festival early and started the morning at FQ (Female Quotient), where I received a bag embroidered with my name and "Cannes in Cannes" on the other side, which I thought was incredibly cool. They also had a Shark Tools/Beauty pop-up with a full glam station offering hairstyling and makeup services. I ended up being able to wait in line to have the Shark team style my hair in a slick back high ponytail with curls.

Talk 1: AI Frontiers Leaders Shaping the Future of Creative Intelligence

This panel featured leaders who are actively shaping the future of AI in marketing and creativity. The key takeaway was that while AI is rapidly transforming the business landscape, it must be used responsibly with ethical guardrails and diverse perspectives to ensure it actually enhances human creativity, rather than replacing it.

Talk 2: Tour of the Work: PR Lions

Next, I headed on a walking tour of the shortlisted and winning PR work from the Lions awards. A jury member led us through the pieces, and it was amazing to hear directly about what made each one stand out and why they chose the winners. The most common themes were being genuine rather than polished, emotional storytelling, and having a real-world impact. You can see my favorite award-winning work in the PR category by checking out the Top Campaigns & Awards section of my blog.

Talk 3: Who's Laughing Now? AXE's Strategic Journey to Reclaim Relevance

This session broke down how AXE found its voice again by getting back to being bold and funny. They stopped trying to be overly serious and leaned into absurd humor in a smart way that appeals to their audience. This is evident in their new campaign, called The Catnip-Scented Fragrance, which is both funny and weird at the same time.

Talk 4: Future Gazers: Gen Z and Surveillance, Future of Friendship, Disabled by Design

This session was packed with a lot of information, but it was also super insightful. Raven Baker explained how Gen Z has normalized surveillance by live-streaming every part of their lives. It's a risky but strategic move, because visibility equals opportunity.

Cat Wells discussed how many everyday tools, such as texting or potato peelers, originally started as accessibility aids, and how designing for disabled communities ultimately benefits everyone.

Ahmed El Ghandour ended by breaking down how screen time is making people lonelier, even though we're more connected than ever.

Overall, this talk was very insightful and left me with the key takeaways that real innovation and connection come from inclusion, not perfection.

Talk 5: Workshop: Creative Assassin – Turn a Killer Pitch into Child's Play

Easily one of my favorite sessions in all of Cannes. We used Play-Doh, stress balls, and various children's toys to tap into our creativity. The whole idea was to get out of your head and play. We intentionally pitched "bad" campaign ideas and then had to transform them into something good. It was chaotic in the best way and actually helped me think differently about how to approach pitching.

I ended the day by going to happy hour at the different tents and celebrating the week with my classmates as we closed out the day and headed into our last day at the festival.