NFT’s, web 3.0, the metaverse, AI—these are just a few of the buzzwords I’ve heard about the latest trends and technologies over the many years that I’ve attended Cannes. (Believe it or not, “Podcasts” were even the flavor of the year once!)
But last week, I was moved, more than I have ever been before about the need for our advertising community to embrace change and truly leverage the scale of our investments to spark action. Collectively, our industry has the intellectual and financial horsepower to drive the adoption of just about anything new—from technology to new attitudes to behavior change. We just need to be committed to doing it.
Maybe I was motivated because I joined a Silicon Valley start-up this year, NewsBreak, a company with the sole focus of creating a new local- news- and- information ecosystem for consumers, businesses, publishers and advertisers—to reverse the slow death of local news—a purpose I think is worth us all working for. And we’re starting to turn the tide with 15 million daily active users, as we give renewed and greatly amplified voice to thousands of former community journalists.
Or maybe it’s because I heard so many of us last week at Cannes united to drive purpose, to stand for something meaningful—because that’s what our customers are demanding. From the panels to one-to-one conversations about purpose-driven advertising investments, I felt an energy to drive change like never before.
I found myself listening more profoundly, absorbing the words of the experts around me and asking myself questions about how we can accelerate a better future.
How can we reinvest in local news to support our communities?
Something I learned that I didn’t know was that the percentage of advertising dollars going to news has shrunk massively. Of course, brands don’t want to show up around the latest political firestorms or hype, but most news is vital information that people still want and need. And if you don’t want to have mis- or dis-information, you have to support actual news.
My conversations on this topic at Cannes came down to the industry’s inability to manage nuance. If you’re an advertiser, you may not want to be around an article about negative COVID outcomes, but you might want to be next to an article about how to protect your kids from COVID. The question is how can technology help us with nuance, and how can we build a better framework for measuring impact and how this spend is done thoughtfully and responsibly.
I left Cannes thinking about how we can remake what it means to advertise alongside news, and for us in particular, at NewsBreak, alongside local news. How can we create the best platform for advertisers who want to make an impact in a sustainable way, who can help support high- quality local news? And who will be the best partners to work with to make all of this happen? I had the privilege of speaking on a panel regarding Purposeful Ad Investment, and hearing Susan Schiekofer from GroupM describe how organizing their purposeful pillars has provided a great point of reference for me–organized and simplified thoughts make for much easier action.
How can we tap into the power of AI to drive positive transformation and new experiences?
A lot of people talked about the dangers of generative AI—the end of creative jobs, computers taking over. There are always nay-sayers, but I think AI offers us tremendous opportunities across many different areas. The foundation of the advertising business is in developing amazing, impactful, and memorable creative. Regardless of the medium. It’s going to be incumbent upon us all to find the ways to leverage this incredible new tool–which is really all it is–to help us do just that. AI will not be good or bad–it will be both, and we need to learn how to use it effectively.
Ultimately, I feel more passionate than ever about the media business’ future. There are more smart people working in the industry, more companies–big and small–doing incredibly interesting things, and more opportunities to really shape what comes next. Now to the hard part–getting it done. NewsBreak is on a mission to empower every local community in America, and I’m excited to leverage all of the new relationships built at Cannes to make that happen.
