CANNES — The most well liked ticket at Cannes Lions was Stagwell’s Sport Seashore.
For the third straight 12 months, the multi-day sports activities, fandom and advertising and marketing occasion returned to the Cannes Worldwide Competition of Creativity — and, for the primary time, served because the “official sports partner” of the competition from June 16-19.
It was the premier vacation spot for each present and retired skilled athletes, celebrities and executives to satisfy, collaborate and get artistic whereas having fun with scenic views of the French Riviera.
This 12 months’s starry roster featured the likes of Basketball Corridor of Famer Carmelo Anthony, 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, retired skilled soccer participant and Olympic gold medalist Megan Rapinoe, four-time WNBA champion Sue Hen, World Sequence champ Alex Rodriguez and three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade, to call just a few.
Stagwell chairman and CEO Mark Penn has the formulation found out on the subject of marrying sports activities, information and leisure.
“I think when we started three years ago, we were Stagwell — who knew Stagwell?” Penn informed The Put up. “We have been an up-and-coming holding firm that basically no person knew. And we needed to say, properly, ‘How are we going to get ourselves known?’ What are we gonna create?’
“I put it out to the agencies, give us some ideas. And they came up with the idea of Sport Beach, some folks at [full-service creative agency] 72andSunny, and we said ‘yes,’ and best to do in the corporate team, ran it, and the first year it was just a clear success.”
Penn then detailed the trail to constructing on that success.
“I always talk about ‘Godfather’ syndrome. Okay, well, the first one was really path-breaking. The second one was the best. And then you have to worry that the third one went downhill. So, I think we met the challenge, the third is not downhill,” he mentioned.
“… I think in general, too, the economy is better. I think more people are here, more people are in a good mood to go hear about sports. And so I think we aimed for bigger and better, and we got bigger and better.”
Penn’s profession spans 40 years in market analysis, promoting, public relations, polling, and consulting.
He has suggested high world leaders, together with presidents, led firms and written two bestselling books.
A self-described “news junkie,” Penn defined why he was intentional in leaning closely into sport when it got here to launching Stagwell’s Sport Seashore.
“I think the world is made up of news junkies, sports junkies and entertainment junkies,” he mentioned. “I personally am extra of a information junkie. However I’ve to acknowledge that they have been proper, that this was a second for sports activities, as a result of sports activities is a really unifying component in our tradition.
“It doesn’t matter what group you root for, you truly really feel you’ve one thing in widespread with the people who find themselves rooting on the opposite aspect. And also you come collectively, I believe, within the admiration of the winner in sports activities… and plus, it was a really sensible factor.
“The athletes needed to get closer to the brands, because many of the athletes now are saying, ‘You know what, my career is not just the couple of years I can play at the top of my game. But I need a long life in terms of a brand for representing what I’ve done.’ And the brands are super interested in getting close to the athletes, so we also created a marketplace for that.”
One of many many indicators that Stagwell’s Sport Seashore was successful early on was that athletes weren’t simply attending and collaborating in a panel and leaving — they stayed and continued to return again 12 months after 12 months.
Anthony, Hen and Rapinoe have participated in Stagwell’s Sport Seashore since its inception in 2022.
“I think the first year, you’re giving people a promise and it doesn’t exist,” Penn mentioned. “… However the very first thing we thought would occur is [that] the athletes would are available they usually’d be right here for a half hour, and as quickly as their panel was over, they’d reduce out. That is simply not what occurred.
“This is cool. And they hung out, and they got to know us all here at Stagwell, and now it became a regular thing, like this is part of their year, to come show up, so I’m really pleased it worked out that way.”
The world’s high athletes and entrepreneurs basically had belief and believed in Penn, taking a big gamble on the concept he and his group at Stagwell have been presenting.
“It wasn’t that we gave them an unbelievable gross sales job or had million-dollar checks, it actually was that they… got here to get pleasure from it, their brokers mentioned, ‘Hey, this is good for you and your career. Where else are you going to get 50 brands together in a room that you can talk to?’
“So I think all of those things made sense, but I think there was a personal element here where they frankly felt comfortable. And also, where else do they kind of get to meet fellow athletes, really across all of these different sports at the same time, with the same goal of what kind of life are we going to have after sports?”
Penn moderated the “Future of News: Why News Junkies are the Real MVPs” panel on Wednesday, which unpacked the enterprise case for investing in high-quality media environments of stories — a subject that’s near him.
“… So we did a giant research and we positioned the identical advert in all types of various environments and throughout totally different information tales, a sports activities story, an leisure story, a presidential marketing campaign story. We did the identical, okay? All these items in regards to the model security, you wouldn’t need Boeing to have an advert in the midst of the India story. I imply, there are specific issues. However by and huge, it was bunk, proper? And near 40 or 50 %, I believe, of CMOs and corporations don’t promote on information. So, consequently, good journalism just isn’t supported.
“… We need to get CMOs advertising in news, sports, and entertainment based on the results, not on a false sense of brand safety. Otherwise it means, frankly, paywalls have to be higher or there will be fewer journalists and fewer journalistic outlets.”
Penn went on to tease a particular shock on the ultimate day of Stagwell’s Sport Seashore on Thursday.
“Come and be here for the closing,” he mentioned. “We usually say the biggest secret, the most interesting kind of event for the end.”
