Cannes Today—Musk meets marketers, Marcel explains ‘WoMen’s Football’—plus the Grand Prix winners

Welcome to Day Three of Ad Age’s Cannes Today newsletter. Reading this on our site and want it delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for our Special Report newsletter here. For real-time updates, follow our live blog. And see all our coverage here. Three down, two to go. We’ve passed the mid-week point and Cannes festival goers are either running on adrenaline or counting the hours to their flights home—or their extended European vacations. The biggest award, the Titanium, won’t come till Friday, but plenty of Grand Prix winners have been announced. More on the awards below, as well as what else made news on Day Three. Musk on his F-bomb He skipped last year’s Cannes, but Elon Musk proved to be a major draw this year, as festival-goers lined up more than an hour before his chat with WPP CEO Mark Read at the Palais. The X owner and Tesla CEO last year famously told advertisers who pulled X ads to “go f— yourself.” When Read asked him about the insult on Wedesday Musk pivoted, but only slightly, saying he wants X to be a “free speech” platform, and that he would give up ad dollars in favor of lighter censorship rules. Read more from Ad Age’s Garett Sloane on what Musk told Read as well as what X CEO Linda Yaccarino has been up to at Cannes. Meanwhile, Ad Age’s Brian Bonilla has the scoop on a private meeting Musk and Yaccarino had with senior marketing execs from big-spending brands, including the NFL, L’Oréal, Diageo, Bayer, Adobe, American Eagle, Qualcomm and Target. One person close to the situation said that Musk pleaded his case for brands to return to X. What’s the point? The topic that has dominated Cannes—AI—came up during the Read-Musk chat. Musk was a bit of a downer, suggesting that as the technology takes over more work from humans, “there will have to be a crisis of meaning,” adding “if the AI can do everything you could do, but better, than what is the point of doing things?” Read’s WPP is among the many companies that used Cannes to seek AI headlines, announcing with IBM today a new offering for business-to-business marketers called WPP Open for B2B. It uses AI, as well as a collaboration with LinkedIn, to “help brands better understand buying groups so they can market more effectively and reach target buyers,” according to a press release. Show don’t tell Cannes includes a lot of talking. And more talking. But one of the most heralded Grand Prix-winning campaigns, “WoMen’s Football” from Publicis-owned Marcel for French telecom provider Orange, proves the value of showing over telling, as explained by Ad Age Creativity Editor Tim Nudd in this behind-the-scenes look at the campaign that includes interviews with Marcel leaders. “Rather than preaching about the quality of the women’s game, it shows you that quality—and makes viewers who have questioned it confront their biases,” Nudd writes about the effort, which used deepfake tech to make viewers think they were watching men’s soccer highlights, later revealing it was women making the plays. And the winners are … See every Grand Prix winner awarded so far at our trophy hub. And for the agency scorecard, check out our running tally of U.S. winners. For a video review of Tuesday’s winners, check this out. Below, all the Grand Prix winners announced Wednesday: AI-powered Black Friday campaign for Mercado Libre wins Media Grand Prix Xbox’s ‘The Everyday Tactician’ from McCann London wins its second Grand Prix, in Direct Outdoor ads featuring a 100-year-old grandma’s social media posts win Creative B2B Grand Prix Specsavers’ ‘The Misheard Version’ wins its second Grand Prix, in PR category CeraVe’s Super Bowl teaser push from Ogilvy PR wins Social and Influencer Grand Prix Mastercard’s new digital tool for Ukrainian small businesses in Poland wins Creative Data Grand Prix Celebrity sightings Bono was spotted at Spotify Beach Tuesday night, taking in performances by Benson Boone, Shaboozey, Martin Garrix and Tyla, according to Page Six. Shaboozey was also on stage Monday night at a Brand Innovators party, where US Weekly reported he was spotted taking shots with Brand Innovators CEO and Co-Founder Marc Sternberg while belting out his hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” There were no reports of shots downed at Ad Age’s Lawn Party Wednesday afternoon, where the drink list included a Cannes Girl Mocktail and invitees included marketers from Nike, Mattel, Target, Instacart, Diageo and more as well as plenty of agency execs. We also hosted the winners of Ad Age’s Young Creatives contest—Patricio Gabarró and Marco García, associate creative directors at FCB Newlink in Mexico. Quotable “I don’t know whether to go watch Elon talk or go make something crafty at Pinterest Beach.”—Robert Mayhew, head of new business at Movers+Shakers, on things overheard at Cannes.

Cannes Today—Musk meets marketers, Marcel explains ‘WoMen’s Football’—plus the Grand Prix winners

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