Mark Penn on what clients can learn from Sport Beach

Mark Penn is making Cannes an offer it can’t refuse. Stagwell Sport Beach was arguably the hottest attraction at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last year, and its second iteration is even bigger. The Stagwell chairman-CEO, in fact, likens it to the sequel to “The Godfather,” in that it builds on a successful franchise. Ad Age Small Agency Conference & Awards Join us July 23 & 24 in Boston Learn more here Sport Beach is back in a location 1.5x bigger than its previous space, according to Tom Buontempo, the chief growth officer, head of content of Stagwell agency Team Enterprises. The holding company also doubled its sponsors to around 40, according to Beth Lester Sidhu, Stagwell’s chief brand and communications officer, who helped lead the activation effort. “We have better experiences and better ways to integrate the athletes and our brand partners,” Lester Sidhu said. Some of those experiences include live podcast tapings and additions such as a rock climbing wall sponsored by The North Face and a Zillow-sponsored space by the beach with its own programming. During the week, around 250 interviews and podcasts are set to take place at the two sky-box content studios elevated above the main stage, Buontempo said. Cannes Today—what to watch as the festival begins Other additions include more emphasis on technology, with Stagwell’s Stadium augmented reality company, ARound, having its own space. Code and Theory developed an app for Sport Beach and there are more panels dedicated to tech and business as it relates to sports. Stagwell also added rooms to help facilitate meetings between athletes, brands and agencies throughout the week. There is also a “Ball Wall” where Stagwell agencies each put up a basketball they decorated, along with a QR code that links to an experience. Ad Age caught up with Penn at the packed Sport Beach. Asked what he planned to discuss at the Palais on the festival’s first day, Penn said he planned to say that the industry shouldn’t worry about AI. “When you look at the industry, it has always flourished with new technologies, not the opposite,” Penn said. “It’s not that the tech industry is going to wipe out the marketing industry, it’s that the tech industry needs the marketing industry to survive. It’s tech companies, not marketing companies, that keep going out of business.” This interview has been lightly edited. Why was it important for Stagwell’s Sport Beach to come back in a new and bigger space? We are the challenger network. We’re coming on strong. I think that when you look at where Stagwell has come from eight years ago to [having] a substantial presence in the industry, this plants a flag that says Stagwell is as good at marketing itself as it is at marketing for clients. I don’t think we wanted it to be a one-year wonder … I liken this to “The Godfather,” meaning that when the Godfather movie came out, people said you could never top that, and then “The Godfather Part II” was even better. How many clients are you expecting to attend this year? There are 5,200 people signed up [for Sport Beach]. There are probably about 150 to 200 clients. What does something like this cost? What I can say is about 75% of the costs are defrayed from sponsorships. There are out-of-pocket [costs]. Particularly the [Stagwell] agencies have a bigger presence here than they would otherwise have. When I started [as CEO and chairman], the company was smaller and an agency might have a little dinner, but now they have larger clients and bigger events. It’s an important lesson for brands, who I find jump from campaign to campaign. If you think about marketing, you build the platform. I used to say, when I was at Microsoft, “I don’t make ads, I make platforms.” Sport Beach is a platform and [we’ll see] how it evolves and what it becomes. Does it become a brand by itself? Does it go more online than offline? Does it go to other events? The most important thing about doing Sport Beach II is that it’s also a message to clients: When you do your campaigns, don’t be so quick to change them. Let the message build and let it grow. Do you think the conversation around AI will change this year at the festival? Hopefully, it’ll get a little bit more sophisticated … part of what I warn in my speech is don’t over-hype what AI can do. Technology has eliminated toll collectors and elevator operators and maybe storyboard makers, but it hasn’t really eliminated frontline creativity. [Companies] are building the chips and making the clouds, but the applications are really taking a longer period of time to make. So I wouldn’t expect a huge amount of difference. There will be a big difference in the conversation, probably another year from now. What was your reaction to Publicis’ AI video released ahead of Cannes? I didn’t see it. They used images and videos of high-level executives in a surprise video. [Chuckles]. They didn’t use me, I feel left out. Any advice for brands as the election nears and political advertising is upon us? Brands should expect that in the swing states, if you haven’t bought the media now, forget about it. And if you have bought the media, consider selling that for profit. Why is that? Every square inch in the swing states will be occupied by campaigns, so it’s going to have an interesting ripple effect. I believe that brands should not worry about safety; that’s been an over-hyped notion. They should support democracy and news. They do so by advertising and in those elements. [Rewind: Stagwell and RealClearPolitics team up for the election] Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs There are a lot of conversations about brands being featured on a website promoting a candidate that they don’t support. Is that an issue for a brand? No, it’s not really. If a company made it a point of only advertising for a particular candidate, then that’s quite different from saying “We advertise across the spectrum, we support democracy, we support news coverage of campaigns, and if we don’t advertise, then journalists won’t be able to be monetized.” What are you expecting in terms of new business for the rest of the year? We’ve got a lot of big pitches out there. We’ll get to see a lot of those clients here and I think we will show well as an organization. We probably have the biggest stockpile of pitches than we’ve ever had. Are any pitches happening during the festival? It’s not about whether it happens during the festival, it’s about whether people are stopping or not. I find generally, it takes companies a long time to decide these. I have a whole thing on this. Companies, if you think your marketing needs a new provider, you should really do it in 30 to 60 days, why would you spend six or eight months? Maybe some consultants are getting fat on six- or eight-month-long pitches. But what you want to do is decide in maybe 90 days at most would be my view. Companies have to learn to move the process along in a faster way. What are your thoughts on Elon Musk appearing at the festival this week? We’re supporters of the direction that he’s taking X, which is to be a free, open, less biased platform. I think ultimately he is going to be successful in that. So I’m glad he’s coming here and, taking things on directly. The worst thing is to have these platforms thought of as really tilting to one side or the other. I think that he is interrupting that, and planting a flag for free speech. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns

Mark Penn on what clients can learn from Sport Beach

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