Media

Don’t miss the most powerful piece of media produced on the Riviera this week: This profile of Monaco’s hottest hairdresser. — Monaco Residents’ Magazine

Twitter plans to buy unspecified new ad tech to protect advertisers from …. Twitter. — Axios

Sure, Lizzo and Kevin Hart were there, but the real celebrities at the MediaLink/iHeartMedia party last night were IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky and Publicis Chairman and CEO Arthur Sadoun. (We also spotted current WPP CEO Mark Read and his predecessor Martin Sorrell at opposite ends of the event.) — Ad Age

The activist who confronted a Shell executive last year is back, and promises to keep “challenging the creative industries to turn away from fossil fuel clients — and work instead towards a cleaner future.” — DeSmog

A talent agency’s advertising tie-up is paying off at Cannes

THE NEWS

The Entertainer of the Year award at the Cannes Lions festival this year went to the comedian and actor, and brand-friendly entrepreneur, Kevin Hart. The festival’s other ubiquitous celebrity is Alex Cooper, host of the NSFW Call Her Daddy podcast.

It’s not entirely clear how you get the Entertainer of the Year award, or how a hot podcaster winds up in front of all the big spending ad execs. But the two have one thing in common: They’re clients of the United Talent Agency. Eighteen months ago, UTA acquired the ad industry consulting firm MediaLink. And MediaLink, famous for having the ad industry wired, really has Cannes wired.

The firm’s paying customers, including many of the biggest ad spenders in the world, held more than 700 meetings at MediaLink Beach. Clients also have access to the festival’s dominant Tuesday night party at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc (Hart and Cooper in attendance), which is sponsored by another MediaLink partner. The firm seems to get paid by everyone — brands, tech companies, and media companies, one of which pays for the privilege of hosting the party.

“MediaLink is constantly accused of having hands in everybody’s pockets,” its founder, Michael Kassan, reflected in an interview Monday. “We’re proud of that. Because we do it with transparency, and full disclosure. And therefore I don’t think it’s a conflict.”

Or, in the words of a favorite Kassan aphorism: “No conflict, no interest.”

MAX’S VIEW

UTA, one of the three remaining big Hollywood talent agencies, has found itself in a private-equity-fueled race to keep up with CAA, which recently acquired rival ICM, and with Endeavor, Ari Emanuel’s agency-turned-conglomerate which owns everything from the creative agency 160over90 to WWE. (Endeavor also bought, then sold, a share of a top creative agency, Droga5.)

UTA has pushed beyond Hollywood to sign influencers like The D’Amelios, musicians like Post Malone and Lizzo (who performed at the Tuesday night party) and athletes through Rich Paul’s KLUTCH. The $125 million bet on MediaLink is a wager that the convergence between Hollywood talent and advertising — anticipated at least since Michael Ovitz’s CAA won the Coca Cola account in 1990 — is finally being consummated. And here in Cannes, at least, where MediaLink’s power is widely acknowledged — and at times resented — the bet seems to be paying off.

Kassan told Semafor that UTA was partially responsible for the buzzed-about 2023 General Motors Super Bowl ad, bringing GM (a UTA entertainment and culture marketing client), Will Ferrell (a UTA client), and Netflix together for the ad.

For UTA, MediaLink’s connections to CMOs has helped give the talent agency’s clients closer access to high-level executives who can greenlight bigger, more lucrative deals.

“As the creator economy continues to explode, and as brands want to lean more and more into creators and influencers, it gives us a much bigger seat at the table,” UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer said over coffee at Le Majestic on Tuesday. “And because Michael is such a trusted name in that world, the ability to talk to people and the ability for him to talk to our clients about what brands are looking for and how you work with brands — it’s not as transactional of an experience as it is a real relationship build.”

After a decade in which figures from Reese Witherspoon to LeBron James built companies, not just personal brands, in the media business, Zimmer’s clients, like Hart, are increasingly looking to operate as business figures, not just corporate spokespeople.

“What we’re really trying to accomplish is a lot of creating relationships that go beyond the 30-second-spot and the endorsement into real creative partnerships between creative people and brands that really can drive value for both sides,” Zimmer said.

Read Room for Disagreement here.

Steve Babaeko is the founder and CEO of X3M Ideas, a Lagos-based advertising agency that won the first Cannes Lions award for Nigeria.

• 11:30 a.m.: The White Lotus creator Mike White gives a masterclass on storytelling with Ogilvy’s chief creative officer Liz Taylor (Debussy Theatre).
• 1 p.m.: Yanis Varoufakis plays the Financial Times’ climate change game at Palais II.
• 2 p.m.: Our Ben Smith and Puck’s Liz Gough will talk to Brian Morrissey about (gag) “influencer journalism” at KERV Cafe.
• 3:15 p.m.: Lorne Michaels and SNL cast members — who took some spots from NBC Cannes regulars this year — are on the Debussy stage with NBC News’ Willie Geist.
• 5:00 p.m.: Jessica Giles, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan US, interviews Alex Cooper on the Palais II main stage.

Wednesday night is when the big beaches turn into rival clubs courting, well, the GenXers and old millennials who control the ad dollars. Spotify has the Foo Fighters and A$AP Rocky, Yahoo! is counterprogramming with Deadmau5. But if you’re looking for something a little more sedate:

• 12:30 p.m.: Stagwell and Vox are hosting a lunch at La Guérite on Île Sainte-Marguerite with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway ahead of their “Pivot Live” at Cannes.
• 1:00 p.m.: Hearst hosts an “intimate lunch conversation” with actress and podcaster Jameela Jamil and Kenya Hunt, editor-in-chief of ELLE UK.
• Endeavor’s 160over90 is hosting an exclusive rooftop gathering at the JW Marriott.
• 5:30-6:30 p.m.: Gary Vee and billionaire Ayman Hariri discuss the future of the creator economy on the Vayner yacht.

(A friendly reminder that it’s never too late to invite us to your exclusive dinner or drinks.)

Paris Hilton, Trevor Noah, the TikTok influencer Fats Timbo, and Amanda Gorman are all stopping by Kevin Hart’s panel on Wednesday …Candle’s Brent Weinstein abandoning Ben midsentence to talk to Alex Cooper … Embattled Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch’s much-anticipated new yacht not showing up at Cannes after all, apparently after his father — a Cannes skeptic — caught wind of the plans … Kathryn Murdoch, wife of James, turning up for a Politico podcast Wednesday … The Wall Street Journal bracing to give up Journal House on Jetée Albert Edouard to make way for … superyachts, which are currently stuck in Antibes…

Abandon ship: Paris Hilton’s DJ set at the official MediaLink x iHeartMedia dinner after-party was decidedly not hot. Nearly two minutes after taking the stage on the iHeart yacht, Hilton’s music abruptly cut out, leaving guests slightly bewildered and uncomfortable. Hilton was reintroduced several minutes later by an attendee who declared that partygoers were going to see the “greatest set ever,” but the reality star and iHeart podcaster quickly gave up after her team seemed to struggle over how to boost the volume. Hilton blamed technical difficulties and external complaints about the need to turn the music down, but another yacht party further down the pier continued to blast music well into the early hours that guests from the iHeart yacht could hear as they were leaving…

Apple’s in-house “The Greatest” campaign, which is shortlisted for the Titanium Lions, won the Grand Prix in the Entertainment for Music category, alongside the music video for Michael Kiwanuka’s Beautiful Life.

• During an interview on Tuesday with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, former Daily Show host Trevor Noah announced a deal to host a weekly podcast. It won’t be exclusive to the streaming platform, another sign that Spotify is becoming more flexible about exclusively windowing its original shows.
• Condé Nast hosted an exclusive dinner on Monday with Universal Music Group, featuring Jon Batiste.
• WPP’s Stream event had to move onshore because of wind, and designer Samuel Ross brought down the house talking about advising Beats, and about discrimination in the marketing industry.

Reddit recommends: Reddit’s whole pitch in Cannes is that it’s the platform of choice for tips and product recommendations. One user who is spending this week in Cannes definitely got the memo last Sunday, asking on r/drugs and r/cocaine for “reliable Telegram channels that help to be more active during the week.” The r/cocaine post looking for drug dealers was swiftly deleted, but the r/drugs one stayed online until we ratted it out to Reddit’s press team. “The content in question violates our policies against prohibited transactions,” a spokesperson said. First panel at the Reddit hut today: “The Power of Peer-to-Peer Recommendations.”

Let’s get information: Stan accounts scooped that Cannes Lions winner Beyoncé is in town She was seen at lunchtime on Monday with Jay-Z and their daughter Blue Ivy at La Guérite, a party restaurant on Cannes’ Île Sainte-Marguerite where A-listers mingle with a gaudier, napkin-twirling Riviera crowd. The Carters left yesterday for Paris and Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton show, leaving us with one question: who were they with on Monday night?

PSA: If Amazon’s bouncers are not letting you in for the Honey Dijon show tonight, you can still enjoy some tunes around the city, which takes part in France’s yearly Fête de la Musique. Amateur bands across the country are invited to play on the street for the Summer solstice. Expect car and foot traffic to be worse than it already is, and a surprising amount of AC/DC covers.

• Cannes Lions festival organizers are urging prize juries to steer clear of politics, in an echo of the U.S. “anti-woke” backlash, we scooped on Monday.
• Mark Penn, a divisive figure among Democrats, is stealing the show at Cannes, we reported Tuesday.
• Progressive American media figures are trying to pick up the pieces from the collapse of Vice and other sympathetic outlets — and considering buying TV stations, Max writes.
• Kenyan tea-pickers are destroying tea-picking machines, in an old-fashioned Luddite backlash against encroaching tech.
• The CEO of a leading fintech firm told Reed Albergotti how he believes AI will change online shopping and make it more “emotional.”
• Ohio’s Republican senator J.D. Vance is balancing his MAGA appeal to a conservative base with collaborative bipartisan policy efforts, David Weigel writes.