Cannes Lions 2025: What’s the Purpose of All This?

It’s hard to find purpose on a $5 million sponsored beach.
What’s the purpose of these glitzy million dollar beaches anyway?
Putting A-list celebrities on stage to talk about storytelling in the streaming age, about influencer marketing vs. celebrity marketing, about brand building vs. personal brand building. And the endless, circular conversations about AI changing everything.

‍What’s the purpose of sprinting between panels to hear thought leaders explain why our industry has lost its purpose?
Is the purpose of Cannes Lions just to network? Schmooze?
Is it about impressing each other with the fact that we’re still here?
On the Croisette, when so many of our peers are back home rewriting their resumés?

‍Ok. Let’s take a deep breath.

‍It’s true amid all this noise, if you pay attention, we did see the undeniable power of purpose in the actual work. Campaigns tackling climate action, mental health, and equality. Brands trying, in small but real ways, to leave the world better. I loved that Dove Soap’s “Real Beauty”; AXA Insurance’s “Three Words”; Natura’s “The Amazon Greenventory”; and of course our partner e.l.f. Beauty’s “So Many Dicks” that got so much love and recognition.

‍From where I stand, this work remains the truest model of modern marketing - the intersection of commerce, creativity and consciousness. This is critical to sustaining a business in the 21st Century. This is how a business ultimately creates brand health, growth, and future relevance. While politicians may rant about the “death of woke” and dismiss DE&I and climate change as irrelevant, people - actual humans, the ones with the wallets, do care!

‍Gen Z/Gen Alpha want this world to get better, and they look to brands to make it happen because they sure as hell have lost faith in their governments doing what’s right. Every brand that wants to grow has to have a higher purpose than selling sneakers or a lipstick. Because that’s where real growth will come from, not another panel, another yacht party, another AI-generated deck.

For some of us, purpose isn’t a stunt to enter or a buzzword for a Cannes talk track. It’s why we’re still excited about this business. It’s the reason we push every day for creativity fueled by consciousness to make good money.

‍It’s the reason I’m willing to sift through the rosé haze of the wrecked Croisette, looking for that one idea, that one brand, that one client partner driven to build something together that matters.

‍Because that’s what we came here to find.
That is our purpose.

‍