Balancing between Defining Greatness and The Power of an Authentic Voice

Diederik and Daniel travelled to Cannes Lions 2023 late Sunday evening to report upon the craziest cases, most striking personalities and a bit of shenanigans throughout the week. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the creative festival located on the French Riviera. Each year a few new buzzwords are the talk of the town, but one particular theme always remains the same: celebrate work that drives progress.

We started our first day just like the rest, eating a croissant in the sun, picked up our festival passes and tried getting familiar with the wild circus also called Cannes Lions.

Here is our highlights from Monday 09:00 - 23:59: 

• First shortlists announced & displayed in The Palais basement.

• Beach houses & rosé galore. We visited TikTok, Meta, Dentsu and Frog, all offering different panel discussions, talks and the chance to mingle with industry experts.

• Defining Greatness with Jip van de Meent (picture below). Working as a junior strategist at Dentsu Creative Amsterdam, this young lioness hosted a 30 minute session at The Lab, Palais. She brought a fresh perspective on the industry, hierarchy structures within your organization and in the end challenged the audience to break into teams of two and have a 3 minute job interview between manager & junior applicant. This ignited some fiery discussions and caught the attention of people in various management positions.

• The Power of an Authentic Voice by Louis Theroux. Seats were already filled 15 minutes before the British-American journalist went on stage. Undoubtedly one of the best documentary makers in the world, but this time: the interviewer would become the interviewed. With his amazing charisma, comedic timing and humble attitude, Louis took everyone down memory lane. After working at BBC for 30 years he has collected a vast amount of stories, ranging from being photographed naked by famous porn photographer, interviewing gun loving republicans and turning the big rapper Stormzy into a little fangirl. Louis has truly seen & done it all.

• Juneteenth celebration at The Palais Terrace: