CANNES DAY 1: Anthpo, Ramp, and The Best Ads of the Year

0:00Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome to this very special week of the Colin and Samir show. And the reason it's special is because we're in the south of France. Yes, we are here in the south of France. This is our first time at Cannes Lions. We are here at the LinkedIn Lounge and we are hosting a show every morning. You just lied to our audience. It is not our first time at Cannes Lions. We've been here for years. I said first time? Yeah. I meant to say fourth time. We've been here for four years and that's because this is the largest advertising conference in the world. It's a Super Bowl for creators.

0:30That is what it's being referred to as this year. And so we're here covering what's happening in the world of creators, and we're doing it in partnership with LinkedIn. We're hosting a show every single day called The Daily Brief. So on our feed, you're going to hear us talk to different creators, marketers, talk to each other about what we're seeing on the ground, the world of advertising. You can tune in on LinkedIn, and this is a living and breathing show. So if you want to leave comments here on Spotify, if you want to leave a comment on my personal LinkedIn, first of all, follow me on LinkedIn.

0:56You can also leave a comment on my personal LinkedIn. But you won't respond. You don't know that. You don't know that. I will respond. I will respond. Leave a comment. We're going to be here every day. Now to the show. This is the Daily Brief from the LinkedIn Lounge at Cannes Lion on the Crescent.

1:14Colin, what is Cannes? Cannes, if you are unfamiliar, is basically the Oscars of advertising. More recently, it was called the Super Bowl for creators. It actually started in 1954 in Venice, Italy. inspired by the film festival, and then was brought here in the 80s. So started out mainly to award brands for their advertising and agencies for their advertising with traditional commercials, but has really evolved over the years. Now you have parties, you have talks, you have meetings. And as the media landscape has changed, namely Facebook being here in 2018 and all the digital media platforms, it's really changed.

1:53And now you have creators as well who are at Cannes. I think this is being referred to as the Super Bowl for creators. And we've been coming here for the past four years, but it does feel like a notably different year at Cannes here as creators continue to take up more of marketing spend. We play a bigger role, not only just as talent, as distribution, but also we're going to hear from some guests today as creative agencies, people who are actually creating some of the marketing that we're seeing on the ground. Yeah, I read an article that said that, you know, creators will be here mainly to land long-term brand partnerships with some of these major brands.

2:28I think some of that will happen. There will be creators that rub shoulders with CMOs and end up landing bigger deals. But I think a lot of it is actually creators being here on behalf of platforms, on behalf of agencies, to give brands the trust and the comfort that these agencies and these platforms know how to work with creators. So on today's show, we're going to talk about three different things. We're going to keep talking about the role of creators here at Cannes, obviously, as they've stepped onto the scene and become a much bigger part of the media landscape. We're also going to talk about this moment in media.

3:02Like, this is all about attention, right? Like, people win awards for capturing attention here. So how do you capture attention in this moment in time? And we're going to hear from three different guests who are doing it in different ways. Everyone from creators to CMOs. But let's first start by talking about this moment in attention. We've called it the age of abundance. Yes. So just to give some stats, I give these all the time, but just to give some stats of why do we call this the age of abundance. Every single day, there are 95 million photos and videos uploaded to Instagram. There are 34 million TikToks uploaded and 23 million YouTube videos uploaded every single day.

3:41It's an incredible amount of content. and we've moved from what was originally called social media, the way that we would just connect with each other and connect with our friends to interest media, which means of all that content that gets uploaded to these platforms, we're looking for pockets that we're interested in and going down rabbit holes of things we're interested in. And that means that the internet is moving from this like, hey, let me make something for you and everybody watches it, which is again, what advertising has always been about to now, let me find my own pocket of the internet.

4:14It's a hyper-personalized environment that we're entering into. Everyone here on the Crescent who's walking by, if you open up their phone, they have a completely different feed. Yeah, media is more fragmented today than it has ever been. And that poses a lot of challenges for the advertising industry, but also a lot of opportunity. So here at Cannes Lions, one thing that happens is people win awards for ads. We wanted to start this episode off by just talking about, what do you think the best ad you've seen is in 2026? I would say when McDonald's leaned into their CEO, Chris K, calling their big arch burger a product.

4:52He said, I'm gonna take a bite of our new product. And they posted across platforms saying, try our new product. And they just leaned in because he was going viral and it could have gone bad. But they leaned in and they've actually done that a lot this year. I think like this form of reactionary advertising, being ready to move quickly on social platforms when something happens is, in my opinion, one of the most important forms of advertising today. Like if media is fragmented, the conversation is constantly changing. You need to be there to take part of the conversation. And they did it with backrooms.

5:25They made McDonald's own version of backrooms, posted it on YouTube. They also, after the Super Bowl, had a horizontal ad in Times Square that you had to read like this, implying that it's the day after the Super Bowl. You're probably tired. You're hungover. You're still in bed. You're going to have to read something on your side. Yeah, I think speed plays a huge factor in marketing today. For me, the best ad of the year is the New York Knicks ad from Nike. Also reactionary. Reaction to the moment. and obviously filmed beforehand, but it's directed by Josh Safdie. It's directed by Josh Safdie, and it's one of the most simple ads I've seen.

6:04It's New York State of Mind playing with a guy just running, running down the street to get to this celebration of the Knicks. He does a cartwheel. There's like this zoom in on a Nike shoe that's incredible, and when he arrives at the celebration, he just takes a deep breath out and looks at it. and first of all it's a reaction to the monoculture moment sports have provided us this opportunity in a fragmented internet to actually all have one conversation it's a really interesting summer because you have the new york knicks winning the championship which i've never seen a city come together like that maybe we have but not in recent memory um or people are in the streets watching rolling right into the world's cup yeah and i think leaning into that emotion the simplicity of that emotion of sports, I think that was one of the best ads I've seen.

6:52I think it's because they had to, like you're saying, find that monocultural moment. Monocultural moments have become more important than ever because they just don't happen as often. The most expensive ad of all time, I was looking into it. Do you know who made it? What's the most expensive ad of all time? Okay. Chanel, in 2004, made a three-minute fashion film called The Film. It was starring Nicole Kidman. It had an entire orchestra doing the soundtrack, and it cost$33 million. $33 million? In 2004, which at this time is around$58 million. That's how much inflation is. I know. I had to double check that.

7:34I was like, are we sure about this? Okay, so this ad costs$33 million. Yeah,$33 million. And there's a couple things to look into here. They could make that bet. One, because I think at that time, spending that much, showed luxury. You look at luxury brands now and they're actually much more relatable. High production value is not necessarily always as important. You look at like a Balenciaga. So that's part of it. But also when you spend$33 million on one hero asset, it implies that you have a captive audience that's only watching TV or only in movie theaters. Like you could not do that today because audiences are all over.

8:12Right. And that's why monocultural moments are so important because it's the one time when we do finally have people i don't even think you need to do like how do you spend 33 million dollars on an app i think nicole kidman an orchestra filmed throughout new york nicole kidman in an orchestra but i think that's like a source of pride to spend that sure the story is how much story is how much they spent yeah yeah yeah that's crazy yeah i wouldn't advise spending that much i don't think i've ever even seen that today it's maybe i'm not more about like i mean back then of course the idea always mattered but i think now more than ever, speed and idea and story are what trump any sort of level of production value.

8:49I think back to the best ads I've seen this year, one of the most interesting ones, just to tack on honorable mention of best ad of the year, is Convene. Convene is a co-working space in New York. And during the New York City parade, basically people were climbing up on top and messed up their logo. The end of their logo gets taken off. And immediately they change. their social avatar to having the N hanging off. And it's just, what has happened is that marketing has gone from, even what you're talking about with the most expensive ad of all time, saying, hey, we're going to spend$33 million, we're going to show you this ad, to we're going to be a part of the conversation that's happening.

9:29So if something funny happens and people film that, New York City is crazy and our logo gets messed up, we're going to react to that and mess up our own logo on social. I'm just stuck on the fact that all of your best ads center around the New York Knicks winning the world championship? Well, I think it's actually because it's one of the only moments that we've all experienced. Like if you walk around, the amount of people that are like, you see the Knicks or like, you're still bringing it up. It's because it's in a world of hyper fragmentation. It was one of the few things that can bind us together.

9:58Yeah. And I think sports overall, like as media is fragmented and people are looking for monocultural moments and moments that feel authentically human. Yeah. Sports is becoming increasingly more important. Even here at Cannes, There's an entire Cannes Lions sports track. There's a women's sports summit. Like it's even the same way that creators are increasing their presence at Cannes. Sports is also something that's continuing to rise. Yeah. It's one of the last things that exists that we can all watch at the same time. It's appointment viewing. We can all agree on it. We can have debates about it.

10:29And we all just understand that we all watch it. So that's been a very big story here at Cannes. All right. Well, we are going to hear from a creator, one of our favorite creators. We've had him on the show before. He's a creator. He's a performance artist. And one of the most interesting things about him is that he has recently launched his own creative agency, where not only now is he making his own videos, he's supporting brands with their campaigns as well. So let's bring on the show, Anthpo. Yay. Long time no see. Welcome back. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. It's been over a year since we've chatted.

11:10Yeah, that's true. Well, over a year since we've chatted on mics. On mics. On mics. But we have no relationship other than our work one. That's true. All right. Your first can. It is. What are you doing here at Cannes? You know, I would consider what I've done the past 11 years to be silly content creation, but now people are considering it marketing, which it definitely is. and this is the place for all things art and marketing and entertainment. I honestly, up until probably a year ago, didn't even know this existed. Really? Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think you occupy this interesting space because if people don't know who you are, typically if I bring you up and someone's like, oh, I don't know who Anthepo is, I always say, have you seen the Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest?

11:54And most people are like, yeah, of course. That was Anthepo. Bring up maybe one or two other things. You on Instagram, have you seen this character? John Chungus. Yes. And you have like, you operate in a very different way than other creators because you have projects, projects that go out that people can engage with. And those projects have captured an incredible amount of attention. One thing that we bring up a lot in the context of marketing is a campaign you did with Crocs called Kid with Crocs. We talked about on our show, but you built a character. You built a character who's kind of like a superhero.

12:25Explain it a bit for people who don't know it yeah so after the uh they show my lookalike competition a bajillion brands came to me and they're like well you know can you do something for us and i crocs has been like a dream partner to work with and they're like full creative freedom what would you do and you know they were you know recommending maybe an event or whatever and i emotionally was like i i think this would be a good idea i pitched a bunch and so i made this character i animated this character who's a little crocodile. And I wore a mask and I put crocs throughout statues. I put, I made crocs using Blender and then put them on the feet of statues throughout New York City.

13:05Did it with a small team, bunch of interns. And over the course of 40 days, the project was live. We did eight statues. We made these kooky little videos alongside them. And we had gained nearly a million followers across TikTok and Instagram. And then at the end, I revealed it It was me. And yeah. And then after that, all the brands came running. What is it that you understand about human attention and psychology that allows you to gather people like this? Right. It's definitely two prongs. So there definitely is an element of psychology. Like what me and my team study a lot now is like the psychology and marketing.

13:38But the non-negotiable amongst it all is just being a consumer and a lover of the arts. Right. Like it's impossible to do what I do from an out group. Right. I love social media. I love content. I love movies. I love the way we communicate about those things. And so it's really easy for me to just remove myself from my current state of being and ask myself a question of, would I share this? All art is, is taste and execution. So if you're in the in-group and you have taste and you're then able to execute upon it, like I'm also fortunate enough to have went to a film school, that's all it is. I mean, and there's going to be lots of failures, but generally I just tell, you know, my squad and also, you know, those I help.

14:23It's like, just throw as many darts as you can. Eventually one of them is going to hit a bullseye. And then once you hit one bullseye, the next one's easier and the next one's easier. Eventually you just can't stop hitting bullseyes, you know. But you can make a great movie or a great short film and put it in the wrong place and no one watches it. Right. Even if you are part of the in crowd and you understand what people may like, you still may miss. right like there's something that you're doing that i think is a bit uh it's it's another step of kind of like sparking an idea less like the movie and the story you have like something about all of your ideas lend itself to like movements in a way well that's interesting the idea that like if you make something that you like but people don't watch it then it's a question of like is it the right distribution channel um and then it's you know it is just a marketing spend to an extent right like if you're talking about a movie for example um there's a million variables that go into the success of a movie like backrooms for example right like i think you know his career as a youtuber right having that like digitally native audience who are essentially marketing for you um i think being a savant making something that's uh super shareable i there's a million variables that go into into the success of something i mean i start with just like would i watch this and find this period right i'm not gonna like make a short film if i don't think i can like organically find it not the type of thing i would share um but i do believe that at the key of you know what i do and now what the team does is like how do we just get people to care about stuff yeah preferably good stuff there is something you said on the show where you said i just do it for the love of the game which i think gets to what you've said initially of like i just love social media i love video i love filmmaking uh and that to me is so true especially within the confines of advertising it can be easy to make something that people know is not for the love of the game it's for the sale of a product and i think you have found a way to start with like the idea and the mission like with kid with crocs the superhero is what matters the crocs come along for the ride right i think like that to me is what you are so good at thank you very much thank you And yeah, I think, and I'm sure we'll, we'll get to this at some point.

16:34But I think there's, there's two types of marketing, right? There's like marketing where you're really trying to entertain and show up. And then there's also like, if you just have a good product, it's not like you need some crazy kid with Crocs esque story. Like sometimes a B2B company or a company who's just trying to move XYZ CPG product is like, how do we do some big stunt? I'm like, you make a good product, like paid ad spend might be for you. but you know if you do want to show up in culture in a big way and have your brand permeate then maybe the answer is some big stunt or a character whatever so let's talk about characters because for all of us who exist on instagram this older man named john chungus comes across our feeds that was revealed to be your project talk to us about like what was john chungus how did you come up with that and uh why did it work yeah so john chungus was an old man um he looks very young um how do i say this in a non-offensive way john chungus is a charismatic uh former opera singer and uh he was my neighbor i met him in an acting class and i used him for a netflix brand deal uh to promote squid game and then that did super well it was like i i hung up posters as him saying he's looking for a partner to go to the squid game experience with and then these two like 19 year old girls ended up going with him and it was this fun kooky video uh and it did really good and then i was interested in doing a a psyop to get people off their phones it's like what would that look like and john came to mind so i just launched his page made funny videos uh and i i want to make sure it doesn't come across like i am john like john is a person And my responsibility is to show the world.

18:21Like, how can I syndicate who he is and what he stands for to an audience of people that are going to understand it? And so a lot of the projects that I'm doing now are like, you know, whether a politician or another actor or other creators is like, you have something to show the world. Like, how do we get the world to see it? And so on September 27th, John Chungus got tagged 115 ,000 times of people going outside and touching grass. actually in a weird way on the show when I taught you what the word Chungus was maybe that in a weird way led to me picking the name for John I forgot that's what happened you say John Chungus is a real person it's a name his name is John I was like that's a funnier last name and the mission to go outside and touch grass I imagine that was like a collaborative idea from you it's also like John do you believe people should go outside like I'm not gonna like he's like actually above screens like I think we should be on screen but I bring it up to say like you said like politicians and actors it's really not that like you are creating your own character like you're hiring an actor yes to become a story on Instagram which is something I'd never really seen before yes and it is becoming a thing now you know we've got a couple more undercover projects that we're working on that are going really good but I do think just like every other arts and culture um movement there comes a time where it becomes oversaturated and then people move on, right?

19:43Like I felt that way about events, right? Like now there's a bajillion lookalike competitions or whatever. And if you enjoy that stuff, it's great. I think you should. But at the heart of what I try to do is, you know, constantly reinvent myself and put things out there that I want to see. So I do think I've got another couple more months of undercover projects and then probably on to the next. What are the rules right now of marketing on Instagram or just marketing to young people in general? I think everyone here wants to solve that. like what are the rules of marketing to young people okay i've got let me let me pull my list i wrote three this is he sent me the questions ahead of time um okay i want to make sure i nail these because i did think about this for a long time okay i've got three rules of marketing right now in 2026 um and i guess the prerequisite is these rules change all the time right obviously um as as culture changes and as the platform change everything changes um number one don't be an outsider right and if you are an outsider find somebody who isn't like it's so difficult in the age of the algorithm where every tiny touch point matters uh that you nail every touch point right like uh we talked about this on the on the podcast before but like everything matters from the font to the pacing to the music to whether you look down the camera to whether you shoot on cinecams to an iphone every little piece matters and it's an emotional art, right?

21:08And so if you're in the in-group, whether you're making a shampoo or you're selling a shoe or you're just trying to entertain people, how are you possibly going to speak to a demographic that you don't know anything about? And it's not impossible, obviously, but find somebody who can advise you on it. Provide value. I think a lot of brands are looking to stunts right now. And stunts are great to the extent that you're showing up consistently in doing them. But the brands I've seen have a lot of success are showing up consistently. You know, if you're having a big win, like the Nike ad, for example, I heard you talk about that earlier, which is awesome.

21:47They do that a good amount. Like they have wins pretty often. So if you do something big and splashy, preferably it comes six months after something is big and splashy. A lot of brands come to us right now. They're like, do a big stunt. Like, can we just make consistent social media content. Safe bet. It's what I'm consuming right now. I think that's my recommendation, I guess. And then lastly, showing up consistently. Kind of harks on both of those points. A brand is consistent value over time. I like truly firmly believe that. All of the big creators with tons and tons of trust. It's not like this is some crazy hack.

22:28It's like we've just shown up week by week, month by month, and have entertained people. Brands can do that, too. Whether you're providing educational content or making people laugh. Yeah. Did I pass? No, it was good. In your perspective, what's the best marketing or best ad that you've seen in 2026? Well, I mean, it is the Nike ad. It's so good. It's so good. Why do you love it so much? The timing was incredible. I mean, it rolling right after was so good. I think it doesn't need to say a lot. The tagline was fantastic. The best type of advertising is the type of advertising that the marketers and the public loves.

23:13Because sometimes there's like the things that the public love, but the corporate marketing side don't really like it. And then it doesn't get made as much. I mean, it's incredible. I think traditionally too, like when a team wins a championship, you expect the major brand to launch the ad with the marquee athlete. You expect the first thing that they drop to be a Jalen Brunson ad. And what I loved about that Nike ad was that it focused on all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm calling myself a Knicks fan. But I felt like it in that moment. Like I get to live through that character who's experiencing this moment in New York.

23:46Not necessarily the athlete that I can't relate to. Do you know what LARPing is? Am I guilty of it? Yeah, do you know what LARPing is? Just saying, am I guilty of it means you don't know what LARPing is. This is another chunk of it. I might as well teach you something. LARPing is a thing that all the kids are saying. It's live action role playing when you're like a fake Knicks fan. I'm just making sure you know. The other thing, last thing I'll say on the Knicks ad, to your point, like the main actor, he was like commenting all around TikTok, being like, this was such an incredible experience.

24:16Like that is such a beautiful story that like I'm now telling you. So I love, like everyone's talking about that ad. It's so many beautiful touch points. Yeah, incredible. Okay, last thing I'm going to ask you is about your tattoo. Oh, the Adobe one. So people are doing, brand deals are so common for every creator, right? And not only for every creator, everyone is becoming a creator. So there's brand deals everywhere. That brand deal stood out. Just tell me the story of the fact that you have a permanent tattoo on your body because of an Adobe brand. my parents hate it okay I love it all right shout out all right basically they came to me they're like hey you know we don't need a whole campaign we just want to do a brand deal with you like what does that look like yeah I could have gone the easy route and just done an ad read but I personally if I saw you know a random brand deal from myself I wouldn't watch it so I pitched them I will have a hundred people make different designs in Photoshop for mobile and then I'm going to put all those designs on shirts and get a bunch of people in a circle and then give all of them a carrot and then put a bunny in the center and then whichever shirt the bunny picks, I'll get that tattooed.

25:26By the way, there was one design I was like, I do not want that design. And it was the watch. No way. I was like, I'm going to get it on my leg, but this was the only one that made no sense to get on my upper thigh. It was either wrist or ankle. And I was like, I have to do it on my wrist. And everyone's like, no, don't do it on your wrist. Seriously, don't do it on yours. So I did it on my ankle. And yeah, it performed super, super well. I thought I was going to get maybe a million views sitting at like five, which is great. It was super, super fun. And again, it's something that like, I think most brand deals that creators do, they're not, I mean, you might be proud of working with the brand, but oftentimes the brand deal isn't something you gush about, but it was so fun.

26:08And I mean, like even the people that came to the event talked to me about it. Like I still get DMS or I ran into somebody on the street the other day and they're like, yo, yo, I was at the bunny thing. And I was like, Oh, it's awesome. At the end of it. Like I think what we're all trying to do is make something memorable. Just make something that people remember. Yeah. So we're fighting for the attention economy. Yeah. Oh, wait, here's your, wait, sorry. I'll just, yeah, let's see it. There it is. That's a brand deal. Come on. That's a brand deal. That's a brand deal. So you're here not only as a creator, but you're also here as the founder of your own agency puffer fish.

26:41And last bit here on just creators entering the world of marketing, not just in the context of brand deals, but now as partners to brands. What's your perspective on that? Yeah, I would much rather use my skill set as a creator to do work for companies than to populate my feed with a million ads. Like I think creators are great creatives, believe it or not. And I think that the working relationship between creator and brand is being redefined as we speak. I mean, I love working with brands, especially brands I believe in. And so if I can provide that value through consulting, through running a campaign, through introducing other creator friends.

27:23That's the other valuable thing I found in having this company is brands come with us to a budget and I get to be, I'm tapped in. And I have tons of creative friends who I'm confident will do a great job for your brand. and it's been super, super, super valuable to see what it's like to scale a company. It's very different than just sitting in my room typing on my computer. Did I pass? That was good. Yeah, you passed. I passed quite today. Well, congratulations, Anthony, for passing the show. Thanks for coming on The Daily Brief. You the best. Appreciate it, dude. Enjoy your can. You the best.

27:55We'll see you on the croissette. Yeah, we'll see you out there. See you, dude. Thank you. All right, next we're going to hear from a brand And that, in my opinion, is sticking out quite a bit in this era of abundance. One that is becoming very recognizable and very known for doing very memorable marketing. So we want to invite Kendall Hope Tucker. She's the director of creative experimentation at RAMP. Kendall, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here. Welcome to the Daily Brief, Kendall. Thank you. I think you are the first director of creative experimentation I've ever met.

28:32I did not know. They made up the title for me. So I would hope so. Yeah. Could you explain the title? Tell us a little bit about first, like for anyone who doesn't know RAMP, what is RAMP and what is your role? Yeah. So RAMP is a FinTech company. We started in the corporate card space, grew extremely fast. We're the fastest growing FinTech ever. We now serve 50 ,000 businesses and we've scaled far beyond corporate cards. So we're AI finance enablement. We sell only to businesses. So we have 50 ,000 businesses using ramp. We're now worth$44 billion. And I was actually a two-time founder. So I sold two companies in my twenties.