There was much cheering and whooping as Oprah Winfrey took to the stage in the Palais, looking radiant in a white pantsuit. With a distinct lack of too many A-List celebrities on the main stages this year (compared to last), this was a hot ticket and packed out the Lumiere Theatre.
Interviewed on stage by Cannes Lions chairman Phil Thomas, Winfrey freely admitted that she had been asked to Cannes no less than 14 times, but this was the first time she had actually agreed. Why? Well funnily enough, it coincides with the fact that she’s signed a multi-year deal with Amazon to expand her ‘Oprah’ podcast. (Notably, she did go to the Bezos wedding).
With all this in mind, she showed up with the kind of warmth, humour, inspirational quotes and motivational speaking that we’d expect from Oprah. Example: “When your personality comes to serve the energy of your soul, that is authentic power.”
More revealing is how she prepares for each interview – by asking each guest what their intention is in being there and what they want to convey. Some haven’t thought about it. (Perhaps this was the lesson for marketers, as not all brands seem to know their intention either.)
Acknowledging that she has become a “brand”, she explained true influence comes from not from building a brand for its own sake but using it as a platform for others. Another nugget is that impostor syndrome is real – even the likes of Barack Obama and Beyonce ask ‘Was I OK?’ after Oprah interviews them. There were no questions, however, about her own political ambitions, or the indeed the state of the US, and overall it was unsensational fare.
But elsewhere in the Palais some more contentious subjects have been addressed. Ian Russell, bereaved father, founder of the Molly Rose Foundation and dogged campaigner against tech platforms, spoke powerfully on Monday on doomscrolling and the toxicity of social platforms. He appeared alongside Jake Dubbins from the Conscious Advertising Network, Charlotte Scaddan from the UN and Rupen Desai, the former Dole CMO who now heads up circular economy group Una Terra.
The latter was especially scathing about the small cabal of “rich white billionaires” who run the social platforms, for whom every click is inventory, whether or not it’s fuelled by hate speech, misinformation or harmful content for teens. “It’s not an attention economy, but an addiction economy,” claimed Desai – repeatedly emphasizing that these are “not so much tech platforms as advertising platforms,” so the marketing industry has a powerful role to play. Perhaps it’s time for more in advertising to step up.
Meanwhile OpenAI is busy pitching ChatGPT ads to Cannes marketers – and perhaps tellingly, the queues for its session at the Palais even outweighed the ones for Oprah.
Alexandra Jardine is head of creative strategy at Persuasion Communications. She is the former creativity editor of Ad Age.
