Video Of The Week: The Cannes Debate

Tyrone showed me this video of a debate this past week between the CEOs of WPP, Viacom, and Twitter. I’m watching it now and it’s very interesting.

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. William Mougayar

    Teeing it up on Chromecast. I thought the highlights of Cannes Lions was Marissa Mayer’s over sleeping by 2 hours and missing a poshy dinner. Ouch http://www.independent.co.u

    1. LE

      I read that the other day. I think the angle had to do with her being up 20 hours or something like that. Her body simply shut down. And why would she have had some someone wake her up (as someone suggested)? She just decided to take a little nap and probably does this all the time.Sleep is the most important thing more important than if you even eat correctly or exercise or are a good parent in some respects. You can’t wake up in the morning early and do yoga or exercise and think all is well. It’s not without the sleep. An hour of yoga is great but not if you haven’t gotten enough sleep.Mayer gained a reputation for working extremely hard at Google, working as many as 130 hours some weeks, leaving little time for sleep. The Guardian reports that she needs only four to six hours a night. She recharges by taking weeklong vacations every four months. http://www.businessinsider….Of course she was younger at that time. Big difference between doing shit like that in your 20’s vs. your late 30’s.

      1. William Mougayar

        I agree with that. But a little bit of planning can go a long way to let you avoid these embarrassing situations.

        1. LE

          I agree with that agreement.Otoh one of my older sayings is “there is not a situation, for which words in the proper order, can not fix”.Paired along with the concept that sometimes correcting a mistake puts you ahead of where you’d be if you had never made a mistake (by giving you a chance to show how sorry you are or what you are made of) she can actually come out way ahead from this gaffe. [1]Point being if she sucks up profusely and/or arranges a private meeting with said individuals she could come out ahead of the game. And end up looking even better. In other words Marissa “show them the belly”.[1] We’d have cases in the printing business where one of the idiots who worked for me totally fucked up a job for an important customer. And the client would call ranting and raving postal so we would go into high gear and fix the problem in record time much to their amazement. And it always ended up being better than if it never happened to begin with. (As long as said idiot didn’t fuck things up more that is..)

      2. sigmaalgebra

        Sorry, Donna, here I go being “sexist” again. :-)!My experience is that human females from about grade 11 through college commonly have abilities, UNbelievable, to go without sleep that would have men of that age or nearly any age passing out while standing up.Why? Usual guess, ‘reproductive advantage’ (right, Donna, ‘sexist’), i.e., infant care. Or, as the poor father says to the child at 3 AM, “From now on, when you want a glass of water late at night, say ‘Mommy, Mommy’ and not ‘Daddy, Daddy’.” :-)!I know; I know: It’s UNfair. SO unFAIR, that women have to have all the babies and men don’t have any. Massive case of evil ‘gender inequality’! But, I’m sure the feminists are busy, busy, going without sleep, working on a solution! :-)!For the last word here, I’m putting my money on Darwin! :-)! Yup, Darwin was and remains the all time champion ‘sexist’! :-)!

        1. LE

          Sorry, DonnaDon’t call me Shirley.My experience is that human femalesI’m glad that you qualified that precisely. Not just females. But human females.”From now on, when you want a glass of water late at night, say ‘Mommy, Mommy’ and not ‘Daddy, Daddy’.”Let me contort a preferred modus operandi here. [1]Better to put some effort into an undesirable easy activity that you have chosen then to have to put in the effort for some other assigned (by Donna) more undesirable activity.To me, even changing diapers, was like doing “easy time”. Let’s say better than cleaning out the cat litter box if you have a cat.Have you ever helped someone move? Or setup for a party? The best strategy is to always keep moving and be doing something. Otherwise if you don’t they will assign something to you that might be less desirable (to you anyway) than the activity that you choose which makes you appear busy and hence keeps them out of your grill.[1] Might not makes sense and might not be english but I liked the way that sounded.

          1. sigmaalgebra

            To be clear, elsewhere at AVC, Donna called me her favorite sexist or some such, so whenever I’m about to make a remark that might rub some feminist feathers or fur the wrong way, maybe first I should apologize to Donna! :-)If I were in a nasty mood, then I might say that feminists were so cute and sweet when they were angry, but that would be nasty, wouldn’t it? So, I won’t say such a thing! :-)!

          2. LE

            Feel free to chime in on this one:http://www.nydailynews.com/…If men weren’t attracted to the opposite sex society would never be where it is today. (I don’t mean pro creation wise I just mean testosterone and motivation wise..)Even sleep deprived Mayer works it with fashion sexy shots when she can. So does Sandberg for that matter. Melinda, doesn’t, never did, and that’s a good thing.

          3. sigmaalgebra

            Well, the Kelly guy got a little out of hand. Maybe he was trying to spice up his program; otherwise he needs to work on his commenting.The girl (human female of childbearing age) was pretty and, for any human male over age 11 or so, difficult not to notice.The girl looked young which does make her more difficult for boys/men not to notice. For a grown woman, she’s little, that is, looks not nearly fully grown; her figure, to use a word women tend to use when shopping for clothes and that I will use to try to be discreet, looks maybe 13 or 14; about have to look at her face to suspect that she is older than that.And that she’s easy to notice may well be something she worked hard for hoping to get noticed by boys/men. E.g., she may have shopped for hours to get the swim suit close to just what she wanted. May have worked for hours on her hair and makeup, even nails. For her figure, she may long have worked hard on dieting and exercise. She had a nice smile no doubt from knowing that such a smile is one of the best ways for her to get noticed by boys/men — one reason, if looks happy, maybe she is and, then, will be less likely to reject an advance. She did agree to do the segment. Net, she might have been disappointed if she got no response or reaction from any boy/man.I would have hoped that Kelly’s reaction, if any, would have been just complimentary, flattering, and approving.Yup, might say that the interest of males in females is much of what makes the world go around. E.g., commonly a father will look at his four year old daughter as a small version of his wife that he loves and will let the daughter, who understands quickly, wrap him around her little finger and arrange that he can never tell her “No”. One of the strongest motivations for him to work hard will be so that he never has to tell her “No”, to a new dress, new pair of shoes, new toy, new all white bedroom furniture, new smart phone, etc.Mayer, when she first joined Yahoo, on a good day could still look like she was in middle school, and some of the clothes selections suggest that she wanted to look that way. Sandberg? At least to my eyes, not a chance!Melinda’s different: She has some strong values my guess is that she got from the nuns in her K-12 or whatever schooling. She got what, $100 billion pledged for philanthropy from Bill and Warren and more from Ellison, Zuck, Case, etc. and also to establish a norm that the wealthy should pledge at least 50%?Apparently she’s managed to ‘sell’ Bill on her values, e.g., as in the Stanford commencement speech. Bill and her seem to have a good marriage, and very good for them, and I have to believe that she plays a major role, 50+%, in that.

      3. Carl Rahn Griffith

        I’m a service-industry pleb nowadays – aka, entrepreneur – and I solely work nights, lucky to get 4hrs sleep per day. I’m a hungover zombie 24/7. Good luck, MM.

  2. Richard

    Good discussion of Mary Mecker’s slide and the underspending on mobile. WPP and Viacom say its about “verification” and validation” Why do I have the feeling that Viacom and WPP are secretly thinking “why buy the cow when you get the milk for free”?

    1. Alex Dunsdon

      There’s a lot of ego on that stage

  3. jason wright

    i’m waiting for the first municipality to dissolve itself in a favour of a twitter-town model.Detroit would be a very interesting socio economic experiment.

  4. Richard

    What the ad spend on long form (film and cable) product placement vs sponsored tweets ?

  5. Salt Shaker

    Talk illustrates how there’s a mutual, healthy interdependency between Twitter and legacy media brands. Twitter has become, in a big way, a de facto promo engine for legacy media brands (and vice-versa) and increasingly the company is working directly with TV producers in entertainment, news, sports, finance, etc. This interaction and Twitter’s strong sense of immediacy creates an impt and significant point-of-diff between Twitter and FB.

    1. awaldstein

      I agree that there is nothing like the immediacy of Twitter. I’m a big fan.But there is no way that you launch a new show or sports event without a FB strategy. And I bet that the FB spend is significant.So differentiation for certain. More effective and desirable for the mass market–I haven’t seen data to make me think that.

      1. Salt Shaker

        Not saying they’re mutually exclusive. Certainly a social strat for any big media event or program launch is gonna drill deep across multiple platforms, but I think on a day-to-day basis Twitter delivers more immediacy and timely engagement. They anecdotally seem to be developing stronger tie-ins with media companies than FB, which I think will partially help drive their key MAU and ARPU metrics. But then again, I also own a chunk of Twitter stock, so perhaps this is all wishful thinking:)

        1. awaldstein

          As a pure media play I agree.For a lot of other industries, like food, fashion, health and more broadbased categories i think not as much.

          1. Richard

            Instagram seems to be working in the food space.

          2. awaldstein

            Instagram works exceptionally well in the wellness and fitness space. In wine as well. Major source of network building, announcement channel, even commerce.Powerful platform.Would love some example of brands that are using Twitter well. For me, its a news channel, not a community nor a goods discovery vehicle.

          3. William Mougayar

            The pop commerce example Dick gave has potential I think. I’d like to see more of that. Impulse buying.

          4. awaldstein

            Bolting commerce onto other platforms is a hit or miss idea.All the people on the planet are on FB and it is basically transactionless.A much smaller population of people using it for news alerts or on Twitter.Dunno if I see this. Feels like straight media to me.

          5. Richard

            Dick’s 30 section pitch was “When events happen in the real world, the unfold immediately and digitally on Twitter”, “When you want immediacy and connection in the moment as it happens, Twitter is the best platform”. The problem is h often are Food/Fashion in need of this solution. What pain does it solve?

          6. Salt Shaker

            I think news is a huge part of Twitter’s appeal for the reason you cite, but we’re also a society that’s heavily influenced by role models and thought-leaders; some legit, some contrived. Twitter lets ord folk engage w/ and learn from those that are gen not part of their social strata, whether it’s in the world of fashion, food, wine, music, etc. It delivers a pseudo form of acceptance that can be quite infectious. I also think thought-leaders on Twitter can be a very strong conduit to goods discovery.

          7. Salt Shaker

            Content and context are also key parts of the evaluative criteria. A brand should have a multi-tiered social strat, but not all communications is suitable across all platforms. You want to inform, educate, entertain, etc., but overkill or pushing less relevant communication can cause irreparable harm. Gotta know your audience, and where/how they can best be served.Going for a bike ride in Cent Park. The city’s empty. It will be me and hordes of non-English speaking tourists, which is always nice to see.

          8. awaldstein

            enjoy!

  6. Richard

    Dick may not want to tip his hand so much by saying “consumption of tweets off its platform” is where the action is.

  7. Carl Rahn Griffith

    We over-analyse the utterly obvious. What’s hysterical is that folk make a living out of it. Uber meta meme. That’s us! 😉

  8. Emily Merkle

    if that’s a “debate”, I’ve been courting prize fights…

  9. William Mougayar

    Interesting stories about the town municipalities that have widely adopted Twitter.But I wished Twitter gave us the ability to setup Alerts (similar to Google Alerts). That would spur more engagement. It’s vexingly missing.That said, I believe that Twitter is still undervalued from a market cap & revenue potential.

  10. pointsnfigures

    I am bald. I could be a CEO. Heh.