Cannes Lions day 5

Wednesday was by far the busiest day that I experienced at the festival. While I was thankful to get to bed that night, it was by far one of my favorite days (and not just because of the multiple celebrity encounters we had). 

My favorite interview that I went to was "How Adidas Lost its Stride," featuring Stan Smith, Alexander Wang, and the CMO of Adidas. The talk was about how Adidas constantly rebrands itself and how that method is what has kept it afloat over the past few decades. I am really skeptical of this claim; while rebranding is necessary when a company is going through a prolonged rough patch, I don't think it's necessary to constantly rebrand and rebrand and rebrand, especially if your brand isn't even doing badly to begin with. Why fix something that isn't broken? From the way it was framed in the interview, Adidas's success came mostly from the way that they are able to rebrand themselves through total brand overhauls; however, I question whether the whole story is being told. It seems to me that a brand with such a loyal consumer base as Adidas must be keeping some aspect of its brand around, or else realistically it would have to build its consumers back up again with each total rebrand. 

I also went to a discussion session between truTV's Impractical Jokers and Colin Jost from Saturday Night Live. The talk was supposed to be discussing the concept of the fandom, and how the Jokers built and continue to maintain their fan base. In between hilarious jokes and audience interaction, the Jokers explained that the key to maintaining a fan base in any regard is to break down walls between them and the fans as much as possible. They stressed that staying humble is a key factor in making their fans feel as if they know them personally. I think that this is an important thing to keep in mind, especially if my future career involves a company/personality that relies on loyal consumers/fans. While the content of the beginning of the talk was interesting, Colin Josh's moderation and interviewing skills were extremely lacking and took away from what could have been an incredible talk. He was quite obviously unprepared, even stating once that "well, we have 20 minutes left and I'm out of questions." 

Overall, this day was a lot busier than I imagined that it would be, and while the talks I heard were not the greatest, I still learned a lot of lessons. I'm excited for the days to come!