It’s day three at sunny Cannes 2015 and B&T’s two young cubs on the ground – Young Lion nominees Dan White and Simon Gibson from Clemenger BBDO (NSW) – share their adventures. Which  appears to include hobnobbing with some mega celebs indeed…

Day three of Cannes started with a string of amazing speakers following one another in the same auditorium: Pharrell Williams, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and Jamie Oliver.

Cannes went absolutely Pharrell-crazy. The crammed auditorium hung off his every mellow word as he gave his thoughts on the importance of sound and creativity. In between riddle-like philosophical thoughts, he made one point very clear – pure intentions and authenticity are critical for the success of artists and brands alike. Audiences can smell inauthenticity and they don’t forgive you for it. He seemed like he really meant it.

Then hundreds of people shuffled out of the auditorium.

Cannes is not a tech conference, and while everyone was interested in what Pharrell had to say about the importance of the internet, it seemed not so many were as interested in what the creator of the internet had to say. Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave a chaotic but incredible talk about artificial intelligence. Essentially, we are going to spend the next few decades grappling with some pretty serious ethical dilemmas about what AI should be allowed to do. It was equal parts intimidating and amazing.

Third up, Jamie Oliver spoke about building his brand and more recently, his movement to get kids around the world to eat better. He was candid, charming and self-aware. He spoke about knowing his audience, and how gender splits in different channels meant he produced content in different ways. Men use his YouTube channel more, but they didn’t wait for the big reveal of a meal at the end, so he put it at the front. Similarly to Pharrell, he spoke about building his brand based on authenticity and trust.

After seeing real rock stars, we decided to check out the work of this year’s advertising rock stars. We spent a few hours looking through the work that had been shortlisted and awarded. There was some amazing stuff, some surprising decisions for and against, but that’s all made the press already. Ultimately though, nothing could compare to seeing the man who came up with the most revolutionary invention of our life-time, or even the bloke who made cooking cool for guys.

It was incredibly humbling to see speakers at the top of their game giving insights from a different perspective. Also, it was nice to do it in 30 degrees.