CANNES — The hottest ticket at Cannes Lions was Stagwell’s Sport Beach.
For the third straight year, the multi-day sports, fandom and marketing event returned to the Cannes International Festival of Creativity — and, for the first time, served as the “official sports partner” of the festival from June 16-19.
It was the premier destination for both current and retired professional athletes, celebrities and executives to meet, collaborate and get creative while enjoying scenic views of the French Riviera.
This year’s starry roster featured the likes of Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony, 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, retired professional soccer player and Olympic gold medalist Megan Rapinoe, four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird, World Series champ Alex Rodriguez and three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade, to name a few.
Stagwell chairman and CEO Mark Penn has the formula figured out when it comes to marrying sports, news and entertainment.
“I think when we started three years ago, we were Stagwell — who knew Stagwell?” Penn told The Post. “We were an up-and-coming holding company that really nobody knew. And we had to say, well, ‘How are we going to get ourselves known?’ What are we gonna create?’
“I put it out to the agencies, give us some ideas. And they came up with the idea of Sport Beach, some folks at [full-service creative agency] 72andSunny, and we said ‘yes,’ and best to do in the corporate team, ran it, and the first year it was just a clear success.”
Penn then detailed the path to building on that success.
“I always talk about ‘Godfather’ syndrome. Okay, well, the first one was really path-breaking. The second one was the best. And then you have to worry that the third one went downhill. So, I think we met the challenge, the third is not downhill,” he said.
“… I think in general, too, the economy is better. I think more people are here, more people are in a good mood to go hear about sports. And so I think we aimed for bigger and better, and we got bigger and better.”
Penn’s career spans 40 years in market research, advertising, public relations, polling, and consulting.
He has advised top world leaders, including presidents, led companies and written two bestselling books.
A self-described “news junkie,” Penn explained why he was intentional in leaning heavily into sport when it came to launching Stagwell’s Sport Beach.
“I think the world is made up of news junkies, sports junkies and entertainment junkies,” he said. “I personally am more of a news junkie. But I have to recognize that they were right, that this was a moment for sports, because sports is a very unifying element in our culture.
“No matter what team you root for, you actually feel you have something in common with the people who are rooting on the other side. And you come together, I think, in the admiration of the winner in sports… and plus, it was a very practical thing.
“The athletes needed to get closer to the brands, because many of the athletes now are saying, ‘You know what, my career is not just the couple of years I can play at the top of my game. But I need a long life in terms of a brand for representing what I’ve done.’ And the brands are super interested in getting close to the athletes, so we also created a marketplace for that.”
One of the many indicators that Stagwell’s Sport Beach was a success early on was that athletes weren’t just attending and participating in a panel and leaving — they stayed and continued to come back year after year.
Anthony, Bird and Rapinoe have participated in Stagwell’s Sport Beach since its inception in 2022.
“I think the first year, you’re giving people a promise and it doesn’t exist,” Penn said. “… But the first thing we thought would happen is [that] the athletes would come in and they’d be here for a half hour, and as soon as their panel was over, they’d cut out. This is just not what happened.
“This is cool. And they hung out, and they got to know us all here at Stagwell, and now it became a regular thing, like this is part of their year, to come show up, so I’m really pleased it worked out that way.”
The world’s top athletes and entrepreneurs essentially had trust and believed in Penn, taking a gamble on the idea he and his team at Stagwell were presenting.
“It wasn’t that we gave them an incredible sales job or had million-dollar checks, it really was that they… came to enjoy it, their agents said, ‘Hey, this is good for you and your career. Where else are you going to get 50 brands together in a room that you can talk to?’
“So I think all of those things made sense, but I think there was a personal element here where they frankly felt comfortable. And also, where else do they kind of get to meet fellow athletes, really across all of these different sports at the same time, with the same goal of what kind of life are we going to have after sports?”
Penn moderated the “Future of News: Why News Junkies are the Real MVPs” panel on Wednesday, which unpacked the business case for investing in high-quality media environments of news — a topic that is close to him.
“… So we did a big study and we placed the same ad in all sorts of different environments and across different news stories, a sports story, an entertainment story, a presidential campaign story. We did the same, okay? All this stuff about the brand safety, you wouldn’t want Boeing to have an ad in the middle of the India story. I mean, there are certain things. But by and large, it was bunk, right? And close to 40 or 50 percent, I think, of CMOs and companies don’t advertise on news. So, as a result, good journalism is not supported.
“… We need to get CMOs advertising in news, sports, and entertainment based on the results, not on a false sense of brand safety. Otherwise it means, frankly, paywalls have to be higher or there will be fewer journalists and fewer journalistic outlets.”
Penn went on to tease a special surprise on the final day of Stagwell’s Sport Beach on Thursday.
“Come and be here for the closing,” he said. “We usually say the biggest secret, the most interesting kind of event for the end.”
