The 2024 Paris Olympics served up a sincerely odd blend of elite athleticism and sheer spectacle, with antics that will be remembered just as fondly as the feats of strength and speed. It was brash, bold, occasionally bizarre, often beautiful and somehow the most French thing the world’s ever seen even when they weren’t trying.

Like a decadent croquembouche that arrives just as you’ve begun to digest your bouillabaisse, the third and final instalment of A Cannesdid Conversation is here. 

From co-founders to co-video-hosts, your favourite gasbaggers are back for part two of A Cannesdid Conversation. They’ve ditched the astro turf, topped their wine up and headed inside to dish even more on Cannes Lions 2024, what’s on the menu?

Presenting A Cannesdid Conversation, a long-form, three-part video series unpacking, unpicking and unravelling what Andrew and Neil experienced each day of Cannes Lions 2024.

Day 4. We’re getting to the good stuff now. Today saw hangovers as big as the croissant-stuffed seagulls getting around the promenade, all reportedly victims of last night’s Spotify party, which could be heard from Antibes.

No lanyard tans today, kids. Day 3 was an overcast one, a welcome reprieve for the many sunburned faces putzing around the Palais. And while clouds may be low, the temp, UV and the ambition remain high. But with rain comes free branded brollies, so it ain’t all bad.

Day 2 starts with jaunt down Rue des Serbes, takeaway espresso and a Cannes Special Edition of The Wall Street Journal in the back pocket. Well at least it did for us, Andrew appeared briefly with a face full of regret at 8.30am, rushing out the door to the Brand Marketers Academy. While yesterday smacked of Generative AI talk, today was all about building the case for humanity. That is, until Mark Ritson did a full 180 in the final session of the day. We’ll get to that soon.

Hello! And welcome to a special week-long edition of COMMPRESS, covering Cannes Lion 2024 live* from La Croisette.

We’re not doing full rundowns of the Lions sessions, nor are we breaking the juiciest news. This ain’t Advertising Age. No! We’re honing in on the good chat: the topics sparking the smarter conversations at the Festival of Creativity, delivered from our inbox to yours in espresso-sized portions.

The Met Gala is done and dusted. The red carpet has been rolled back up. The costumes have been carefully chopped off, shimmied out of, and sent to …a museum presumably? Nonetheless the chat continues.

We know what you’re thinking: really? A Met issue? A little late to the party, aren’t we? Sure, the first Monday in May was a few weeks ago now, but believe it or not, that’s the point.

Kitchen culture in The Bear. Neurodiverse romance in Love on the Spectrum. The Big Cat clans of Tiger King. Chess in The Queen’s Gambit. Australian teen culture in Heartbreak High.

Shows that top the charts tend to be those that offer an anthropological toe-dip or straight up plunge into an otherwise unexplored culture or community. Niche has never been more mainstream.

There’s an irony and an agony to the person who tells you that they’re really down the earth. The guy on the dating app describing themselves as a sapiosexual. The one speaking over you to let you know they’re a great listener. People telling us things about themselves are usually aspirational, ego-fuelled and at odds with reality. To tell someone who you are is at best lazy, at worst it’s manipulative. It says: you are my audience, and I don’t trust you to come to the conclusion alone. Either way you’re robbing the other person of their part in the convo. And smarter conversations are a two-way street.

Bondi Beach in its geographical sense has become so severed from what Bondi represents that the above could be anywhere in the world. What was once a one kilometre stretch of sand is now a lifestyle connotation, an idea, symbol. A celebrity in its own right. And in this age of partnerships and endorsements, it made us think: if not a living celebrity, what else could you attach a brand to in order to set context, align branding, and connote a certain lifestyle?

One week. Two singers. Two different worlds.

Until now.

Bell-bottomed country diva Lainey Wilson
reveals her new single, Country’s Cool Again. In the same breath, Beyoncé proves her right: dropping two country-infused songs, Texas Hold ‘Em and 16 Carriages. The former charges to #1 on the US country tracks chart (and the Billboard 100 as well).

What the heck?

‘Tis a sheer modern marvel — a feat of engineering and human ingenuity — that we are able to put people into the air and shoot them off to various locations around the globe. Once a beacon of modernity and glamour, air travel represented a taste of good life: luxurious flight service, gussied up patrons, vogue cigarettes indoors, obsequiously attentive staff.

These days, not so…

It’s a new year, and while we’d love to wish you a happy one, we run things by the Book of David around here. That means it’s just too late for such pleasantries. Instead, let us offer this, the first COMMPRESS of 2024: a roundtable discussion of the varying degrees of nudity SKMG witnessed over the break.

Someone say bonus issue?

Before we sign off for the year (or at least start checking emails poolside) we’re sneaking in one last run to recap not so much the best moments in media, marketing and culture for 2023, but definitely the ones that got us talking.

This is the inaugural SKMG Good Chat Awards.

Creed are the latest in a seemingly constant thread of bands, brands and beings to make a surprising resurgence in 2023. Yep, we’re talking Creed with a “C”. For those of you looking for the Greed issue, that will come later, this is a Creed issue. We’re doing a Creed issue.

Emotional. Voyeuristic. Erotic at places. Few recent things have gripped us so viscerally as Netflix's four-part documentary, Beckham. Hitting 12.4 million views in its first week, ‘twas the doc that launched a thousand questions. Should we all be cooking mushrooms one at a time? Could I, too, pull off a sarong? What if I’d stuck to that thing I was good at as a kid?

Readers are feeble, restless, distracted things. Prone to getting lost or bored or muddling things up. One wrong sentence and they’ve veered off the path and into a bin. Too long a pause and they’re asleep. And then what?