Hiya! If you don't know me, I'm Lucy Werner.
I used work in PR for some of the biggest PR, advertising and creative agencies in London before setting up my own micro-agency, The Wern, where specialised in helping independent businesses get seen (including securing two clients speaking at Cannes Lions).
I live in rural France, run a paid newsletter community of 400+ small business owners, with 12,000+ free readers. I'm the co-founder of three kids, a bonkers cockapoo dog owner, a French student and reporting from Cannes Lions for Creative Boom before racing home for the school pick-up.
Which means I probably experience the festival a little differently.
Here are my notes from the week on how I can take a big business conference and apply it to my small business.
Creators have officially arrived.
You couldn't swing a cat this year without hitting a creator talking about how Cannes was the biggest moment of their career.
Digiday described Cannes Lions 2026 as a Super Bowl moment for creators. Business Insider went one step further, declaring creators the new Mad Men.
The Creator Pass was introduced in 2024 and at €1,494, suddenly feels like a pretty reasonable investment when you compare it to some eye-wateringly expensive B2B courses and programmes.
Last year, the official Creator Hub was tucked away on a rooftop. This year it had moved onto the beachfront with its own dedicated beach, podcast studios and content spaces. That tells you everything you need to know about where the industry thinks things are heading.
What I found more interesting, though, was what everyone wasn't talking about. Brand activations are cute but have you talked about the winners?
Social Juice made this point brilliantly in one of my favourite posts from the week. Cannes exists to celebrate creativity and whilst the activations are fun, surely there are some lessons from the award winning campaigns?
There needs to be a way to bring the influencer and advertising creatives together because the work is in silo. I hope we start to see some prediction or post-event advertising screenings of the work to celebrate more of the creators maybe off the French Riviera and in local markets.
Some of words that resonated for me:
Corey Martin from Allison Worldwide spoke about the shift from the creator economy to the community economy.
Rachel Lowenstein talked about independent strategist-creators having cultural capital that large agencies can't always manufacture.
Richard Hammond described creators becoming media brands in their own right.
Offline moments
I think we are going to see a tonne more of these and this is where we can play as indie creators. Hike, Walks, Journals, (four different postcard activations) soundscapes were some of the sensory experiences we saw.
Sixième Son took people out onto the sea to experience sound rather than another keynote.
Ideas I'd love to execute if I didn't have three children, a French language exam to pass, a birthday landing during Lions week and a school run waiting for me each afternoon.
I'm surprised given that Grasse (not too far from Cannes) is the perfume capital of the world we didn't see an activation there. If I was a small biz owner I would look to do a private curate your own perfume class.
Equally, so many artist and writers found inspiration on the French Riviera, yet there were very few moments celebrating that creative history.
My end of week Friday tradition is to end my Lions Festival at my local aqua park. I want to arrange a small business offline tour there to get humbled on a floating inflatable park, eat a nice lunch, hire a bed over looking the lake and still have change from 100 euros.
My favourite talks were from the Future Gazers sessions with Pantone and Polaroid. I particularly loved Patricia Varella, Creative Director of Polaroid talked to us about analogue as a competitive advantage. "We are an 80+ year-old analog brand. For us, the simple act of existing is already an act of rebellion. The best of life is analog."
They were both a reminder that you don't have to catapult yourself into using AI if it doesn't fit what you do.
Community will become more important than follower numbers.
I've been practicing what I preach for a long time that the smaller, geek in their niche creators have a bigger impact on my sales then when I've collabed with people with hundreds of thousands of followers.
After having my ego dented by not having enough follower numbers for brands to take me seriously, I realized that it's not going to be long (2-3) years max before I have the richer currency in my own paid newsletter community, French quarterly local events, and my retreats.
I want to spend the next year really cultivating my offline world and the right brand partnerships that work with that.
A smaller engaged audience is better. (Case in point my newsletter is 40% engagement, my Instagram is often 1%) Repeat to self - smaller but engaged is better. And work with the brands who appreciate that not just chasing large numbers.
Hiding my books is always a good idea.
I hide copies of Hype Yourself around Cannes every year. This gave me the most heart-warming moment I've had in a long time.
One reader, Siki, found a copy and told me buying the book had changed her career. Despite not having a lot of oomph left in me after the week, I made sure I drove back into Cannes one last morning just to meet her.
It reminded me that visibility and connection can come by chance and you have to make your own luck.
And if you want to follow my journey as to how I hype myself and help share templates, directories and stories to help a global community of self-employed folks to get seen and get paid, consider sitting with us in the paid community.
Keep on hyping.
Lucy x
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