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Welcome back to The B2B Stack. It’s been 3 weeks — a combination of a busy H1 finish, a very full product roadmap at FunnelFuel, and, a busy period of work travel between NYC and Cannes Lions. I’m just back from the latter, and wanted to put pen to paper on my takeaways for B2B and why we belong in that ‘room’
What you’ll learn in this newsletter:
How Cannes Lions has shifted from a loosely structured European networking event to a far more corporate, US-dominated affair
Why the infrastructure of the event has changed, restaurants, yachts, apartments, and what that means practically
Why B2B is no longer just background noise at Cannes, and what that shift signals
The practical tips that will make or break your 2027 experience if you’re planning to go
Why being present at Cannes as a B2B vendor or agency is worth the investment — and how to maximise it
I last attended Cannes Lions in 2019. I’d been going consistently for seven or eight years before that. In June this year I went back, making a last minute decision having had one or two very large meeting requests. On the back of a week in NYC, it was a stretch, but I am very glad I did bite the bullet.
Seven years is a long time in adtech. It turns out it’s also a long time in the south of France.
The Cannes I returned to in 2026 is a fundamentally different event to the one I left. Not in location, not in weather (still 35 degrees, still punishing), and not in the volume of rosé consumed (equally if not more so punishing). But in character, in structure, and increasingly, in who is setting the agenda, it’s changed substantially. For those of us who operate in B2B, that shift is actually quite good news.
Below are my specific takeaways for B2B teams, and what I’d do differently because of them.