ON CREATORS, CHEATING, & EMPLOYEE GENERATED CONTENT

EXCLUSIVE video of a Cannes Lions panel with Little Dot Studios, KNOWN agency, and the smartest Creator in all of marketing.

Happy Monday Peaceniks. To my friends in France and England — congrats on nail-biting wins in the World Cup — here’s hoping the US will join you in the quarters!

Today, as a special summer treat to beat the heat, I’ve got two summery treats to keep us cool. First, fresh off the press, here’s the JULY MEDIA UNIVERSE MAP.

LOW RES JULY MAP: FOR HIGH RES MAPS FROM 2020-2026 CLICK MAP

The July map shows massive movement in the Media Universe.

🪐 Trad Media stagnates as AI capitalizations defy financial logic. Anthropic is now valued more than Netflix, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Paramount, Fox Corporation, Roku, Spotify, Nintendo, Roblox, and Disco Bros... COMBINED.

🪐 FOX & Roku are now tethered - but will the combined value be the combined value? More? Less?

🪐 Newly public Bending Spoons has been added to the map, at an eye-popping market cap of $23 billion.

🪐 There are 176 companies on the map with a total valuation of $32.1 Trillion. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX - just 9 companies - represent 76% of that value: $24.5T.

What does all this motion mean for the future of Media? Stay tuned to find out! And, if you want high res versions of every map from 2020 through 2026, click here.

BRANDS, CREATORS & TOILETS?

Now… What’s cooler than cool? This red hot panel, direct from the Tubi Cabana at Cannes Lions, featuring the smooth and insightful Wayne Davison, CRO at Little Dot Studios (and Cannes Lions virgin!), the sage and curmudgeonly Ross Martin (his 15th Lions!), founder of the amazing agency KNOWN, and Joel Bjarni Marlinarson (Cannes Lions #2), a brilliant Creator who focuses his attention on brands, marketing, and the collision of the ad business with the Creator economy.

Below is the WHOLE, unexpurgated panel: including Ross’s bombshell about the Lions cheating scandal that resulted in 25% fewer awards submissions this year; Wayne’s hot take on how to rise above the shit on social media; Joel’s masterful thesis on The Marketing Dinner Party Test; an eye-opening chat about Employees (and Brands) as Creators; an awkward-and-fascinating poll about watching video on the toilet; and all of our predictions for the biggest marketing trends for the coming year.

I hope you take a moment away from the heat and the football to enjoy this cool conversation. It’s not just worth your time, it’s time well spent.

Thanks to Joel, Wayne, and Ross for joining me on this panel and for being so frank, fun, and full of genius.

Stay Cool 😎🪭 !

ESHAP