As he prepares to kick off the new Entertainment track at the Cannes Lions festival, MediaLink Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan sees the Cannes Festival reaching “a tipping point in a very good way.”
The head of the strategic advisory and business development firm is “excited and honored” to be conducting an interview with Leslie Moonves, Board Chairman, President and CEO of CBS Corp., to begin this year’s Festival on June 23 in France.
The concept of the Cannes Lions Entertainment track “is something I discussed with senior Cannes executives several years ago. I feel like a part of it,” says Kassan.We’ve got such a force of entertainment and content creation at Cannes this year and it truly has reached the tipping point, in a very good way, of the intersection of marketing media, advertising, entertainment and technology.”
Previously COO and Vice Chairman of Initiative Media Worldwide, Kassan had an “epiphany” recently while talking to his team at MediaLink: “Over five days and four square blocks on a lovely stretch of the Mediterranean 100% of our industry is present,” he recalls. He adds with a chuckle, “And in our case, probably 100% of our revenue is present.”
For the fourth year, MediaLink will be curating conversations at Cannes at its Daily Dose sessions to produce “what we hope to be interesting conversations around the things that are shaping and forming our industry,” Kassan says.
This interview is part of our series “The Road to Cannes”, presented by FreeWheel. Please visit this page for additional segments.
