Trust Is The Only Currency Left
Cannes Lions was a movie. Here's what it signaled about substance, reach, and why we need more Smart people on the internet.
Where else does a work trip involve dancing on boats with CMOs, getting interviewed by a Love Islander, and yapping in the club with Flava Flav and Miguel?
Welcome to Cannes Lions, the biggest advertising festival in the world. Underneath the movie of it all, something very real is happening — and the opportunity for Smart Girls to take advantage of it is ripe.
Here’s everything I saw, what I did, and what I’m changing in my business because of it.
Also - this one’s for the DMs that keep coming in. So many of you have asked me how I “manifested” Cannes. How I got there, how I pulled it off, how the last six months of my career have transformed. So I’m going to go live tomorrow, July 3, at 8am EST for an H2 planning featuring how I got through the hardest year of my life and created…well…a dream career.
First, AMG Rule #1: I never look like my problems. But I’ll tell you the truth….
Seven days. Barely any food — every restaurant on the Croisette is bought out by a brand, no wristband no entry, and inside they’re serving hors d’oeuvres instead of anything you could call a meal (IYKYK).
One real bout of food poisoning (like, can I Live??). Home at 6am more than once, running on almost no sleep, closing deals in the early hours of the morning. And five nights dancing on my bestie’s company yacht with Babyface, Fat Joe, and Wyclef Jean, among MANY others.
It was…a movie, I fear! Not all champagne and golden hour — but a lot of it was. I’d do every bit of it again, and very much plan to.
What I Learned: My takes have been right all along. Welcome to the Credibility Economy.
A year ago, 0% of my deals were B2B, today, that number is closer to 70%. My highest paid deals prior to this were from big Pharma or beauty brands, and today, b2b has entered the chat.
That B2B number above is a market telling you exactly what it values. Brands are reaching for substance over aesthetics, because UGC and AI already handle “pretty.” Entertaining content? Solved. Meaningful content? That’s the opportunity, and it’s why I’m so bullish on more Smart Girls On The Internet.
What’s scarce is a real point of view, real expertise, a real reason to trust you.
Think about it this way: smart (successful) brands are putting actual dermatologists in ambassador seats over girls who are simply beautiful. (Both can be true at once, obviously; this is an AMG newsletter.) But the credential is why the Derm with 10k followers gets paid the same as the cutie with 100k. You get it
The take I’m most sure about: the creator economy isn’t a vertical. It’s horizontal. We touch everything.
That’s why Sports had a bigger footprint this year. Why beauty was everywhere. Why B2B brands were competing for creator clout. Creators aren’t a little category sitting off to the side of the “real” industries — we run THROUGH all of them. Finance, sports, beauty, tech, fashion: every one of those rooms needs someone who can make people feel something and move them to act. That’s us.
The industry just hasn’t caught up to that yet. It’s still SO fragmented — too many agencies, too many silos, nobody drawing the through-line. And normally I’d complain about that (I did, out loud, to some very nice brand people at LinkedIn). But fragmentation is just opportunity: when no one has claimed the space, you get to.
The brands already figured this out — half of them are quietly becoming production companies (hello Coach x Spotify), hiring creators outright, building studios in-house. The smart ones stopped renting our attention and started building with us!
And because the space is this wide open, there’s no longer one “right” way to be a creator. From what I can see, it’s splitting into a few lanes:
The ones who make great content and get paid well for it — they want a good life and a couple hundred thousand a year, and TBH? Respect. That’s a real, beautiful career, I’ve been enjoying it for half a decade now!
The ones who turn the audience into a multi-pronged business — thought leaders, founders, owners, investing in startups. (Hi, it's me.)
Career creators — those with a body of work in a certain industry who use their followers to help them differentiate themselves in their niche
And the ones pushing into the celebrity lane — full-on talent, entertainment, fame.
None of these is better than the others. The mistake is drifting between them by accident. Pick your lane on purpose and drive.
One thing surprised even me: there weren’t enough creators there.
“SO MaNy CrEaToRs At CaNnEs” — yeah, no.
It was the same group I saw at the Chase for Business dinner in NYC the week before: the classic B2B set (or any creator who’s also running a business), all of us posting from JT Barnett’s Signals house party like it was THEE function (it was — but I had to scurry to the Afties, probably the most star-studded and lit event I’ve ever attended) and believe me, we all had a TIME. All I see are heartfelt stories and LinkedIn posts from this set of about 100–200 creators.
But my beauty/lifestyle/fashion girls? Nowhere to be found. And the “influencers” who did come had mostly been flown in by brands, hit one or two contracted activations, posted their deliverables, and left. They came for the contract and skipped the conference — which is wild to me, because the conference is the entire point!!!
There was a creator group there bigger than last year, but… it wasn’t a diverse one, or one that I PERSONALLY believe represents the breadth of the creator economy.
SMART GIRLS WERE PRESENT THOUGH: I got to meet so many mutuals that I LOVE like dakota rae lowe, Mia McGrath | Frugal Chic® , Simply Put with Erin On Demand, data, but make it fashion, and so many MORE! It was so lovely to connect with the cool brainy girls IRL.
But to recap: the rooms where the real business happens were being worked by the B2B set, opening doors for us that follower count and ShopMy status just can’t. If you’re a creator with an actual POV in any niche, there’s an opening for you, sisters!
A few more things I clocked on the ground:
IRL activations are the real marker of influence now. Getting butts in seats matters more than your follower count, PERIOD. If you can move people into a room, you have something no dashboard can measure and every brand wants. And being there — being FUN, being someone people actually want to keep talking to at 1am — is what put me top of mind for the brands I want. Not (just) my numbers. The energy. They can get numbers anywhere!
Serendipity beat every meeting I scheduled in advance. The best invitations and most important conversations came together last minute, late at night, off a run-in I could never have planned. Worth saying though: that only works if your pitch is reflexive — if you can say what you do and what you want in one clean breath at 1am. Charm without a pitch? Wasted potential.
Horizontal networking was a genuine highlight. We talk so much about getting close to the C-suite, and yes, that’s incredible (my interviews with C-suite execs will be in your inbox shortly, thank you very much). But finally meeting the mutuals I’ve been obsessed with online — some of YOU, working on your own brands and hustling — did just as much for me. Meet the people at your level. You’re going to rise together.
To my corporate girls: learn to make content. It’s a skill, not a career, and your career needs it. The faster you stop hating on creators and start making your own stuff, the faster you’ll both respect the craft AND create more economic opportunity for yourself. Dakota, mentioned above, does a WONDERFUL job of this!
The brand teams are internally fragmented on creator marketing. Even with brands I genuinely love, the way they interact with creators felt disconnected: too many agencies, no through-line. (I said this to Microsoft and LinkedIn’s faces, lovingly.) EXAMPLE: I’m on a first-name basis with the LinkedIn CEO but wasn’t on the list for half their activations for some reason…. simply a mess.
Live shopping still isn’t landing in the US. They were trying this at YouTube back in 2022 and… no. Maybe 2030. Not yet.
And brands spent MILLIONS on this festival and still can’t pay creators on time. lol. ok. (crying in overdue payments rn)
Quick clarification, because I say “follower count doesn’t matter” a lot and I don’t want it misheard: I don’t mean you don’t need an audience. I mean numbers are just ONE kind of value. Some creators bring impressions. Some bring conversions. Some bring clout. Some bring genuinely stunning creative. Some bring credibility — the brand gets to borrow your trust. When you can do all five at once, you’re not a creator anymore, you’re a company, and you get paid like one. But every single one of those is worth something. So figure out what YOU bring, get great at it, and keep it moving.
And because so many of you want to do this WITH me: I’m opening The Authority Edit. It’s a group advisory cohort where I help you turn your traction into an actual, monetizable business — alongside a room of other ambitious material girls. I know a lot of you want me 1:1, and I love you for it, but ask anyone from Creator Essentials: the group is what makes it magic. Spots are limited and I want the right girls in the room — if that’s you, reply to this email and I’ll tell you everything.
And the moment that meant the most: more than 30 people came up to me about my newsletter. I have 12k followers. Thirty-plus humans, all of them real AMGs, sought me out because of stuff I shared on Substack. That kind of reader doesn’t come from chasing reach — it came from connection with all of you <3
Where I’m taking this.
Cannes didn’t just confirm my theories; it gave me paths to take and people to connect with who get it.
Keep reading for a peek into my H2 business strategy and the play-by-play of every event I attended at Cannes - with pictures that only made it to my close friends.