Do the Work, Love the Work (at Cannes Lions)
- Vanessa Marquez-Kramme
- Jul 15
- 5 min read
Last month, I was at Cannes Lions—a bucket-list industry event—when my dad ended up in the hospital, and Venezuela was hit by two devastating earthquakes. What I learned about holding crisis and success simultaneously isn't just a personal win. It's the exact work I do with clients. Here's what that looked like.
Cannes Lions is not a festival you just go to. It’s one where you’re either fully present or you drown.
Before I even got there, I signed up for everything: conflicting talks, sessions I knew I couldn't possibly attend all at once, VIP events… In my mind, it was better to have options than to show up blind. And even though I ended up doing maybe an eighth of what I planned—because things kept popping up and distances were longer than they looked on a map—having seen the full scope of what was available helped me make better real-time decisions once I was in it.
Because to me, plans are never set in stone. A plan is a sketch. It helps you move toward something, but once you're in motion, it's not just you anymore: it's time, it's other people in motion, it's the energy you have and carry at that specific moment. A plan just guides the beginning and keeps your endgame alive. Cannes confirmed that in every possible way.
This is the part I coach on constantly: the difference between rigidity and direction. Between white-knuckling a plan and actually trusting yourself enough to let it breathe.
A few things I'd tell anyone going for the first time:
The festival content doesn't disappear.
It is available online through Love The Work, and your badge gives you access to it for 2 weeks after the conference. I prioritized the beach activations in the moment and going back to watch the award shows and jury deep dives live, the other official Cannes talks? I'll be watching them on my laptop now that I'm home.
Pack more clothes than you think.
It was really hot. My plan to bring a capsule wardrobe that would give me around 65 total outfits did not work in the Cannes heat.
Balance your days.
I had heavy networking days and talk-heavy recharge days, and that rhythm is what kept me functional. Big social environments need recovery time built in, not bolted on after you've already burned out.
Get lost by yourself.
My best networking happened when I was alone, because I had no choice but to actually talk to people. Know your strengths, show up as yourself, and let the opportunities find you.
These weren't just travel tips. They were practices in listening to myself—to what I needed, what rhythm worked, where I belonged. And I was about to need all of that.
That last one mattered more than I expected.
Because I know I love public speaking and creating spaces for real conversation, and because I'd made that known, I got to say yes to things that weren't on my original schedule—including speaking on a panel at L'Appartement by Linktree alongside creator and strategist Robyn DelMonte and Carolina Chaves, a colleague from the NYU SPS program, on new generations and the student perspective in marketing; and recording an episode of The Better Angle podcast with Professor Kathleen Rennie and my colleague and emotional support adult, Alyssa Byam. Both of those still feel a little surreal.
On a personal level, it wasn't just the programming that surprised me.
Venezuela got hit by a double earthquake during the last few days of the trip. My dad was in the hospital—a minor situation they caught early, completely fixable, but I found that out the night before my panel (and the same night DJ Tiësto was playing on the beach). Tiësto has been on my bucket list for years, and I didn't go because something in me knew what I actually needed that night—quiet, prepping for my panel, a good cry, and permission to feel scared from thousands of miles away without also running myself into the ground.
I woke up the morning of the panel to news of the two earthquakes.
This is where old me would have spiraled. Frozen by guilt, drowning in anxiety, convincing myself I didn't deserve to be there. But something was different. Instead of crumbling, I got up, got dressed, and used the opportunity to speak to raise awareness of the situation back home.
And in between all of that—I heard Carlos Sainz talk about why the Hispanic market matters and how he's built his personal brand with real intention. I was in a room with Priyanka Chopra while she described what it actually costs to show up fully in two cultures at once. I sat in on a conversation with Cindy Gallop—Mad Men-era powerhouse, now founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, an ethical adult content platform built around ending rape culture through honest education on what consensual intimacy actually looks like.
None of these were on my bingo card. All of them met me exactly at my intersection: the marketer, the coach, the person who has never fit neatly into one lane.
Sometimes they challenged things I thought I already knew. Sometimes they just validated the road I'm already on. Either way, I needed them.
I'm still sitting with the fact that I got to not only attend but also speak at something that's a bucket-list event for a lot of people. Say what?
But the top win of this trip is therapy and "the work" paying off:
Having my dad's hospitalization and the two earthquakes happen while I was away and not being able to do anything about either of them would have pretty much destroyed me a few years back. Right now, I'm just really proud of myself for being able to hold both the despair and the success; the anxiety and the once-in-a-lifetime bliss. I'm proud of showing up anyway; of doing the work and loving the work that made that possible.
That wasn't positive thinking or spiritual bypassing. That's capacity IRL, and it makes the whole difference between managing your nervous system and white-knuckling through a crisis.
Cannes left me with a question. (Well, Susan did, actually.)
Susan Credle, this year's Lion of St. Mark, ended her remarks with a question she wants every person to be able to answer at the end of their career:
What did you make besides money? Because that will determine your happiness.
I keep coming back to it. Not because it's new to me, but because hearing it said out loud in that room—surrounded by people at the very top of this industry pointing back to purpose as the thing that actually got them there—lands differently than reading it somewhere or trying to answer it from your couch after an online workshop.
At the end of the day, money can fund a career, but purpose is what makes it matter.
P.S.: Dad is fine now; Venezuela… definitely not; and I? I'm going home differently from the way I came. More certain of my intersection. More grateful for my capacity to hold hard things. More motivated to do the work.
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