Good morning. Today, Breaking and Entering high-kicks its way into Cannes; the ratio of celebrities to ad execs in Cannes keeps going up; and more stars slap their names on a new cellphone network.

The latest must-see news for the ad industry doesn’t come from the usual suspects in the business press but a pair of energetic 27-year-olds, Geno Schellenberger and Jack Westerkamp, Megan Graham reports in her profile of the duo and their fledgling Breaking and Entering Media.

Every weekday morning they gather in a tiny Madison Avenue office to run down a whiteboard of headlines on “60 Seconds of Advertising News,” their low-fi, high-energy video series that’s quickly joined the media diet for agency leaders and up-and-comers both. There are often high kicks.

Breaking and Entering shows both respect for the industry’s work and “a lack of taking anybody or themselves so seriously that is, I think, very needed right now in 2025,” said Joan Creative co-founder Jaime Robinson, a recent guest on the B&E podcast. “It’s why they’re so much fun to watch.”

This week the duo is making themselves seen and heard at Cannes Lions, where they’re interviewing execs in “Tiny Terrace Talks” videos with the PR firm Raven.

“We’re giving them a lot of creative license,” said Hollie Rapello, co-founder of Raven.

Katie Deighton writes from the sweltering South of France:

Bonjour from day three of Cannes Lions. Yesterday I nearly bumped into Serena Williams—literally—outside whatever the French equivalent of a bodega is called, and took a tequila shot with Josh Duhamel at MediaLink’s reliably-swanky party at the Hotel du Cap-Eden Rock.

Celebrities have always been a hallmark of Cannes, but now more are here on their own dime, or at least their own investors’ dime. If they’re not touting their advertising agencies and production companies (Duhamel, Reese Witherspoon, JB Smoove) they’re looking for ad money to back their various podcasts and scripts.

And make no mistake: High-level are just as susceptible to the lure of the A-list (or B-list, or C-list) as the rest of us; poor Patrick Schwarzenegger last night very politely agreed to a never-ending stream of selfie requests while waiting in the taxi line outside the Majestic.

A less-glamorous topic of conversation on the Croisette is attendee illness. I’ve heard of multiple cases of food poisoning, heatstroke and even Covid. There’s been less talk of old-fashioned hangovers, but I’m sure that might change, given the sprawling disaster zone in front of the Gutter Bar at 1 a.m. last night.

Over at the Palais: More winners of top honors at Cannes were named Tuesday night, including a project to give closed captions more emotion and better timing that won in both Design and Digital Craft. [Ad Age]

Katie Deighton caught up with Alex Craddock, chief marketing and content officer of banking group Citi, at the Journal House in Cannes. His answers have been edited and condensed.

You moved to Citibank from Blackrock just over a year ago. What was the biggest surprise about retail bank marketing?

The amount of opportunity. We do a lot of things really, really well, but there's an awful lot of things that we could be doing that could be very accretive to helping accelerate our revenue growth. A lot of that opportunity comes from the fact that we've brought marketing together across the firm, so we're able to connect dots across client segments, across businesses, and find new things that we've never done before.

Have you developed any guiding principles when it comes to marketing and AI?

Don't fear it, and don't sort of let the narrative it might come for your job paralyze you, because the one thing it can’t do is be emotional.

Who were you looking forward to bumping into on the Croisette this year?

People I’ve worked with in the past who are now big CMOs, like Emily Ketchen, the CMO of Lenovo, and Lara Balazs, the CMO of Adobe. It’s about sharing notes with people you've grown up with in your career—we're all now in these wonderful roles in amazing organizations at a really exciting time.

Not in Cannes? We’ve got you covered with video from Journal House.

Netflix’s CMO on the Competitive Streaming Landscape
Marian Lee spells out the strategies that the streamer uses to stay on top, including brand integrations and new immersive fan experiences.

Nikki Haley and Richard Edelman on Navigating Business and Politics
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Edelman CEO Richard Edelman map geopolitical issues facing advertisers including rising nationalism, risks of doing business with China and the effects of President Trump's trade war.

How Brands Operate Within Culture
Executives from Kraft Heinz, Diageo and Chime compare strategies that brands use to tap into culture to stay relevant, including targeted creative campaigns, influencer partnerships and operating within subcultures.

Tariffs are testing Sam’s Club’s strategy of keeping prices as low as possible, even as the chain identifies more than 1,000 products that will hold the line through July 22. [WSJ] 

Growing restaurant chain Greenlane wants to make salad the next drive-through phenomenon. [Restaurant Business News]

Pete Markey stepped down as CMO of U.K. health and beauty chain Boots. [Campaign] 

Business software firm Monday.com named former Google marketer Harris Beber its new chief marketing officer. [CRN]

Scented sunscreens are the hot new thing this summer. [Glossy]

Note to readers: The CMO Today newsletter won't be published Thursday in observance of Juneteenth in the U.S. We will see you back here Friday.