Putin the ring away
Kraft almost lost another Supe trinket at fest
New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft didn’t really want to discuss the infamous Super Bowl ring appropriation by Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of a Q&A with WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell on the Cannes Lions stage, but Sorrell got him to tell the story to the international ad executives who perhaps hadn’t heard it.
“Do we want to go into this?” Kraft asked Sorrell, then explained that he was on a business trip to St. Petersburg in 2005 and showed Putin the ring.
“When we finished, he took it off and put it in his pocket, and three KGB agents surrounded him. It was downtown St. Petersburg,” Kraft said. “We weren’t exactly on home turf.”
Kraft said he was told by the State Department to let it go.
Sorrell showed the audience one of Kraft’s four other Super Bowl rings and then inadvertently kept hold of it.
As the session wrapped up and delegates streamed out, Kraft could be heard saying, “Can I have my ring back, please?”
The ‘Force’ with Ron
Imagine Entertainment founder Ron Howard was in Cannes on Friday to advance a plan with marketers to create branded entertainment.
He said investment company Raine Group, run by Joe Ravitch and Jeff Sine, had helped the firm broaden its business plan beyond making movies and TV series.
“We have occasionally done some branded-content business, but we haven’t done it as a business,” Howard said.
Howard, of course, was just tapped to be director of the latest installment in the endless “Star Wars” franchise, the as-yet- unnamed Han Solo project.
Sources told Onn the Money that Howard had a full slate of meetings in Cannes to get to know the advertising community and people who run successful Web businesses like Refinery29.
Howard is currently working on Season 2 of “Mars” for Na-National Geographic, chronicling NASA’s big push to reach the Red planet.
“It was fueled by Musk and Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner said. The NASA project got a lot of support from the Obama administration.
China pop
Growing revenue from the Chinese market is a top priority for Universal Music CEO Lucian Grainge .
The company flew pianist Lang, one of China’s biggest music stars, to Cannes Lions, and the 35-year-old was seen hanging out on magnate Ron Perelman’s yacht with actor Don Johnson son and model Karlie K loss( pi ct ur ed).ictu red ).
“The musical talent a lent and com- commercial opportunities ni ties emerging from China are greater than ever. Lang Lang is an artist who has global appeal and limitless potential, and he also happens to be a wonderful guy,” Grainge told On the Money.
Just weeks ago, Universal signed a deal with digital platform Tencent that Morgan Stanley valued at some $350 million. China was the 12th-largest music market last year, according to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with revenue accounting for $202 million, up 20.3 percent. The Chinese music market lags behind both the advertising and film industries in revenue, but it is expected to expand. In China, Tencent acquired a host of music-streaming services, including merging its Q Music platform with KuGou and Kuwo from China Music Corp. The Tencent deal is expected to lead to the development of Abbey Road Studios China and involves Tencent distributing Universal’s music roster in China to other outlets. Lang Lang, who only recently came to the Vivendi-backed label, is working on a new studio album called “The
Lions committee
In response tot Publicis Groupe’s announcement that it may take a break from Cannes Lions next year, event PhilipPhi Thomas, CEO of Ascential Events, said on Friday, “There have been a lot of discussions this week about the structure of the festival, and we want to create the right Cannes Lions experience for all participants.” ThomasThom said he would launch a committee to advise the event planners.