As the advertising industry geared up for the return of the Cannes Lions Festival in 2022, WorkInProgress conducted on-the-ground interviews with locals and discovered there’s a group of people who may not be as excited about our industry’s return to the Croisette - the residents of Cannes. While many are excited about the return of the Festival (we all know it boosts the economy of the city), some of the French folks were less than thrilled because of our typical “American” behavior on the ground.

Our answer? We helped three locals to escape the chaos of the week with all expense paid trips to their destination of choice. Julien went scuba diving in Cancun, Christophe went rum tasting in Guadeloupe, and Stephanie rode horses in Italy.

The idea was inspired by our internal program dubbed The WIP Fund (employees are given $1500/yr to put towards anything that will make them progress as a person), we felt this was the perfect opportunity to give these residents the same experience.