Creators Take Over Cannes Lions, Advertising’s Biggest Bash

Transfer over, Mad Males. Cannes is a creator city now — a minimum of for the subsequent week.

A legion of influencers will probably be among the many estimated 13,000-plus attendees headed to this yr’s Cannes Lions advertising festival, which kicks off in France on Monday. Creators are jostling for model offers, paid talking gigs, VIP get together invitations, and loads of alternatives to shoot content material alongside the glittering Côte d’Azur.

Greater than 250 creators are anticipated to attend, per an inventory curated by a bunch of selling firms. “Name Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper, “Feed Me” founder Emily Sundberg, make-up artist and creator Cindy Chen, TikToker Josh Richards, and YouTuber David Dobrik are all slated to mingle with entrepreneurs over the subsequent week.

“After I was first going to Cannes, if you happen to noticed Martin Sorrell strolling down the road, that was the big-name movie star,” stated UTA’s Margot Hauer-King, who was referring to the previous WPP CEO and present S4 Capital exec chairman.

Now? “Alix Earle,” Hauer-King stated.

This yr, creators are shifting from the margins of Cannes to the middle stage. That shift displays an business reckoning with basic adjustments in how shoppers work together with media. As broadcast promoting turns into much less efficient at reaching fragmented audiences, entrepreneurs more and more view creators as a important channel for consideration and affect.

EMARKETER, a Enterprise Insider sister firm, expects 88.7% of established firms within the US will put money into influencer marketing this yr, up from lower than 40% a decade in the past. Model spending on influencer advertising is forecast to achieve $12.42 billion this yr.

Shweta Bhardwaj, a companion at Bain & Firm, stated creator technique is now a core a part of the advertising playbook.

“Lots of the CMOs I discuss to say the advertising of yesterday was us speaking about our manufacturers,” Bhardwaj stated. “The advertising of at this time is shoppers speaking about our manufacturers, and our function as CMOs is to allow that dialog as authentically as doable.”

SharkNinja’s chief model and expertise officer, Michelle Crossan-Matos, stated that “influencer advertising,” as a time period, even feels outdated. She prefers “creator commerce,” which emphasizes the extent to which creators have grow to be concerned in shaping each the merchandise that manufacturers launch and the way they market them.

Creators’ Cannes agenda

Star YouTube creator Dhar Mann is returning to Cannes Lions for the second time this yr, his calendar jammed with talking classes, together with an interactive workshop within the Palais the place advertising execs will compete for a $200,000 model integration on his important channel.

Mann stated he senses the ability dynamic between creators and types is shifting this time round.

“Creators aren’t simply exhibiting as much as community and study from manufacturers — now extra manufacturers need to understand how creators work,” Mann stated. “Creators get suggestions daily from tens of millions of viewers. We all know what makes them care and what makes them share.”

There’s nonetheless some work to be executed to cut back bottlenecks, Mann added.

“The normal technique of working with conventional advertisers takes months — limitless decks, conferences backwards and forwards,” Mann stated. “Manufacturers are studying that with the intention to survive this new local weather, you need to transfer on the velocity of tradition. Who can do this? Creators.”

Sundas Khalid, who posts content material about AI and information science to her 1 million-plus followers, is heading to Cannes Lions for the primary time this yr. She’s planning to meet up with manufacturers she’s already labored with, like OpenAI and Teachable, make new connections with entrepreneurs, and pitch up at LinkedIn’s house on the Resort Carlton rooftop to create content material and meet different creators. (LinkedIn says there’s only one rule: No swimming within the pool.)

“If there’s one factor in regards to the content material creation house, it may be very lonely — I sit in my basement and document most of my movies there,” Khalid stated. “I proactively put in time to be in locations the place different creators are going to be.”

The opposite scorching subjects: agentic AI, soccer, and M&A

Influencer advertising is not the only real matter on the agenda at Cannes this yr.

The advert business is making an attempt to shake off angst about artificial intelligence and its potential to wipe out jobs and additional focus energy within the arms of the tech giants.

“Agentic” would be the central sq. on each Cannes buzzword bingo card as firms tout AI agents that may automate media buys, conduct analysis, and store on shoppers’ behalf.

Brian Kotlyar, CMO of the advertising platform Hightouch, has two ideas for entrepreneurs fielding these pitches. First, ask to see the factor in motion in a dwell surroundings, not a staged one. Second, “When somebody says they’ve an agent, ask them: What can your agent do this Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini can not?”

This yr’s competition falls through the closing spherical of World Cup group-stage matches, making certain that dwell sports activities — one of many final remaining mass-reach media automobiles — will once more function closely in Croisette conversations. The World Advertising Research Centre forecasts the match will drive a $10.5 billion surge in worldwide advert spend this yr as manufacturers look to capitalize on the occasion’s feel-good issue and international, cross-generational enchantment. Loads of firms at Cannes are internet hosting watch events for large video games, with the European time zone making certain the festivities will run late into the night.

Attendees can even count on a wholesome portion of M&A chatter alongside their glasses of rosé. Hypothesis is rife about whether or not Publicis’ acquisition of LiveRamp and Accenture Song’s buying of Whalar may spark copycat offers within the information and creator areas. In the meantime, entrepreneurs will probably be quizzing Omnicom execs about how the mixing of its $9 billion acquisition of Interpublic Group will have an effect on its purchasers, for higher or worse.

PepsiCo CMO Jane Wakely hopes “inventive effectiveness” — campaigns that may reveal their enterprise impression — would be the breakthrough pattern as soon as Cannes attracts to an in depth this yr. (Wakely is on the jury panel for the Cannes Lions Artistic Effectiveness Award.)

Cannes Lions tightened its awards guidelines for 2026 after a number of of final yr’s winners drew scrutiny about whether or not the massive claims made of their case research may very well be verified. Wakely welcomed the adjustments.

“Two or three years in the past, a number of the work that was celebrated was not efficient; it was stunts,” Wakely stated. “I believe as an business we have been starting to lose our means.”