Cannes Lions takeaways: Lessons for marketers to carry through 2026

Greetings, insiders. It's June 26th, and this week, I've got something a little different for you. I'm going to take you through the major stories that have come out of the Cannes Lions this week, and what they mean for the industry. This is AdAge Insider, taking you behind the scenes of the industry's biggest stories with the reporters who wrote them.

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So, if you want to know the message of this year's CanLion International Festival of Creativity, you didn't have to go further than the Nice Airport. A billboard there read, quote, And while AI was definitely a dominant conversation on the Croissette, that message applies to more than just technology. Last year, the discourse from Cannes revolved much more around the existential dread of how much uncertainty the industry is facing. But this year, things are a bit more action-oriented.

Many of the same fears and disruptions might persist, but the question has become, okay, so now what? So let's unpack some of the key topics that saw movement on that front. Let's start with the topic du jour, AI. The conversations that seemed to proliferate the most last year, those about AI putting creatives out of work, seem to have stopped.

There are a few quotes from reporting done by my colleagues Ewan Larkin and E.J. Schultz that I think paint that picture really well. 2B CMO Nicole Parlopiano told them, quote, Claudia Calori, who is VP and Head of Global Marketing for Personal Health at Philips, added to that.

She said quote How do we all embrace governance responsibility at a different level As always every article I mention in this podcast will be linked in this episode description So if you want to dig deeper on any of this head there The other big difference on the AI front is the actual companies present. OpenAI and Anthropic were out and about at Cannes this year. OpenAI skipped out on those big fancy activations that are a staple for most brands. Instead, they took a more understated approach, with private meetings and executives showing out on panels.

OpenAI's CRO, Denise Dresser, took the stage at the Palais and said to a packed house that although the company has regularly worked with chief marketers, quote, Now CEOs and the board have entered the room. Forget about productivity for productivity's sake. Every workflow, every industry can be reimagined. So how do we lead organizations through that?

OpenAI also continued to show off the growth of ads on ChatGPT. OpenAI's head of global ad solutions, David Dugan, told advertisers that, quote, roughly 20% of the queries coming into ChatGPT have a direct commercial intent. Anthropic was even less visible, with only a handful of executives, co-hosted events, and a focus on creators. The company's objectives seemed much less about messaging and more about listening.

More traditional can attendees like Microsoft and Google were also there talking about their AI products. You can head to Adage to read more about their pitches at the festival, but here's one quote that really stood out. Microsoft's VP of brand and global advertising, Ciarán McCarthy, told my colleague Ewan Larkin that Microsoft's co-pilot marketing was confusing and its interoperability had issues. So they're pulling co-pilot back from places it wasn't resonating.

McCarthy said, quote, people didn't really want AI everywhere. They just kind of want AI in the right places. AI knowing its place might be another way of putting it. So although these companies all seem to have different messages, transformation, relationships, assistance, and simplification, the AI conversation has definitely recalibrated from the over-promises and somewhat threatening vibe from last year.

And I think that's an exciting middle ground for moving forward. More cohabitation, a little less annihilation. Another interesting idea out of Cannes this year, influencers are set to play a major role in rehabbing the image of AI. One of Microsoft's goals for the festival was to deepen its relationship with creators, who will play a central role in its co-pilot marketing pivot.

Microsoft's McCarthy told Adage that AI marketing is, quote, incredibly hard. He said that in part because of the paradox tech companies face Consumers are interested in AI and its uses but at the same time they actively dislike it He said, quote, the social media backlash is happening now. Similarly, Anthropic partnered with UTA and Cannes to host an event to connect with creators. But AI companies weren't the only ones buzzing about influencers.

My colleague Brian Bonilla spoke with several sources who noted the huge increase in creators present at Cannes this year. But they also noted a parallel tension in figuring out exactly how creators fit into the traditional advertising model. Many agencies are pivoting from treating social media as a siloed discipline to making it a leading consideration across their operating models. That's especially important because social media work combines numerous marketing disciplines, creative, media, strategy, and production.

So it makes sense that those would need to work more closely in activating effective influencer marketing. But at the same time, industry leaders who spoke with Brian acknowledged that they haven't quite cracked how to measure and prove the impact of creator work, Especially as recent business moves like the acquisitions of influencer agencies Influential, Captivate, and Whaler are bringing heavy investment to the space, some are still seeking definitive proof that it's worth the cash.

And that creators as media channels can scale with consistency and predictability. That's not to say influencer marketing is ineffective or going away. Quite the opposite. Just that the investment is leading the proof.

and that can't sustain itself for much longer. Now, let's chat about another area of potential growth, gaming. I love chatter about new formats and ways for advertisers to show up in front of consumers, especially given my history as media reporter here at AdAge. At Cannes, there was, of course, continued chatter about microdramas, and you should definitely go listen to our past episodes on how advertisers can jump into that emerging format.

But my colleague EJ had a really fascinating interview about video game advertising. It's a highly undervalued channel, and companies like Electronic Arts are trying to fix that. One reason is that in the past, brands and gaming companies had to work together on long and expensive custom partnerships to get a brand in a game. But now, EA has an ad platform that looks a lot like how you get ads on TV.

For EA Sports Games like Madden NFL or FC26, brands can partner with EA Advertising to get targetable dynamic ad placements on the in-stadium signs in these games, just like a real match. You can read EJ full conversation with EA head of advertising and sponsorships Alex Dow on AdAge Basically the audience showed up a long time ago but the ad industry is just now getting the right on to meet them there Now let wrap up with a little chat about the creativity part of the festival.

This year, there was a 25% decline in awards entries. In numbers, that's 20,050 entries this year versus 26,900 entries last year. One reason for that is that there were stricter rules this year. Last year, the festival was under fire after multiple award-winning campaigns, namely from Omnicom agency DM9, were withdrawn for using AI-manipulated case studies.

So this year's process to enter for a Lion was more challenging and time-consuming. However, it wasn't just the rules that caused the change. Interestingly, reporting from my colleague Tim Nudd suggested that the fees to enter are just too prohibitive for agencies trying to cut costs in the current economic environment. One stat to know in that conversation, this year, brands accounted for 10% of entries.

That's up from 8% last year. And independent agencies accounted for almost one-third of entries. So the makeup of who is actually submitting and winning could change over the coming years pretty significantly. It'll be interesting to track this evolution over the years to come.

Speaking of the Lions, AdAge has been tracking the winners all week. I won't recap them all here, of course, so make sure to check out AdAge.com for a rundown. I'll have it linked in this episode's description.

As of release, we still don't know the big winners of the week, the Glass and Titanium Lions. so I'll be excited to see who takes those trophies home. Overall, I've been really intrigued by the themes of this year's Cannes. It felt a little light on major announcements and big drama.

Perhaps we get enough of that year-round, and folks were just excited to lounge on the beach this year. But we've spent so many years in a holding pattern of anxiety that hearing how much buzz was devoted to what the industry can actually do with all of this newness was really exciting to me. Again, you can go deeper on any of the stories I've mentioned today by clicking the links in this episode's description. If you enjoy Ad Age Insider, please subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

And if you have a topic you want me to dig into with other Ad Agers, email your ideas to aapodcast at adage.com or DM me on LinkedIn. Thank you to my editor, Ana Sakula, and thank you to the fabulous AdAge reporters who have been writing and working from the ground in Cannes. I couldn't have made this episode without you.

Thank you for listening. I'm Parker Heron and this is AdAge Insider. Enjoy your day.