In 2025, the Cannes Lions festival entered its third era of creativity.
The first era focused on the creative itself: the work that inspires consumers to change their behavior. Then media entered the mix, and the creativity tent grew to include how publishers, platforms and brands cultivate consumer engagement. This year, it was clear that technology has elbowed its way to the center of the tent. Tech companies dominated the Croisette, and AI branding was everywhere the eye could see.
Some may cringe at tech’s takeover, but I welcome it. With the relentless proliferation of media channels and ad-free subscriptions, marketers have to work harder than ever to earn consumers’ attention – and we should be open to help from the tech sector.
Gone is the “forced viewing economy” where audiences would trade attention for access to content. We now need to engineer relevance into every potential impression to stand a chance of moving the customer. Technology is a welcome ally when it comes to delivering experiences custom-tailored to consumers’ mindsets in the moment of truth.
Everyone I spoke with in Cannes last week was genuinely excited about the future of advertising and technology’s role in turbocharging our efforts. There was a contagious optimism for the coming year that was reassuring in the face of rising global tensions, tariffs and the seemingly never-ending threat of a possible recession.
Here are six observations on how our industry is changing to meet its new challenges:
1. The conversation around AI has shifted. It is now recognized as a force for good and not a threat to the hegemony of the ad industry.
In conversations up and down the Croisette, marketers talked about how they apply AI to understand and cater to consumer intent. AI is now welcomed as a copilot in the creative journey – not a replacement. It’s a tool that helps creatives take advantage of context signals in real time. And it’s empowering a spectrum of solutions that will make campaigns more appealing to core customers and wider audiences alike.
2. Measurement is dead; long live measurements. It was clear from Cannes that there’s a measurement crisis in our business, and fragmentation is making it worse. As someone who spent his career making trade-offs on media investments, I relied on a relatively stable common currency. But a common currency may no longer be possible or even advisable.
Consider the balkanization of retail media networks (or “performance media networks” as Best Buy President Lisa Valentino would prefer you call them). Then there’s the rise of CTV platforms that are effectively mini walled gardens, each providing slightly different performance metrics. Now combine that fragmentation with marketers’ increasingly entrepreneurial definitions of campaign success.
Trying to force every component of a campaign into a common measurement framework causes more harm than it reveals true value. Marketers need measurement plans that recognize the unique potential of each campaign element. On top of that, they need attribution that looks at holistic outcomes. Fortunately, AI is evolving marketing mix modeling (MMM), allowing marketers to see the cumulative impact of their strategy and assess the individual tactics they used to deliver it via bespoke measurement plans.
3. News advertising is on an upswing. For the first time that I can remember, conversations in Cannes about ad-supported journalism were not dominated by doom and gloom. Five separate panel discussions I attended emphasized that not only is consumer demand for news growing, but advertisers are taking advantage of news audiences to drive campaign performance. One case study from a major financial services company revealed a 60% reduction in customer acquisition cost just by adding news to its campaign.
To be sure, too many advertisers are still avoiding news for unfounded reasons, and local ad-supported news platforms are still struggling to attract revenue. So there’s still much more work to be done to ensure the vitality of the fourth estate.
4. Privacy and compliance have made their way to the forefront as marketers reengineer their tech stacks to take full advantage of AI. Advertisers are beginning to recognize that the data exhaust from their media buys will enrich their AI-powered customer orchestration solutions in ways that first-party data alone cannot.
At the end of the day, intent is a more powerful signal than propensity. And page- or scene-level context provides powerful intent signals that AI is uniquely suited to unlock.
Plus, this evolution could also mean marketers will start to see value in publisher partnerships that yield high-quality data. Which could convince them to move away from the merchants of cheap reach who have been gaming the system for years with low-quality experiences incapable of delivering valuable, context-based signals.
5. Collaboration was a central theme at this year’s event. I should clarify that I mean meaningful, multifaceted collaboration, not merely an ad buy gussied up as a partnership. True collaboration leads to alignment of privacy and consent policies, or burden-sharing on customer journey development, digital experiential design, talent and creator wrangling and success metrics.
From the warrens of LinkedIn’s meeting rooms atop the Carlton to Stagwell’s Sport Beach and across the waterfront, there was a frenzy to collaborate. This frenzy was driven by the complexity of what it takes to win in today’s marketplace and the realization that it takes a multifaceted solution to do so.
The collaborative spirit is fueling innovation and creativity with a regular haul of NBDBs (or “Never Been Done Befores,” with full attribution to former American Express media chief Nancy Smith). And it’s why I believe that a common currency is unsuited to an era of uncommon experiences.
6. It’s the creator economy, stupid. The creator boom infiltrated every conversation, panel and pitch at this year’s event. Cannes Lions even renamed its Social & Influencer Lions award the Social & Creator Lions to reflect the rapidly growing influence of creators in marketing.
Some estimates predict the creator economy will become a $500 billion business by 2030 on a CAGR of ~25%, with North America representing 40% of the market. If you’re a marketer, this means creators should be at the heart of your strategy.
When’s the last time you briefed creators alongside your agency’s creative team? It’s time for the agency model to evolve to a general contractor role that combines creator relationships, legacy creative capabilities and AI-driven creative versioning to build breakthrough go-to-market solutions.
In summary, Cannes Lions 2025 hit me like a triple shot of intenso roast espresso. Not only because the industry’s energy, intensity and enthusiasm were palpable everywhere I went, but because this felt like a breakthrough year for so many of the drivers of our future growth. And you can never discount the planned serendipity that is uniquely Cannes and those invigorating chance encounters with so many friends and colleagues.
With acknowledgment to Timbuk 3, the future of our business is so bright, I gotta wear shades.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Follow Lou Paskalis and AdExchanger on LinkedIn.
For more articles featuring Lou Paskalis, click here.
