Cannes Lions kicks off next week and Brand Innovators is your source for all that is happening in town, which is why we are introducing, Heard on The Croisette. We’ll be updating this post throughout the week with the latest happenings around town, heard on the street insights and of course all of the parties. Check back regularly for the latest!
Here is what we are hearing…..
“We know the power the entertainment industry has in shaping cultural perceptions – research has even shown that it can impact viewers’ health-related knowledge, perceptions and behaviors,” said Lina Polimeni, chief corporate brand officer, Eli Lilly and Company, at a panel at Inkwell Beach. “So, as a company that focuses on the human experience and holistic health, our goal today is to deepen our impact in these efforts, alongside our partner, MACRO, by bringing together those who truly influence culture to explore and share the astonishing implications of the study on disease representation in TV and Movies that we recently sponsored.”
“We are so fortunate to be partnered with you guys because we travel around the world, we are always on the move, but we always know when we get to our destination, we are going to be taken care of, we are going to have a comfy bed and that is the most important to success,” said F1 driver George Russell on a panel with Marriott’s chief customer officer Peggy Roe.
“I don’t think AI is ever going to replace the music making process,” said Seal on stage at Spotify Beach. “I think AI has a long way to go before it can replace it but, treat it like a writing partner and not a machine. The thing I like about AI is that it can push us… try harder.”
Influencer Emma Chamberlain and Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest
Influencer Emma Chamberlain launched a new coffee collaboration with Pinterest.
“Pinterest has been a huge part of growing and building Chamberlain Coffee. I think the first version of Chamberlain Coffee was on Pinterest on a board. That’s how it started. And so I think, you know, for me, getting to work with Pinterest on an intimate level and build a product together, it’s like this could not be more of a full circle moment,” said Chamberlain at a press conference at Pinterest’s Manifestival Beach.
“And I think, you know, what I love about Pinterest is not only is it a place where trends start, but also trends can be fully enjoyed, right? And I think it’s so fun to take something that is so popular but so special and so cool, like this sort of non-goldfisherman aesthetic, and turn it into something sort of editorial and cool, and have a product and create a full world.”
Laurie Lam, chief brand officer, e.l.f Beauty
“e.l.f. was founded by a father and son duo that wanted to sell premium quality cosmetics over the internet for $1 in 2004. Even now that would be a wild idea,” said Laurie Lam, chief brand officer, e.l.f Beauty. “It is rooted in this sense of disruption. It is also rooted in dreams. It is rooted in aspiration. It is also rooted in community first and digital first.”
“All of us work in a marketing bubble. What we do is get outside of the office. We go to bars and just listen. If you do the work and you talk to your audience, they will literally give you the idea,” said Josh Braithwaite, managing director, creative at Gale, on a panel at Brand Innovators Beach.
“If you look at performance, everyone worries about how did your ad perform? That’s the wrong question. How did your idea land in culture,” said Mark Kirkham, chief marketing officer at PepsiCo Beverages, on Tubi beach on a panel with Seal about their collaborative Super Bowl ad for Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
The best work comes from those long term relationships,” said Peter Giorgi, senior vice president, brand marketing, partnerships and creative excellence at Rocket.
“Our North Star is word of mouth,” said Monica Austin, CMO of Blizzard Entertainment, on the Brand Innovators Rado Beach stage.
“Interestingly on the rebrand, as we thought about how we advanced as a company, we wanted to make sure that we were meeting people where they are. I used to say that Johnson & Johnson not only had a brand that was in cursive, but we used to write in cursive,” said Vanessa Broadhurst, EVP Global Corporate Affairs, Johnson & Johnson. “We used to love the pages and pages of text but we know that the world isn’t like that any more. We know that the world speaks in soundbites.”
Mark Ronson & Dustee Jenkins, Chief Public Affairs Officer, Spotify
“I’m so influenced by culture,” said 9x Grammy winning music producer Mark Ronson, during a fireside chat at Spotify Beach. “I’m as much of a fan of music as I was. Like I got into DJing because I loved music, not because I wanted to play my own, because I didn’t even make music back then.”
“I don’t care who they know, they are not getting in if they are not on the list.” – Anonymous
“In an era where consumer attention is fragmented across countless platforms and devices, traditional broad-reach advertising is no longer sufficient,” said Ryan Nelsen, CMO of StackAdapt. “At Cannes Lions 2025, a significant theme emerged: the effectiveness of accumulating micro-engagements to build robust brand equity. Brands are now focusing on delivering consistent, platform-tailored messages that resonate in brief, yet impactful, interactions.”
“I’m really excited about AI, the use of aI not just to create amazing content for social but also the use of it for analysis,” John Sadeghipoor, CMO of Lulu Guinness, told Brand Innovators.
“The last two years we have heard about women in sports,” said Patrick O’Keefe, vice president of integrated media at e.l.f. Beauty, to Brand Innovators at Rado Beach. “What I am seeing is people are going a lot deeper in the conversation about the impact of what brands can mean to shaping the conversation around women’s sports.”
“Sports is the last thing that people watch live and to be able to convert that to streaming was a challenge,” said Blake Griffin, former NBA Player/studio analyst at Prime Video.
Reckitt debuted a new global initiative called Reckitt Catalyst at the Palais. The effort aims to support and scale up to 200 health and hygiene start-ups founded by women and under-represented entrepreneurs that aims to improve access to health and hygiene for five million people. Reckitt Catalyst is committing up to £10m over five years and Serena Williams has signed on as Reckitt’s first Entrepreneur-in-Residence to support the effort.
“The power in women’s sports is from our storytelling as athletes and as humans. It’s not just about what we do on the court, it’s about what we do off,” said Lauren Carlini, Olympian volley ball player/Founding Athlete with LOVB, at the LVMH Villa during the Brand Innovators Women’s Breakfast.
“Advertising has long been the engine of over-consumption—built to sell more. But sustainability demands the opposite: less. As Chris Baker puts it in Obsolete, marketing should help consumers make better choices, not just drive more sales,” Kerry Benson, SVP, Creative Strategy at Kantar told Brand Innovators. “With that in mind, I think creators will play a pivotal role in helping brands navigate this transition, especially the disruptors.”
Beverly Jackson, vice president, brand & product marketing at Zillow
“If I hear the word AI one more time, I think I’ll stamp it on my forehead,” said Monica Austin, chief marketing officer at Blizzard Entertainment, told Brand Innovators. “But it is important and it is an exciting topic so I am thrilled to be part of the conversation.”
“It really is the technology that underpins our entire design process,” said Denise Cherry, vice president marketing, Rivian from the Brand Innovators Beach Stage. “How can we start from nothing and figure out what challenge we want to solve vs incremental improvements.”
Justine Stauffer, senior director of creative effectiveness at Molson Coors Beverage Company advised marketers to study the work. Go look at brands you love on social media,” she said from the Brand Innovators Showcase Stage. “It is only going to make your team better.using the framework of muscle, allows us to push that message forward.”
“I like to think of the Zestimate as the original OG AI,” said Beverly Jackson, vice president, brand & product marketing at Zillow, from the Brand Innovators Beach Stage. “And when we think about that we’ve been doing this for 20 years, we’re not new to this, we’re true to this.”
“If you are a brand, don’t think about yourself so seriously,” said Marcelo Proneca Pascoa, vice president of marketing, Coors Family of Brands, Molson Coors Beverage Company, on a panel at the Brand Innovators Showcase Stage. “Yes, know your brand but within who you are, have fun with it, make some mistakes. You might get fired, but you might not.”
“It not just about how to integrate AI but almost to go back and work with AI as a given on creative storytelling and creative concepts and really redefine how we market today,” said Carina Ertl, chief marketing officer at Tourneau and Bucherer, told Brand Innovators. “There is no longer your classic segmentation and your classic funnel and how you think about media. You need your influencer strategy and the creator economy. There are so many shifts right now, we’ve seen shifts every year, so it is just about reinventing and redesigning how we work in the future forward.”
“We are in an era where how can you do more with less?” said Dara Treseder, chief marketing officer at Autodesk.
“While we are populating media real estate with art and copy and all the many ways it can manifest, I think the most inspiring part about this industry is the magnitude of the work that we do and its ability to transcend from being ‘advertising’ or being marketing communication to being cultural production,” Dr. Marcus Collins, clinical assistant professor of marketing, University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business, told Brand Innovators. “And we see the impact that our work actually has beyond the commerce but in how it impacts, influences and shapes social living because of its cultural contribution.”
Reddit introduced two early-stage products in testing powered by Reddit Community Intelligence: Reddit Insights, an AI-powered social listening tool and Conversation Summary Add-ons, a new ad feature that dynamically integrates positive content from Reddit users directly below an advertiser’s creative.
Andy Jassy, President and CEO of Amazon, has been named 2025 Media Person of the Year Award by the Cannes Lions. Past recipients include: Salar Kamangar of YouTube, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Eric Schmidt of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft.
Global entertainment agency Ralph is running a confession hotline called “CannesFessions” – a tip line where ad industry folks are invited to call in to confess “their funniest, wildest and most cringeworthy festival moments.” Call (+44) 01880 280085 to participate. Don’t worry, Ralph’s “Anonymiser Engine” claims that calls are untraceable.
Amazon is back at the Port this year with its largest activation to date, designed by Salt and Pinch for the third year in a row. This year the theme is blending quiet luxury with immersive storytelling, which came out of research by insights from Amazon Ads’ “Beyond the Generational Divide.”
The study challenges traditional demographic-based targeting, and focuses on brands that build loyalty by uniting audiences through shared passions. The experience starts with a screen-free garden and will feature Rosé and iced coffee fountains, a Prime Video slushie bar, AWS-inspired custom perfumes and Mechanical fortune teller for Amazon Devices. d’ODESZA will be playing on the Amazon stage.
Spotify Beach is always a hot ticket and this year is no different. Their day time sessions include Charlie Puth, Mark Ronson, Paris Hilton, Louis Theroux, Morgan Absher, Rachel Lindsay, Jake Shane, Seal, Rob Mayhew, and Sinners’ Miles Caton and Ludwig Göransson. There is also a Cover Art Creator zone to design your own custom playlist cover art and a corner to “taste” this summer’s top audiobooks. Spotify’s evening lineup includes: hitmaker Alex Warren (“Ordinary”), sombr and Royel Otis as well as Cardi B, Lola Young and Mark Ronson.
Salesforce will be on the beach featuring will.i.am, Deepak Chopra, Scott Galloway and many more on their stages. They’ll also be serving ice cream and giving that “wind-swept, beach perfect look” in the SharkNinja photo booth.
Meta will have at Hotel Barrière Le Majestic Beach showing off Ray-Ban Meta glasses with product demos, hands-on workshops and conversations aimed on how creators can use AI. Variety has teamed up with Canva Creative Cabana on the beach across from the Hotel Martinez for some high level sessions.
Influential will be back on the beach, this year as part of Publicis Groupe since the acquisition last year.
Pinterest is coming back with its Manifestival, an immersive IRL Pinterest experience, at The Carlton Beach Club. The event will feature a stylescope, a patisserie, a fisherman aesthetic tattoo parlor and DIY Tin Wallet crafting. Stagwell’s Sport Beach will be have sports icons including Mo Farah, Billie Jean King, Megan Rapino, Lauren Betts, Nancy Kerrigan, Candace Parker, Oscar Piastri and many more.
Snap will be at the JW Marriott and La Malmaison again with a focus on the Snapchat Generation – “Gen Z and Millennials who prioritize authentic connections and creative self-expression” – and will include: Sponsored Snaps, Promoted Places and AI-driven AR experiences.
TikTok is hosting creators at the The Carlton Hotel. LinkedIn is also hosting content at The Carlton as part of the Lions’ new B2B program.
The FreeWheel and NBCUniversal Rendez-Vous on Wednesday night will feature a performance with Ludacris. RTL Beach has yet-to-be-revealed talent performing on Tuesday night.
Brand Innovators will of course return with content on two stages featuring more than 75 CMOs of Fortune 500 companies, as well as some excellent evening events with talent including Wyclef Jean on Tuesday night at Rado Beach. And don’t miss Digital Fight Club, in which agencies go head-to-head from 5:30-7:30 Tuesday and 6-8 Wednesday night.
