By Kimeko McCoy – June 10, 2025 –
Digiday covers the most recent from marketing and media at the yearly Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. More from the series →
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Next week, countless online marketers and advertisement officers are anticipated to when again brave the French Riviera’s heat, rosé-laden soirees and back-to-back conferences that make the yearly Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity from June 16 to 20.
The celebration is as much about endurance as it has to do with luxurious award events and late nights at the Gutter Bar. In between panels, late-night mixed drinks and limitless networking, Cannes can get frustrating.
On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Cannes Lions veterans Jim Cooper, editor-in-chief, and Seb Joseph, managing editor of news, sign up with Tim Peterson, Digiday’s managing editor of video and audio, and senior marketing press reporter Kimeko McCoy, to share finest suggestions to browse the turmoil. From where to charge along La Croisette to what subjects are anticipated to control discussions, the Digiday personnel deciphers whatever to learn about this year’s celebration for first-timers and veterans alike.
On this episode: An appearance into Warner Bros. Discovery prepares to divide into 2 business, following Comcast’s relocation with Versant, WPP goes into the company AI arms race and why the advertisement invest outlook might not be so dim after all.
Here are a couple of highlights from the discussion with Cooper and Joseph, which have actually been modified for length and clearness.
Cannes development
Cooper: We’ve seen a truly intriguing advancement of the celebration because tech– advertisement tech, particularly– and huge media use up the very first half of the week. They’ve marched into what has actually typically been an innovative celebration, therefore they control Sunday to Wednesday, and it’s even sneaking into Thursday. What takes place then is an inflection point, and they all leave. They all return to New York or [Los Angeles] or London, and the creatives come down. They are individuals that hang out at the Palais, take a look at the work. This is a celebration of imagination. It’s truly not a tech and media celebration in its originals, however those individuals existed. The back half of the week, individuals remained in the Palais and lining up to view the innovative awards being given out over the weekend.
Peterson: That does draw a great deal of parallels with [Consumer Electronics Show]due to the fact that CES started as a customer electronic devices conference, and after that the tech, media and marketing folks attacked and generally have their own conference within CES.
Peterson: Why do the advertisement tech folks demand conference on luxury yachts?
Joseph: It’s about bending. They were never ever the most invited groups within the celebration. The harbor, marina was the location for them to be for a years of so when they initially began to emerge at Cannes. There was all of the cash putting into which was the method they might appear, get attention and bag the very best conferences, customers which sort of thing. You can most likely evaluate the state of the advertisement tech market by the size of the luxury yachts and variety of them that remain in the marina. That’s constantly an excellent bellwether for the state of the market.
Cooper: Another thing is they can get you on the private yacht, and in some cases it’s difficult to leave the luxury yacht. They ply you with exceptional food and rosé. God prohibit you in fact leave the marina. You’re stuck and you’re on the water and you can never ever get back.
Joseph: That occurred to be one time to be reasonable.
Subjects to cover
McCoy: My expectations are [retail media networks] are going to be a larger existence than they have actually remained in the past — exact same point about a few of the AI platforms. In 2015, they appeared, they were pitching their offerings. This year, I anticipate activations and things like that to actually make a pitch for advertisement dollars, more so than they have traditionally.
Cooper: I’m going to attempt to actually concentrate on this CMO function. Online marketers exist en masse and there are a great deal of CMOs. I’ll have a great deal of discussions about what their objectives remain in the 2nd half of the year relating to the economy, how AI is going to improve how they approach their advertisement tech partners, however likewise their media firms. And once again, get a sense of how concerned they have to do with the 2nd half of the year even if Cannes ends right at the start of the 3rd quarter and we’re anticipating the 3rd quarter to be a little rough.
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