Marketing Moves Centre-Stage as Creativity Meets Tech at Cannes
A snapshot of on-the-ground insights: What marketers, product leaders, and creatives saw, said, and took away from Cannes Lions 2025.
Cannes Lions 2025 made one thing abundantly clear: the future of creativity is inseparable from the future of marketing technology. Once seen as background infrastructure, martech has now stepped into the spotlight, fueling everything from real-time brand storytelling to deep audience segmentation and generative AI content at scale.
At the intersection of craft and code, global marketers and tech leaders gathered to reimagine how campaigns are created, delivered, and measured. Mike Khouri, CEO of tactical,
says, “The next era won’t be defined by who shouts the loudest, but by who can combine craft and code in the most frictionless, fast, and scalable way. AI isn’t replacing creatives. It’s challenging us to level up.”
Announcements like the Amazon Ads + Roku integration, which allows for better CTV targeting via authenticated households, and the Disney + Amazon DSP partnership, which combines commerce and content signals, show how platforms are innovating.
With AI in Creativity, Think Assist and Not Replace
Artificial intelligence dominated both conversation and product rollouts at Cannes but the narrative has evolved. While AI is seen as transformative, the industry is learning where its power peaks and where its limits lie.
"There was an overwhelming sense that AI was a transformative force in advertising at the start of the festival this year. While this does ring true, like Photoshop, it enhances human creativity and
speeds it up, but can’t replace it. Many felt that, in reality, it doesn’t connect audiences in a meaningful way, as it still lacks authenticity,” says Nicolas Piris, Global Head of Client Marketing at Bloomberg Media.
Mike Khouri, CEO of tactical also implicated that creativity still needs humans. Not just to polish ideas but to inject soul and originality in a world that’s rapidly automating the rest.”
This was echoed by Meta’s big announcement at the festival: 11 new generative AI tools, including image-to-video creation with music and overlays, AI-generated product highlights, and virtual try-ons—designed to accelerate creative production while maintaining brand consistency.
From Awareness to Experience: The Mid-Funnel Shift
Another major theme this year at Cannes was the rise of mid-funnel marketing. They are activations that deepen engagement after awareness but before conversion. Brand experiences are expected to live beyond the moment and drive long-term connections.
“Brand activations are evolving into life experiences,” Nicolas noted, referencing a Cannes panel featuring AB InBev’s CMO Marcel Marcondes. “A lot is happening in the “mid-funnel.” And this is where the conversation is shifting from connection over conversion.”
Omnicom’s new wave of partnerships with Meta, Amazon, X, YouTube, and PayPal reinforces this trend, integrating performance media, live shopping, and contextual commerce into real-time customer journeys.
B2B Goes Bold
One surprising Cannes highlight was a call for more creative risk-taking in B2B. Traditionally seen as function-first and conservative, B2B brands are now encouraged to inject entertainment and experimentation into their storytelling.
“B2B brands think of marketing programs broadly, aiming to address multiple issues while driving business growth. This is the moment for B2B to become more fun and entertaining,” adds Nicolas. We’re seeing signs of change, with ServiceNow being a standout, according to him.
ID Fragmentation Isn’t Going Away
Despite Google’s step back from third-party cookie deprecation, identity resolution and privacy remained hot-button issues. The industry, it seems, has already moved on to seeking solutions that go beyond cookies from authenticated IDs to anonymised traffic flows.
“Now, when running a campaign, advertisers must consider their options, whether through cookies, a specific identifier, or anonymised traffic. Each choice has much more profound consequences
for the effectiveness of a campaign that needs to be thought out, as they could be targeting the same audiences under different identifiers. We also have to ask ourselves, is this really what we were hoping for when it comes to user privacy?” says Mateusz Rumiński, VP of Product at PrimeAudience.
The debate around privacy vs precision will continue, and Mateusz noted a need for clearer frameworks and education as brands navigate this ID landscape.
Global Consistency, Local Relevance—Powered by AI
AI’s ability to accelerate global content creation was another widely discussed topic, but so were its limitations.
“Marketers can now build AI-specialised global teams to localise content, rather than relying solely on local teams in every market. This streamlines the process while still accounting for the critical nuances that vary between countries. However, local teams are still needed to provide cultural context, as this is currently a limitation of the technology,” adds Mateusz.
This balance between automation and authenticity is driving new operational models, where centralised content teams are supported by local editors, community managers, and data translators—a structure that the industry believe will define the next decade of brand building.
Purpose, Profit, and Platforms Align
This year’s award-winning campaigns blended purpose with commercial clarity. Piris pointed to L’Oréal’s documentary revealing the forgotten woman behind its iconic tagline—a masterclass in rewriting history with brand equity intact.
Even YouTube’s new ‘Open Call’ feature, which connects brands with creators for sponsored content, emphasises purpose-driven alignment. Instead of casting wide nets, marketers seek creators who believe in the brief and bring storytelling depth beyond metrics.
Cannes Lions 2025 confirmed a longstanding truth in boardrooms: Marketing technology has become a creative catalyst. The tools are here, and the platforms are listening. The real differentiator now is how human and imaginative brands can be when using them.
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