Pitches, panels and parties that resonated the most
The biggest winners last week at Cannes Lions were undoubtedly… the ice cream sellers.
During a torrid week in the south of France, an estimated more than 13,000 Cannes Lions attendees walked up and down the Croisette in Cannes for meetings, panels and pitches. The glacier carts and kiosks dispensing ice cream, soft serve and sorbets did brisk business all week. The sweet treats likely added to the general sense of optimism and excitement among the marketing, advertising, data and technology leaders who came to talk and compare notes at a time of massive transformation in virtually every business sector.
The scope of Cannes Lions is an eye-opener for media and entertainment insiders who are seeing and hearing how technology and digital disruption are transforming other industries. And at the same time, the process of persuasion is more intertwined with media than ever – not least thanks to the enormous influence of creators. It’s no longer just about having a slogan and a catchy commercial jingle. To stay relevant in a social media-wired world, big brands with large consumer profiles need to tell an ongoing story that keeps them in social feeds – and that’s where creators play a big role.
The onslaught of AI, the growth of the attention economy and its impact on linear TV viewership have made Cannes Lions a forum for important topics in recent years. In the twelve months since the 2025 festival, there has been a palpable change in attitudes and approaches to tackling disruption. CMOs came to the show with detailed examples of how AI, social media, creators, vertical dramas and more have helped them grow and transform. In marketing speak, the tagline for Cannes Lions 2026 would be something like: “It’s time to defeat your fears because the AI-powered revolution is here.”
Gabrielle Wesley, Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Wrigley North America, expressed that spirit during her Variety In the C-Suite conversation in the Canva Creative Cabana area on the beach.
“A hundred years ago there was only radio. Radio was what kept your attention and then there was the visual with TV, and now we have so many ways to connect with consumers. Consumers have become smarter and more demanding about what they want. They don’t want to be talked to,” Wesley said. “They want to be involved. And because they want to be involved, it’s just like any other relationship. You have to keep having conversations, you have to keep taking them on dates, you have to keep showing them new things and showing them different parts of yourself. And so I take it very, very seriously about connecting with consumers in a two-way relationship, and not just giving them a message.”
Here are a few more tips after a 24/7 week at Cannes Lions:
Makers of major media courts for content and distribution deals
The trend here couldn’t be clearer in recent months, and it was heavily on display at Cannes Lions.
The biggest major media outlets – from Amazon to Fox and from Tubi to Netflix – are aggressively trying to sign deals for creators, while marketers are scrambling to capitalize on the heat surrounding personalities plying their trade on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and the like.
The new wrinkle is that the major platforms want to determine what makes top creators successful in their digital environment. In other words, Amazon and Fox don’t want to turn creators into TV stars with new shows exclusive to their platforms. Instead, they want to provide the support services to help creators make more money in their existing areas: YouTube et al., branded live events, endorsements, and consumer product launches.
Rob Wade, CEO of Fox Entertainment, was inspired to launch Fox Creator Studios this year after seeing how much commerce Gordon Ramsay was able to generate through his strong social media footprint. Like Fox, Amazon sees potential in this and launched its Amazon Creator Services unit last year.
“We saw the way we could use our content to promote and grow that business. So suddenly all these pieces fell together. It was content, but there were businesses around that content, and while it felt like there was still a lot of gap to be bridged between the two worlds, it felt like the right time to me,” Wade shared. Variety.
Fox’s Tubi unveiled a deal with Amazon’s Fire TV during the festival, making Tubi’s selection of content for creators easily accessible and searchable on the platform.
“Fundamentally, it’s about giving customers the content they want and helping creators have another platform to get their content in front of customers,” said Charlotte Maines, VP of Devices Content and Advertising at Amazon.
Tubi, Fox’s ad-supported streaming platform that reaches more than 100 million users, has become a monetization haven for creators. It works because Tubi doesn’t insist on exclusivity – on the contrary.
“If you look at the way distribution has grown as the Internet emerged, … it’s really about access and it’s really about no ports, no paywalls, and putting our users first,” said Rachel Berk, senior VP of platform partnerships for Tubi and Fox. “I fully expect things to get more creative, both on the deal side, and on the platform side, and on the create and create side, but I also expect them to become even more sophisticated and even more accessible. Where we are really able, in terms of search and discovery, we would really be able to highlight and platform different types of voices and meet the needs of our very diverse users.”
What is Barbie doing at Coachella?
Mattel hosted an activation for Barbie – the toy icon who is now 67 years young – at this year’s Coachella music festival in Indio, California. Roberto Stanichi, Mattel’s chief global brand officer, said company data shows Barbie was the music festival’s most talked-about brand. “You’d say, ‘What’s Barbie doing at Coachella?’ he said at the Variety in the C-Suite in collaboration with Canva’s beach speaker series. At Coachella, “the Gen Z crowd there was so incredibly influenced by the fact that you had Barbie presence,” Stanichi said.
The line for the Barbie activation at the festival was three and a half hours long at one point. “So you would think, why does this resonate so much with that audience and was it surprising?” Stanichi said. Greta Gerwig’s 2023 “Barbie” blockbuster, which grossed $1.45 billion worldwide at the box office, undoubtedly put Barbie into the Gen Z zeitgeist. (He had no update on plans for a sequel.)
The Coachella experience was just the latest reinvention for Barbie (with more to come, of course). Stanichi noted that the face of the doll changes almost every ten years. Managing such a well-known property is a balance between “staying true to the authenticity” of Barbie and knowing that “there is a line that sometimes we don’t want to cross, but that you have to bend a little to drive real innovation.”
Make (personal care) brands part of your (Netflix) world
Consumer products giant Unilever recently teamed up with Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’ for a series of limited-edition Dove products tied to the show. According to Netflix advertising chief Amy Reinhard, speaking on a panel at Variety in the C-Suite in collaboration with Canva, the collaboration resulted in an almost 60% increase in the number of new customers for Dove. Unilever CMO Leandro Barreto said this particular initiative delivered a much greater return for the Dove brand than, for example, product placement on a TV show. “When you think of culture, it’s really hard not to think of Netflix because it really is the epicenter of culture. It’s not just about content, it’s about creating worlds, right?” he said. “And it becomes almost inevitable to be part of that cultural movement.”
The tennis racket is not the tennis player
There is a narrative that generative AI is a soul-sucking machine that kills jobs. But Ruba Borno of Amazon Web Services (AWS) offered a different way to think about the technology. Speaking at a special Cannes Lions edition of Variety’In her “Strictly Business” podcast, presented by AWS & Deloitte, she pointed to advances in sports technology over the years – noting that when tennis players started using titanium rackets instead of wooden rackets, their performance levels soared. “You’re not going to sit there and say the tennis racket is now the tennis player,” she said. “It doesn’t replace humans. It gave the humans who used it a superpower and then they were able to compete. And the interesting thing is, if you don’t use those new tools, you can’t really compete anymore… It sets a new standard.”
The brightest stars emerge at Cannes Lions
The boom in the creator economy has enabled the celebrities most connected to fans to build enormous brands (their own and on behalf of others), businesses – and the fan bases that fuel all these ventures. And it’s all built on the foundation of their fame. Oprah Winfrey, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Paris Hilton, Shaquille O’Neal, Mel Robbins, Ludacris, NBA stars Kevin Durant and Draymond Green, designers Stella McCartney and Rachel Zoe and more were there to chat with the world’s most influential marketing, advertising and media executives. In other words, fish where the fish are.
“What a great time to be an entertainer, to work in the entertainment business, because ideas are your currency,” Chopra Jonas told a Cannes Lions audience at the Palais des Festivals on June 24.
The joy of a good party, or two
A busy week of pitching, listening and clarifying ended joyfully on Thursday evening with the Pride party in the Canva Creative Cabana on the beach. Parisian top DJ Dorion kept the dance floor full with an eclectic mix of hip favorites from generations. And then the Teletubbies showed up. It was a rainbow spectacle that warmed the hearts of sweaty, exhausted Cannes Lions attendees who grooved with abandon thanks to the cooling effect of the extra-powerful mist fans.
On Wednesday night, Alan Cumming was at the helm as DJ as NBCUniversal hosted a late-night bash to celebrate its late-night franchises. Cumming got the toes tapping with a series of danceable favorites, and then NBC doubled down on the charm offensive by bringing in Seth Meyers and Colin Jost for a wave and a friendly chat.
“We’re going to be the hosts of Bravo’s ‘Winter House,’” Meyers joked, with a nod to the buzz surrounding the final season of Bravo’s “Summer House.” The crowd at the party was buzzing around one of the show’s main players, Lindsay Hubbard, who was in attendance.
On Tuesday, Ludacris raised her hands on the beautiful outdoor terrace of the Hotel du Cap, near Cannes in Antibes, as a guest artist at UTA and DoorDash Ads’ Executive Soiree bash. Amazon Ads offered English indie pop stars The xx in the spacious Amazon Port facility. And as usual, the Spotify Beach installation rocked with two nights of big names, including Raye and Mumford & Sons.
(Elsa Keslassy contributed to this report.)
