After a packed week of AI and creator talk surs la Croisette, let’s break down some of the top takeaways from this year’s Cannes.
First off, it’s an encouraging time for the influencer marketing industry, as ad revenue from user-generated content and platforms will surpass “professionally produced content” this year for the first time, per Kate Scott-Dawkins, WPP Media global president of business intelligence. The creator economy is only growing and expected to reach some $33 billion globally, according to Statista.
“That’s a big deal,” Scott-Dawkins told Bloomberg this month.
For more, catch up on some more highlights on the latest episode of Trend Talks with Alex Mathieu, VP of strategy and creative at Open Influence.
The creator economy is booming
Even with a potential economic slowdown looming, it was clear there was no shortage of interest and investments in creators from agencies, platforms and marketers alike at the festival.
Finding ways to integrate creative and influencer strategies to differentiate a brand dominates everyone’s minds right now. At the Brand Innovators‘ Rado Beach, Bryce Adams, SVP of partnerships for Open Influence, led a conversation with Dan Lucey of Havas and Eric Flinn of Danone on creative vision and influencer strategy.
“Back in the day, we would come up with a campaign, probably go brief an influencer agency … head down the funnel,” Flinn said on stage. “Now I’m excited to [start putting] the influencers right up top and thinking of it from the start [as] the heart of a campaign.”
“I love the idea of syndicating influencers and thinking of influencers as content engines,” Adams added. “We know about the trust that they build and the way that they can impact a consumer journey. So why not get that off social and get it in front of more people in more creative ways?”
There are also external factors fueling this momentum in creator investments, as brands focus on their influencer spending during a time of economic uncertainty. While some brands might reduce overall marketing spending right now, they don’t seem to be pulling back on creators, added Kenny Gold, head of social, content and influencer of Deloitte Digital.
Creators took over this year
As Monica Khan, cofounder of organization Bay Area Creator Economy and partner, head of digital for Strand Entertainment, posted: This year felt like it was “the year creators took over.”
From featuring big creators on TikTok, YouTube and Kajabi to Forbes launching its top creators list live on the ground, Khan found that creators and creator topics took the main stage this year. They were “not just in side activations” and showing up “as partners, not placements,” she wrote. And while many brands want to work with more creators and learn from them, not every brand is “moving at the same pace” in their influencer marketing.
Khan also mentioned a few ongoing challenges happening throughout creator marketing, like measurement being a barrier in creator ROI and the large gaps in creator budgets versus traditional TV.
Storytelling across platforms
From the creator perspective: Many creators that paid their own way to Cannes believed it was worth the investment to build relationships and learn about trends happening across the industry. At a time of more creator content and more channels emerging, how do creators and brands stand out if everyone is working with creators?
Comedy creator Kinigra Deon attended Cannes to gain more visibility and develop storytelling opportunities with partners. While many brands may work with creators, the “how to” is still being developed as opportunities grow across social commerce, CTV, podcasts and newsletters.
“I do scripted long-form content that tells human stories. And for a lot of brands, that’s still a leap,” Deon wrote. “Every product, every campaign, every message should feel like a story people want to lean into — not just an ad they scroll past.”
Other companies are launching their own platforms to expand creator and community relationships — and leveraging a dedicated space to tell stories for Gen Z, for example. At Cannes, Reese Witherspoon’s media company Hello Sunshine introduced Sunnie, a multimedia platform for Gen Z girls.
Jennifer Wiener, EVP of the company’s in-house social agency Solar, talked about the plans to work with its partner e.l.f. Beauty to grow a new kind of community: “We meet them where they are: across the platforms they love (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest), through content that reflects their lived realities, and in real-life experiences that slow the scroll and create space to explore, connect, reclaim their agency, and be unapologetically themselves.”
AI’s growing impact on creators
Many are still wrapping their heads around how AI might shape creative thinking and output as agencies and creators test both proprietary and external tools. There’s no question that as AI advances in advertising, creator content will also continue to evolve in the social and retail sectors.
In speaking with giants from Microsoft to eBay, retail media analyst Kiri Masters noted a shift coming in retail: “Conversational AI is compressing purchase journeys in ways we’re just starting to understand. … Brands need to prepare for sponsored placements that fit naturally within conversational answers rather than traditional search result grids.”
Cannes may be over, but this certainly won’t be the last mention of AI showing up in marketing strategies or workflows. But what’s next for creators may center around how tools like Microsoft Copilot or Claude could complement the day-to-day work of creators and free them to focus on expanding as entrepreneurs and fast-growing media brands.
Major creators like Alix Earle brought up the balance of using AI: It is “allowing the creator to be creative, and then me putting in the work to actually make it the best it can be,” she said at the Microsoft Beach House. Earle partnered with Copilot to experiment with AI for brainstorming ideas and integrating productivity tools in her creative process.
Earle added: “[I work] alone at my living room table a lot of the time. Being creative is about bouncing ideas off of each other. … AI has been really a helpful tool for me.”
