Mother nature brought the heat alongside brands at the world’s largest global advertising event.
The 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity saw marketers, influencers, celebrities, and the world's biggest brands flock to Cannes and straight into the melting pot where brilliance, creativity, and innovation took center stage.The Sharethrough team was on the ground following the news of our latest merger with Equativ. Here are the four largest takeaways from Cannes - from the shocking, to the to-be expected, and everything in between!
AI Goes Corporate
It has now become abundantly clear that generative AI is the hottest topic in tech, dominating discussions at Cannes for the second year in a row. The festival itself requested submissions to have an “AI Disclaimer” for all works submitted at the 71st edition as a means to better understand how advertisers were using the technology, and while several winning pieces of work such as Nexus Studios & Pedigree’s “Adoptable” campaign utilize AI, the conversation around Artificial Intelligence extended far across all facets of the festivities.
In the months leading up to Cannes, IBM labeled this era as marketing’s “Sink Or Swim moment”, and clearly the advertising industry felt compelled to answer the call, with some of the world’s largest companies embracing the AI agenda in full and not being afraid to show it.
Meta started off the week with news that the company would be placing a major emphasis on AI moving forward, unveiling that their latest advertising suite would include AI tools and upgrades, most notably an AI chat feature available to all businesses on Messenger.
Spotify announced their first in-house creative agency, which includes an AI audio tool in ‘Quick Audio,’ enabling both brands and artists to generate scripts and voice overs for audio assets on the platform.
TikTok announced a new digital avatar feature, which allows brands and creators to use generative AI avatars of real people in their content. Users can further choose from pre-built avatars or custom generated avatars.
Agencies and brands are viewing AI as something that can heavily improve the rate at which content can be produced. Tamon George, CEO of the Creative Theory Agency says “We’re going from content scarcity to content infinity, “AI will be a tool to help us win.” This heavily addresses the need which Deloitte’s GenAI research study addressed, which found that only 55% of marketing teams can meet the continually growing demand for content today.
While many were quick to voice comments of support for AI, a fair share of the conversations at Cannes involved a certain level of caution and uncertainty. Elon Musk predicted our chances of experiencing an AI-Related Global Disaster to fall between 10 and 20%.
Aside from discussing the perils of AI, OpenAI reminded us all how the development of this technology is a shared responsibility between all of those in the industry.
Sustainability Frameworks Arrive
Cannes included several announcements that provided advertisers with much hope after what has felt like years of fighting an uphill battle to reduce carbon emissions across the industry.
GARM & Ad Net Zero Announce Frameworks
For the past few years many questions have arisen surrounding the advertising industry’s lack of standards for tracking emissions, with several industry players providing brands with different methods and ways to measure, reduce, and compensate for carbon emissions. Advertisers didn’t have to wait on the topic for long in Cannes though, with The WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and Ad Net Zero unveiling of a framework for tracking emissions and scoring the sustainability of their partners. The Global Media Sustainability Framework will focus on measurement across TV, digital and out of home, with additional formulas for print, radio and film set to be available in the near future.
The framework has already garnered support from Meta, Mastercard, Omnicom, and L’Oreal to name a few. At Sharethrough, we are also enthusiastic and supportive of this new framework.
“We are thrilled to see the release of these standards after years of hard work and industry collaboration,” said Frank Maguire, Sharethrough’s VP of Insights, Strategy & Sustainability.
“There is a lot of meat in the report but I would say the biggest takeaway is that ad buyers now have access to a couple templates that significantly increase the ease of evaluating their partners’ sustainability efforts so they can use their buying power to prioritize and incentivize their partners to be more sustainable.”
First-Party Data Remains A Focus
As third-party cookies continue to be phased out, brands are focused on finding new
solutions to access and manage first-party data through partnerships. Over the course of the week we saw some major partnerships come to light.
Grocery delivery platform Instacart announced an expansion on its partnership with Google to offer shoppable ads to advertisers on YouTube. With the new partnership, brands can purchase clickable ads that take people directly to Instacart, where they can order products for same day delivery.
Meanwhile, Yahoo’s DSP announced a brand new CTV measurement integration with Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot, with the integrations set to become a reality in the fall.
Furthermore, Uber announced a partnership with ad tech firm Criteo during Uber’s session on “How First Party Data is Revolutionizing Retail Media.”
More Data, Not Less
Advertisers eager to access more data are in luck, with multiple announcements being made to offer them just that.
Disney teamed up with Affinity Solutions to offer advertisers data from more 140M credit card transactions.
CVS announced that it would be granting advertisers self-serve access to its inventory for the first time thanks to a partnership with The Trade Desk.
Fandango and Roku joined forces to offer advertisers promoting theatrical releases the ability to measure effectiveness. With Fandango 360 advertisers are able to gain insights into how many viewers purchased tickets on Fandango after seeing an ad.
Collaboration Unlocks New Possibilities
Sharethrough and Equativ’s merger broke across news headlines in the days leading up to Cannes, and while both companies were together to celebrate the news on La Croisette, ad tech platforms weren’t the only ones banding together for collaboration and innovation.
Securing CTV Performance
Display Side Platform Madhive acquired Frequence, an omnichannel marketing platform in an attempt to gain more opportunity to retarget streaming viewers on other channels.Madhive is not alone in its attempts to buy up tools for video and CTV performance marketing. In addition, Seedtag acquired video-focused SSP Beachfront, to bolster their repertoire of CTV and video supply.
Sports Talk Takes Center Stage
Sports banter has been a regular occurrence in Cannes for as long as the festival has been taking place, with the festivities occurring during the same week as some of the largest soccer tournaments in the world. This year, the Olympics was a major focus point, with the Olympic Torch being carried through the streets of Cannes on the first day of the festival. In the days that followed, sports talk took center stage with collaborations and partnerships serving as a focal point in the discussions.
Alexis Ohanian, Midge Purce, and Flau’jae Johnson discussed how brand deals have evolved in women’s sports, as well as their larger impact in the panel: “Winning Equality: The Rise of Women’s Sports.”
State Farm's CMO Kristyn Cook believes that women's sports should become a part of every brand's strategy: “Every brand should be asking, 'How should women's sports be part of my strategy? It could be talent. Telling incredible stories of these women. Not just what they do on the court but what they do in communities and their fashion - because that's part of culture too.”
The amount of brands that are eager to get involved in women’s sports is increasing across the board. Geoff Schiller, CRO of Vox Media discussed how beauty brands and retail brands are amongst those joining the space for the first time.
The WNBA’s Chief Growth Officer announced that major deals are set to become official with Disney in the near future. Additionally, League One Volleyball announced partnerships with Spanx and Adidas.
Looking Ahead To 2025
Cannes Lions highlighted significant shifts across the advertising industry, including dominated discussions, a rise in support for sustainability frameworks, and first-party data strategies. Additionally, news of key partnerships and mergers enhanced capabilities, underscoring the industry's commitment to new technologies and responsible practices. As we look ahead towards 2025, innovation and collaboration are sure to bring colossal shifts across the advertising industry. Until next year - Cannes!
Curious to check out last year’s Cannes recap blog post - click here.
Looking to meet with the Sharethrough team at an upcoming event? Check out our events calendar!
Mother nature brought the heat alongside brands at the world’s largest global advertising event.
The 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity saw marketers, influencers, celebrities, and the world's biggest brands flock to Cannes and straight into the melting pot where brilliance, creativity, and innovation took center stage.The Sharethrough team was on the ground following the news of our latest merger with Equativ. Here are the four largest takeaways from Cannes - from the shocking, to the to-be expected, and everything in between!
AI Goes Corporate
It has now become abundantly clear that generative AI is the hottest topic in tech, dominating discussions at Cannes for the second year in a row. The festival itself requested submissions to have an “AI Disclaimer” for all works submitted at the 71st edition as a means to better understand how advertisers were using the technology, and while several winning pieces of work such as Nexus Studios & Pedigree’s “Adoptable” campaign utilize AI, the conversation around Artificial Intelligence extended far across all facets of the festivities.
In the months leading up to Cannes, IBM labeled this era as marketing’s “Sink Or Swim moment”, and clearly the advertising industry felt compelled to answer the call, with some of the world’s largest companies embracing the AI agenda in full and not being afraid to show it.
Meta started off the week with news that the company would be placing a major emphasis on AI moving forward, unveiling that their latest advertising suite would include AI tools and upgrades, most notably an AI chat feature available to all businesses on Messenger.
Spotify announced their first in-house creative agency, which includes an AI audio tool in ‘Quick Audio,’ enabling both brands and artists to generate scripts and voice overs for audio assets on the platform.
TikTok announced a new digital avatar feature, which allows brands and creators to use generative AI avatars of real people in their content. Users can further choose from pre-built avatars or custom generated avatars.
Agencies and brands are viewing AI as something that can heavily improve the rate at which content can be produced. Tamon George, CEO of the Creative Theory Agency says “We’re going from content scarcity to content infinity, “AI will be a tool to help us win.” This heavily addresses the need which Deloitte’s GenAI research study addressed, which found that only 55% of marketing teams can meet the continually growing demand for content today.
While many were quick to voice comments of support for AI, a fair share of the conversations at Cannes involved a certain level of caution and uncertainty. Elon Musk predicted our chances of experiencing an AI-Related Global Disaster to fall between 10 and 20%.
Aside from discussing the perils of AI, OpenAI reminded us all how the development of this technology is a shared responsibility between all of those in the industry.
Sustainability Frameworks Arrive
Cannes included several announcements that provided advertisers with much hope after what has felt like years of fighting an uphill battle to reduce carbon emissions across the industry.
GARM & Ad Net Zero Announce Frameworks
For the past few years many questions have arisen surrounding the advertising industry’s lack of standards for tracking emissions, with several industry players providing brands with different methods and ways to measure, reduce, and compensate for carbon emissions. Advertisers didn’t have to wait on the topic for long in Cannes though, with The WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and Ad Net Zero unveiling of a framework for tracking emissions and scoring the sustainability of their partners. The Global Media Sustainability Framework will focus on measurement across TV, digital and out of home, with additional formulas for print, radio and film set to be available in the near future.
The framework has already garnered support from Meta, Mastercard, Omnicom, and L’Oreal to name a few. At Sharethrough, we are also enthusiastic and supportive of this new framework.
“We are thrilled to see the release of these standards after years of hard work and industry collaboration,” said Frank Maguire, Sharethrough’s VP of Insights, Strategy & Sustainability.
“There is a lot of meat in the report but I would say the biggest takeaway is that ad buyers now have access to a couple templates that significantly increase the ease of evaluating their partners’ sustainability efforts so they can use their buying power to prioritize and incentivize their partners to be more sustainable.”
First-Party Data Remains A Focus
As third-party cookies continue to be phased out, brands are focused on finding new
solutions to access and manage first-party data through partnerships. Over the course of the week we saw some major partnerships come to light.
Grocery delivery platform Instacart announced an expansion on its partnership with Google to offer shoppable ads to advertisers on YouTube. With the new partnership, brands can purchase clickable ads that take people directly to Instacart, where they can order products for same day delivery.
Meanwhile, Yahoo’s DSP announced a brand new CTV measurement integration with Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot, with the integrations set to become a reality in the fall.
Furthermore, Uber announced a partnership with ad tech firm Criteo during Uber’s session on “How First Party Data is Revolutionizing Retail Media.”
More Data, Not Less
Advertisers eager to access more data are in luck, with multiple announcements being made to offer them just that.
Disney teamed up with Affinity Solutions to offer advertisers data from more 140M credit card transactions.
CVS announced that it would be granting advertisers self-serve access to its inventory for the first time thanks to a partnership with The Trade Desk.
Fandango and Roku joined forces to offer advertisers promoting theatrical releases the ability to measure effectiveness. With Fandango 360 advertisers are able to gain insights into how many viewers purchased tickets on Fandango after seeing an ad.
Collaboration Unlocks New Possibilities
Sharethrough and Equativ’s merger broke across news headlines in the days leading up to Cannes, and while both companies were together to celebrate the news on La Croisette, ad tech platforms weren’t the only ones banding together for collaboration and innovation.
Securing CTV Performance
Display Side Platform Madhive acquired Frequence, an omnichannel marketing platform in an attempt to gain more opportunity to retarget streaming viewers on other channels.Madhive is not alone in its attempts to buy up tools for video and CTV performance marketing. In addition, Seedtag acquired video-focused SSP Beachfront, to bolster their repertoire of CTV and video supply.
Sports Talk Takes Center Stage
Sports banter has been a regular occurrence in Cannes for as long as the festival has been taking place, with the festivities occurring during the same week as some of the largest soccer tournaments in the world. This year, the Olympics was a major focus point, with the Olympic Torch being carried through the streets of Cannes on the first day of the festival. In the days that followed, sports talk took center stage with collaborations and partnerships serving as a focal point in the discussions.
Alexis Ohanian, Midge Purce, and Flau’jae Johnson discussed how brand deals have evolved in women’s sports, as well as their larger impact in the panel: “Winning Equality: The Rise of Women’s Sports.”
State Farm's CMO Kristyn Cook believes that women's sports should become a part of every brand's strategy: “Every brand should be asking, 'How should women's sports be part of my strategy? It could be talent. Telling incredible stories of these women. Not just what they do on the court but what they do in communities and their fashion - because that's part of culture too.”
The amount of brands that are eager to get involved in women’s sports is increasing across the board. Geoff Schiller, CRO of Vox Media discussed how beauty brands and retail brands are amongst those joining the space for the first time.
The WNBA’s Chief Growth Officer announced that major deals are set to become official with Disney in the near future. Additionally, League One Volleyball announced partnerships with Spanx and Adidas.
Looking Ahead To 2025
Cannes Lions highlighted significant shifts across the advertising industry, including dominated discussions, a rise in support for sustainability frameworks, and first-party data strategies. Additionally, news of key partnerships and mergers enhanced capabilities, underscoring the industry's commitment to new technologies and responsible practices. As we look ahead towards 2025, innovation and collaboration are sure to bring colossal shifts across the advertising industry. Until next year - Cannes!
Curious to check out last year’s Cannes recap blog post - click here.
Looking to meet with the Sharethrough team at an upcoming event? Check out our events calendar!
Behind Headlines: 180 Seconds in Ad Tech is a short 3-minute podcast exploring the news in the digital advertising industry. Ad tech is a fast-growing industry with many updates happening daily. As it can be hard for most to keep up with the latest news, the Sharethrough team wanted to create an audio series compiling notable mentions each week.
Mother nature brought the heat alongside brands at the world’s largest global advertising event.
The 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity saw marketers, influencers, celebrities, and the world's biggest brands flock to Cannes and straight into the melting pot where brilliance, creativity, and innovation took center stage.The Sharethrough team was on the ground following the news of our latest merger with Equativ. Here are the four largest takeaways from Cannes - from the shocking, to the to-be expected, and everything in between!
AI Goes Corporate
It has now become abundantly clear that generative AI is the hottest topic in tech, dominating discussions at Cannes for the second year in a row. The festival itself requested submissions to have an “AI Disclaimer” for all works submitted at the 71st edition as a means to better understand how advertisers were using the technology, and while several winning pieces of work such as Nexus Studios & Pedigree’s “Adoptable” campaign utilize AI, the conversation around Artificial Intelligence extended far across all facets of the festivities.
In the months leading up to Cannes, IBM labeled this era as marketing’s “Sink Or Swim moment”, and clearly the advertising industry felt compelled to answer the call, with some of the world’s largest companies embracing the AI agenda in full and not being afraid to show it.
Meta started off the week with news that the company would be placing a major emphasis on AI moving forward, unveiling that their latest advertising suite would include AI tools and upgrades, most notably an AI chat feature available to all businesses on Messenger.
Spotify announced their first in-house creative agency, which includes an AI audio tool in ‘Quick Audio,’ enabling both brands and artists to generate scripts and voice overs for audio assets on the platform.
TikTok announced a new digital avatar feature, which allows brands and creators to use generative AI avatars of real people in their content. Users can further choose from pre-built avatars or custom generated avatars.
Agencies and brands are viewing AI as something that can heavily improve the rate at which content can be produced. Tamon George, CEO of the Creative Theory Agency says “We’re going from content scarcity to content infinity, “AI will be a tool to help us win.” This heavily addresses the need which Deloitte’s GenAI research study addressed, which found that only 55% of marketing teams can meet the continually growing demand for content today.
While many were quick to voice comments of support for AI, a fair share of the conversations at Cannes involved a certain level of caution and uncertainty. Elon Musk predicted our chances of experiencing an AI-Related Global Disaster to fall between 10 and 20%.
Aside from discussing the perils of AI, OpenAI reminded us all how the development of this technology is a shared responsibility between all of those in the industry.
Sustainability Frameworks Arrive
Cannes included several announcements that provided advertisers with much hope after what has felt like years of fighting an uphill battle to reduce carbon emissions across the industry.
GARM & Ad Net Zero Announce Frameworks
For the past few years many questions have arisen surrounding the advertising industry’s lack of standards for tracking emissions, with several industry players providing brands with different methods and ways to measure, reduce, and compensate for carbon emissions. Advertisers didn’t have to wait on the topic for long in Cannes though, with The WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and Ad Net Zero unveiling of a framework for tracking emissions and scoring the sustainability of their partners. The Global Media Sustainability Framework will focus on measurement across TV, digital and out of home, with additional formulas for print, radio and film set to be available in the near future.
The framework has already garnered support from Meta, Mastercard, Omnicom, and L’Oreal to name a few. At Sharethrough, we are also enthusiastic and supportive of this new framework.
“We are thrilled to see the release of these standards after years of hard work and industry collaboration,” said Frank Maguire, Sharethrough’s VP of Insights, Strategy & Sustainability.
“There is a lot of meat in the report but I would say the biggest takeaway is that ad buyers now have access to a couple templates that significantly increase the ease of evaluating their partners’ sustainability efforts so they can use their buying power to prioritize and incentivize their partners to be more sustainable.”
First-Party Data Remains A Focus
As third-party cookies continue to be phased out, brands are focused on finding new
solutions to access and manage first-party data through partnerships. Over the course of the week we saw some major partnerships come to light.
Grocery delivery platform Instacart announced an expansion on its partnership with Google to offer shoppable ads to advertisers on YouTube. With the new partnership, brands can purchase clickable ads that take people directly to Instacart, where they can order products for same day delivery.
Meanwhile, Yahoo’s DSP announced a brand new CTV measurement integration with Comscore, VideoAmp and iSpot, with the integrations set to become a reality in the fall.
Furthermore, Uber announced a partnership with ad tech firm Criteo during Uber’s session on “How First Party Data is Revolutionizing Retail Media.”
More Data, Not Less
Advertisers eager to access more data are in luck, with multiple announcements being made to offer them just that.
Disney teamed up with Affinity Solutions to offer advertisers data from more 140M credit card transactions.
CVS announced that it would be granting advertisers self-serve access to its inventory for the first time thanks to a partnership with The Trade Desk.
Fandango and Roku joined forces to offer advertisers promoting theatrical releases the ability to measure effectiveness. With Fandango 360 advertisers are able to gain insights into how many viewers purchased tickets on Fandango after seeing an ad.
Collaboration Unlocks New Possibilities
Sharethrough and Equativ’s merger broke across news headlines in the days leading up to Cannes, and while both companies were together to celebrate the news on La Croisette, ad tech platforms weren’t the only ones banding together for collaboration and innovation.
Securing CTV Performance
Display Side Platform Madhive acquired Frequence, an omnichannel marketing platform in an attempt to gain more opportunity to retarget streaming viewers on other channels.Madhive is not alone in its attempts to buy up tools for video and CTV performance marketing. In addition, Seedtag acquired video-focused SSP Beachfront, to bolster their repertoire of CTV and video supply.
Sports Talk Takes Center Stage
Sports banter has been a regular occurrence in Cannes for as long as the festival has been taking place, with the festivities occurring during the same week as some of the largest soccer tournaments in the world. This year, the Olympics was a major focus point, with the Olympic Torch being carried through the streets of Cannes on the first day of the festival. In the days that followed, sports talk took center stage with collaborations and partnerships serving as a focal point in the discussions.
Alexis Ohanian, Midge Purce, and Flau’jae Johnson discussed how brand deals have evolved in women’s sports, as well as their larger impact in the panel: “Winning Equality: The Rise of Women’s Sports.”
State Farm's CMO Kristyn Cook believes that women's sports should become a part of every brand's strategy: “Every brand should be asking, 'How should women's sports be part of my strategy? It could be talent. Telling incredible stories of these women. Not just what they do on the court but what they do in communities and their fashion - because that's part of culture too.”
The amount of brands that are eager to get involved in women’s sports is increasing across the board. Geoff Schiller, CRO of Vox Media discussed how beauty brands and retail brands are amongst those joining the space for the first time.
The WNBA’s Chief Growth Officer announced that major deals are set to become official with Disney in the near future. Additionally, League One Volleyball announced partnerships with Spanx and Adidas.
Looking Ahead To 2025
Cannes Lions highlighted significant shifts across the advertising industry, including dominated discussions, a rise in support for sustainability frameworks, and first-party data strategies. Additionally, news of key partnerships and mergers enhanced capabilities, underscoring the industry's commitment to new technologies and responsible practices. As we look ahead towards 2025, innovation and collaboration are sure to bring colossal shifts across the advertising industry. Until next year - Cannes!
Curious to check out last year’s Cannes recap blog post - click here.
Looking to meet with the Sharethrough team at an upcoming event? Check out our events calendar!
Founded in 2015, Calibrate is a yearly conference for new engineering managers hosted by seasoned engineering managers. The experience level of the speakers ranges from newcomers all the way through senior engineering leaders with over twenty years of experience in the field. Each speaker is greatly concerned about the craft of engineering management. Organized and hosted by Sharethrough, it was conducted yearly in September, from 2015-2019 in San Francisco, California.
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