Cannes Briefing: Optimism in the margins

That’s the Cannes trick after all. It’s a place where tensions coexists with spectacle. Where marketing leaders sip champagne while talking about efficiency mandates. Where every sunset panel is both a flex and a therapy session. This year, the contrast felt sharper — but also more honest.

Or at least, more visible in the margins. 

“The U.S tariffs and the global economic slowdown that’s resulted has been playing on the minds of a lot of marketers since they were first announced in April,” said Dennis Kirschner, CMO at ShowHeroes.

But in Cannes, he said the mood wasn’t one of paralysis. 

Attendance has felt strong and a lot of brands have told him they are looking to tap deeper into the European consumer market and offset some of the challenges the industry is experiencing in the U.S., Kirschner added.

That tone held across the week: not euphoric but measured. Marketers came to Cannes not to posture but to recalibrate — to find some footing in a moment where platform shifts, global instability and AI disruption have made steady ground hard to come by. 

“Cannes 2025 feels like the future coming into focus,” said Jeremy Hull, chief product officer Brainlabs in North America. 

And one of the more telling signs of that shift came not on stage but in the hotel bars and quiet meetings across town. More investment banks and private equity firms were on the ground this year, according to an exec who met with them. Houlihan Lokey even hosted its own drinks event midweek. 

“I’ve seen more people I know from investment banks here at Cannes than I’ve ever done,” continued the exec. 

Their presence may have been easy to miss amid the brand sprawl but it pointed to a subtle change: movement. Bankers don’t just come to Cannes for the rosé. They show up when they see a pipeline forming. If last year was about bracing for impact, this year felt like early reconnaissance — around AI-influenced growth stories, undervalued assets and cross-border plays that might finally be viable. 

“I think that people care about this industry, and the intent as a whole is to find things that are supportive of human creativity,” said Dan Gardner, CEO of Code and Theory. 

That intention showed up in another conversation that quietly evolved this year: the one around creators. 

In previous years, the creator economy often felt like a bolt on — something CMOs talked about because they had to, not because they knew what to do with it. The tone was different this time. There was less talk about follower counts and more about infrastructure — production studios, media networks and back-end systems to support scaled creative work. 

“Creators have become strategic partners, creative directors and are working with brands on collections and are informing them about their products, as well as taking over their social channels,” said Emma Harman, co-CEO of Whalar. “As a result, we’ve become more strategic in how we’re working with clients because also you’ve got CMOs going, ‘hang on a minute. We can’t just leave this to our social team anymore’. This is a fundamental part of our business.”

Cannes didn’t shed its aspirational core. But it did flirt with something it’s usually too self-conscious to show: humility. The sense that we don’t have all the answers and the ones we don’t have may not even come from a main stage. And that it’s OK to build thoughtfully, locally and imperfectly. 

No one flew home thinking the industry was saved. But many left with a clearer sense of what it might take to steady it. 

“I’m seeing a wave of CMOs who are more analytical and increasingly more knowledgeable on the details of how this ecosystem works,” said Dave Helmreich, CEO of ad tech vendor TripleLift. “Thats great for all of us as long as we don’t get overly-focused on the mechanics and forget what we’re meant to be working toward on a daily basis.”

DEI took a step back at Cannes. Inkwell Beach didn’t.

For all of the conversations happening in the Palais and along the Croisette, there’s one talking point that seems to be missing from this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity: diversity, equity and inclusion. 

It has made Adrianne Smith’s job of putting together this year’s Inkwell Beach installation, geared toward promoting diversity in Cannes, harder. Smith is the founder of Cannes Can: Diversity Coalition (CC:DC), a nonprofit initiative meant to address underrepresentation at the festival. Inkwell Beach is the nonprofit’s hub on the beach amongst tech giants, like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. 

It’s stood there for the past five years, but as diversity becomes the industry’s latest boogeyman, Smith said CC:DC has had to pivot, taking the word diversity off of its site, going by CC:DC as opposed to Cannes Can: Diversity Coalition to avoid backlash and finding new partners to support the beach activation as others rescind commitments. 

For the past few months, marketers have found themselves contending with consumers who expect brands to take up a position on everything, including diversity, while avoiding the ire of conservative stakeholders and the Trump administration. Even this year’s panel topics at Cannes seem to shy away from race in favor of neurodivergency. 

Digiday caught up with Smith at Cannes to learn more. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How has the backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion impacted your Cannes planning? 

The problem comes or the concern comes with brand sponsorship. People are concerned about, “What if someone sees me [sponsoring Inkwell Beach]? I have a government contract. I don’t want to be targeted. I don’t want the high profile of it.” We don’t have to put your logo on the wall, but we need your support. If you truly believe, and it’s not just lip service for this crisis moment, then you’ll commit. 

Has there been brands that chose not to sponsor Inkwell Beach this year? 

I’ve had [two] brands that have pulled out as late as one week before [Cannes] — 10 days cut their [diversity] budget.

How many brands usually sponsor? I see this year’s partners include Procter and Gamble, Yahoo and Havas. Has that changed? 

30 to 40 [historically]. It’s still 30 to 40, but they’re different [sponsors]. 

So what now? How do you navigate this new normal where diversity is a dirty word? 

A: In many ways, it created opportunities for other people to gain access to the space who was shut out because they couldn’t do it. It made us be a little more creative in terms of how we were developing partnerships because a lot of the smaller companies that wanted in couldn’t get in.

From a business standpoint it was a bit of a struggle because we had a lot of last minute decisions come in and you know the vendors here, they want their money up front. We struggled with making sure we got payments on time so that this could happen.

What are people misunderstanding when it comes to DEI, especially at Cannes?

It’s not about exclusion, it’s about pulling people into the [CC:DC and Inkwell Beach] program. The people who know that, they show up, they’re on our stages. They talk, they leave, they evangelize, and that’s what we want more of. 

Elsewhere from Cannes

Marketers came to Cannes this year looking for answers. Here are three takeaways from PMG’s head of integrated media.

Overheard

“AI is the demon we can’t escape.”

“As great as The Carlton is, they could do with more doors.” —A Cannes attendee joining at the back of a long queue of people trying to exit via the door.

“It is so hot here this week. I was forewarned what to expect in Cannes, and just chucked a bunch of kaftans in a bag and hoped for the best.”

“This place is a lie.”