Digiday covers the latest from marketing and media at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. More from the series →
Another year, another recording of the Croisette’s priorities. The money moved, the language shifted and a few things everyone assumed were permanent turned out not to be. Some of this was obvious. Some of it wasn’t. Here’s Digiday’s guide to what’s in and out at the Cannes Lions Festival 2026.
In
OpenAI courting advertisers
Out
Perplexity courting advertisers
In
PMG beach
Out
WPP beach
In
Creators cutting deals with CMOs
Out
CMOs cutting deals with creators
In
Creators on the main stage
Out
Creators on the sidelines
In
Programming thinking
Out
Campaign thinking
In
Snapchat at the Stagwell Sport Beach
Out
Snapchat at the Hôtel Martinez
In
Tokenomics
Out
Tokenmaxxing
In
Cannes Lions integrity council
Out
Cannes Lions jury
In
Talking up AI for ideation
Out
Talking up AI for production
In
“AI needs humans in the lead”
Out
“AI needs humans in the loop”
In
Talking about how screwed The Trade Desk is
Out
Talking about how screwed TikTok is
In
The creator tech stack
Out
The ad tech stack
Think something’s missing from the list? Let us know at seb@digiday.com.
More in Marketing
The official judgmental map of Cannes Lions 2026
This map won’t tell you where to go during Cannes Lions. It will tell you where you actually are.
As AI reshapes search, TikTok turns discovery into a performance pitch
The platform argues rising search activity is evidence that discovery is increasingly driving performance outcomes advertisers expect.
Future of Marketing Briefing: Accenture’s Whalar bet: own the room when creator marketing gets complicated
The Whalar deal is Accenture running the same play it ran on programmatic — only this time it got there earlier.