The iconic Palais des Festivals remains the beating heart of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where global business, creativity and culture converge; past headline speakers have included Pharrell Williams. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)
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Every June, a stretch of the French Riviera becomes one of the most commercially influential addresses in the world for a week.
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is still widely described as the Oscars of advertising, but that label now feels far too narrow. Cannes has evolved well beyond an awards festival. It has become a live marketplace of influence, where technology, retail, media, luxury, entertainment and culture increasingly collide.
In a world in which consumer attention has become harder to earn, more expensive to hold and infinitely easier to lose, Cannes Lions has become one of the clearest places to watch how brands are responding to that reality.
Who goes? (Spoiler: Increasingly, Everyone)
Alongside agencies and CMOs, the Croisette now hosts some of the world’s largest technology and retail businesses, including Amazon, TikTok, Pinterest, Meta and Google, all eager to demonstrate how their platforms shape discovery, commerce and consumer behaviour. Major retailers are increasingly visible too, reflecting the growing power of retail media and shoppable ecosystems, where the line between advertising and transaction continues to blur.
Luxury houses, creators, athletes, musicians, founders and investors all now sit within the same conversation, and that breadth is precisely what makes Cannes so fascinating.
Looking back to a decade ago, much of the focus centred on creative campaigns and storytelling. Today, the conversations feel broader and, in many cases, more commercially urgent. Brand building remains central, but the surrounding questions have changed. How do you earn trust in an AI-driven world? Where does personalisation become intrusive? How do brands remain culturally relevant when consumer attention is so fragmented?
Three themes are already dominating this year
Artificial intelligence remains impossible to ignore, but the tone has shifted noticeably. Last year’s conversations often focused on possibility and spectacle. This year feels more grounded.
The big questions are becoming more commercial and more human.
- Where is AI genuinely improving customer experience?
- Where is it reducing friction?
- And perhaps most importantly, where does it begin to undermine trust?
As consumers rarely reward clever technology for its own sake – the experts and talks through the week will show how to reward usefulness, confidence and ease.
Retail Media Gets Bigger
One of the most important conversations at Cannes may also be one of the least glamorous. Retail media.
Businesses such as Amazon have fundamentally changed how brands think about advertising by turning commerce platforms into media powerhouses. When retailers control search, recommendation and purchase, they increasingly control visibility.
Platforms like TikTok have accelerated this further by compressing inspiration and transaction into the same moment. Discovery now happens closer to checkout than ever before.
Experience Still Wins
For all the conversation around algorithms, automation and AI, Cannes continues to prove something very human.
Beach houses, immersive activations and invitation-only brand environments are no longer sideshows. They have become strategic investments in memory, emotion and cultural relevance.
Consumers may buy products, but increasingly they remember experiences.
That remains one of the strongest commercial truths in modern brand building.
Top Talks to Watch
Among the most anticipated sessions this year are conversations featuring major voices across technology, sport, entertainment and business and leaders from the world’s largest AI, media and retail platforms.
Stella McCartney (image with Mary and Paul McCartney) is among the high-profile names bringing fashion, sustainability and brand leadership to Cannes this year. (Photo by Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images)
WWD via Getty Images
The speaker lineup also reflects just how far the festival expands of beyond traditional advertising. Global media powerhouse Oprah Winfrey brings the enduring influence of storytelling and audience trust, while Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Stella McCartney represent the increasingly powerful intersection of entertainment, entrepreneurship and purpose-led brand building. Across the beaches and panel stages, names such as Alan Cumming, Janelle Monáe and JB Smoove add further cultural weight. Sport continues its rise as a serious commercial and media platform, with George Russell and Draymond Green bringing the worlds of sponsorship, fandom and athlete-led influence into sharper focus. Meanwhile, some of the most consequential conversations may come from the technology stage, where Demis Hassabis and Eddy Cue are expected to tackle the next frontier of AI, services and digital behaviour, discussions likely to shape far more than Cannes alone.
Particular attention is expected around sessions exploring:
- AI and consumer trust
- the future of creator-led commerce
- sports as cultural media powerhouses
- luxury’s next growth chapter
- how retail and technology continue to converge
Seasoned Cannes attendees know, however, that some of the most important conversations happen off-stage, over breakfast meetings, in shaded corners of beach clubs, or while walking between panels on the Croisette.
And that brings us to a less glamorous but highly practical truth.
Believe me, Cannes rewards preparation.
5 Smart Buys Worth Packing for Cannes Lions
Veterans of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity know the festival looks glamorous from afar, but on the ground it is closer to an endurance sport. Temperatures regularly push into the high twenties and beyond, the Croisette becomes a relentless cycle of walking, queuing and back-to-back meetings, and the combination of heat, screens, rosé and very little downtime can quickly catch up with even the most seasoned attendee.
That makes smart packing less about luxury and more about stamina.
Shark ChillPill 3-in-1 Fan, Mist & InstaChill System – In Cannes’ intense June heat, portable cooling quickly shifts from convenience to necessity, making products like SharkNinja’s FlexBreeze a smart survival tool between beach activations and meetings.
Shark Ninja
1. Keep Your Cool
Shark FlexBreeze Portable Fan,
SharkNinja has become a fascinating case study in functional products becoming lifestyle essentials. Best known for disrupting floorcare, the company has increasingly moved into products designed around comfort and convenience, and its FlexBreeze portable fan feels almost made for Cannes.
When beach activations are running under full Riviera sun, portable cooling stops feeling indulgent very quickly.
2. Battery Is Currency
At Cannes, a dead phone is more than an inconvenience.
No battery can mean no QR event access, no WhatsApp location updates, no ride bookings, no content capture and no ability to respond when a last-minute invitation lands. Power banks have become modern infrastructure.
The Blavor solar charging bank earns its place because the solar backup adds useful insurance during long days away from plug points, and Cannes generally never has enough plug points for that week of excess demand.
3. Wear the AI Conversation
Ray-Ban Meta sunglasses Built by Meta and Ray-Ban, these AI-powered smart glasses sit at the centre of one of Cannes’ biggest conversations: wearable technology consumers may actually adopt.
Meta Rayban
If one product embodies the dominant conversation at Cannes this year, it is smart glasses.
Built through the partnership between Meta and Ray-Ban, these glasses sit right at the intersection of AI, wearables and consumer adoption. They allow hands-free capture, audio and AI assistance while still looking like something people actually want to wear.
The biggest AI conversations at Cannes are no longer capability alone, but successful adoption. Consumers do not adopt technology simply because it is clever. They adopt it when it fits naturally into life.
4. SPF Is Non-Negotiable
Tatcha The Silk Sunscreen SPF 50
Sun protection is often treated as beauty admin. At Cannes, it is performance infrastructure.
Hours of UV exposure, relentless heat and the reflective glare of sea and pavement can quickly lead to dehydration, fatigue and the kind of energy dip that makes an afternoon keynote feel considerably longer than it is. Best selling lightweight SPF Tatcha’s The Silk Sunscreen SPF 50 earns its place because it offers serious protection while sitting beautifully under makeup, avoiding the heaviness or chalky finish that often discourages reapplication during long days on the Croisette.
5. Electrolytes Beat Espresso by Day Three
Artah electrolytes Long days, high temperatures and relentless schedules make hydration a serious performance tool, helping explain the growing popularity of functional products like Artah’s Cellular Hydration among frequent travellers.
Artah
around $32
By day three, hydration becomes less about wellness and more about performance.
Coffee may get you through the morning and rosé may feel like part of the Riviera ritual, but neither replaces what long days in the Cannes heat quietly drain from the body. Electrolytes have become something of an insider essential, particularly among frequent travellers and high performers trying to stay sharp through packed schedules, late dinners and early starts.
Artah’s Cellular Hydration feels especially suited to Cannes, combining electrolytes, trace minerals and functional ingredients designed to support hydration, focus and energy — exactly the sort of quiet advantage that becomes increasingly valuable by the third consecutive day on the Croisette.
Get Ready For Your Version of Cannes
Beneath the Riviera polish, Cannes Lions has always been about one thing: understanding people. Technology will evolve, platforms will rise and fall, and the mechanics of influence will continue to shift, but the brands that win will still be those that understand human behaviour better than their competitors.
Pack the charger, wear the SPF, drink the electrolytes and remember the smartest thing you can bring to Cannes Lions is your curiosity.
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