Creator marketing trends to watch at Cannes Lions 2026

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Each Cannes Lions has been bigger for creators and creator marketers than the last. This year’s festival will be no exception.

Those in the industry tell us that onsite, they expect to see more creators than ever. The Creators List, compiled by companies including Whalar Group and Comscore, lists more than 200 creators expected to be in attendance. Beyond that, more designated spots for creators are expected across spots like Influential Beach, UTA Beach, and YouTube Creator Club, the last of which will be at the festival for the first time this year.

Lions Creators, the festival creator track that is now in its third year, will have an even greater presence, with programming expanding to the full five days and its hub moving from the top of the Palais to what it’s calling Creator Beach on the Croisette, Ed Davidson, chief growth officer at Lions, told us.

“[We’re] really excited about the new location,” Davidson said. “There’s a bigger footprint and more things going on within the space.”

Ahead of a week where creator marketing is poised to be the talk of the town, we spoke with creator marketers about the sights they expect to see and conversations they expect to hear at this year’s festival.

More creators, more content

Just a few years ago, creators’ awareness of Cannes Lions as a business opportunity wasn’t all that high. That seems to be changing.

This year, Billion Dollar Boy and creator platform FiveTwoNine hosted the Creator Fund grant program for the second year in a row and saw triple the amount of applicants this year for the 20 available spots, Becky Owen, global CMO at Billion Dollar Boy, told us.

“Last year, what we realized is no one understood what Cannes Lions was in the creative community, so we launched the fund, and no one applied at first,” she said. “This year, we didn’t have to explain what it was.”

Neil Waller, co-founder and co-CEO of Whalar Group, told us that among creators, he’s also seen growing awareness of and inquiries about the festival. “First you get 10 people, then you get 50, then you get 200, and then you get 1,000,” he said. “It has that trickle-down effect.”

Davidson said Cannes Lion worked with “more creator ambassadors than ever this year” to help drum up excitement for the festival. He declined to say how many creator passes were sold this year, but said there has been “a lot of growth” in the space.

That includes B2B creators, in addition to consumer-facing ones. Patrick Zielinski, CEO and talent manager of the Drive Agency, is attending the festival for the second year, and he told us he’s encouraged 10 B2B creators to attend in order to network and take advantage of creator pass programming.

“Going to Cannes is probably going to pay off more than if you didn’t go,” he said.

Given the high cost of attending the festival, not every creator can make such an investment. Owen said she expects most of the creators to have received assistance from a platform, talent agency, or brand. Waller, similarly, estimated that about 75% of the creators he knows are going with assistance, while around 25% are going on their own dime. Jenny Penich, North American president and global CMO of Influencer, told us that many of the agency’s brand partners that haven’t attended the festival or only sent a couple of people in the past are putting more investment toward the festival this year.

For the creators going with brands, expect to see more content this year, Ziad Ahmed, head of Next Gen at UTA, told us. “More brands [are] working with creators and working with talent, not just in a B2B capacity at Cannes, but in a B2C capacity,” he said. “More and more eyeballs are on Cannes as a cultural moment in the calendar, and therefore as a moment to show up and tell a story.”

More conversations

Throughout the five days of programming, Davidson said Lions is experimenting with new formats, including a welcome breakfast, speed-dating lunches with brands, and workshops. The goal is to encourage networking, whether it’s peer-to-peer or between creators and brands or agencies. Lions will also host a series of “secret suppers” throughout the week with creators, founders, and talent managers, he said.

Owen said creators are looking to meet with brands in an “equal-footing” setting without intermediaries, and she expects to see more discussions happening in smaller settings.

“Everywhere now has a speaker and a microphone, every cafe has someone speaking, and it is kind of overwhelming in terms of ‘Where are the real conversations? Where are the interesting narratives?’” she said. “I’m hearing more and more that the behind-closed-doors, smaller exclusive [events] is where the real high-quality programming is.”

As far as what will be discussed? Owen is banking on talks about brands shifting internal operations to accommodate creator marketing and long-term growth and monetization opportunities in the category. Ahmed expects to hear a lot about diversity in creator partnerships. Penich anticipates a lot of chatter around social commerce and AI. And Waller said he expects that multiyear creator contracts, creator communities, and creators in the entertainment industry will be big topics.

More integration

The first two years of Lions Creators set atop the Palais was meant to give creators an “oasis away from the vastness” to escape to with their community, Davidson said. However, many creators were left confused last year about what was happening down alongside the Croisette, and the distance created a separation between brands and creators, Owen said. With that feedback and with Lions Creators growing in scale, Davidson said it was only fair to give creators a spot in the sand.

“Because we’re three years in and [creators] want to be more integrated, they want to be more visible, it made total sense,” Davidson said.

Owen said she believes the integration will “make such a big difference in actually feeling like [creators are] genuinely part of marketing, not still just some sort of annexed parallel track.”

As the festival increases in scale, the bigger issue may be figuring out how to navigate the beaches and beyond.

“It will be interesting to see what the balance is between people that attend Cannes and are on the Croisette and in the Palais, and then people that are at all these other [villa] events,” Waller said. “[The festival] feels bigger this year than ever before, and I don't know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”