The Biggest Trends from Cannes 2026
Happy Friday, everyone! This week, we’re going to cover some of the hottest topics from last week’s Cannes Lions and rest assured, there was more to it than “AI is changing everything.” We’ll also dig into yet another major change unfolding at a legacy media entity. Let’s get to it!
Top Trends from the La Croisette (LINKS BELOW!)
TL;DR – The advertising industry once again descended on the Côte d'Azur for the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last week. Amid the Aperol, Yachts, and endless forced uses of the term “agentic,” there were a number of meaningful themes that emerged.
The Work - At its core, Cannes is about celebrating the creative that found new and meaningful ways to connect with consumers. I’d recommend checking out some of the winning campaigns - here’s a good roundup of all of the Grand Prix winners from The Drum (LINK.) It’s also worth noting that 40% of entries used some form of AI this year, 2x what we saw in 2025 (Campaign - LINK.) Ironically, Claude’s Super Bowl LX campaign that mocked AI advertising won the Film Grand Prix (AdWeek - LINK.)
Immersive Commerce - As commerce continues to evolve, so do the ways brands are able to connect with consumers. Albertsons announced the launch of ads inside their AI-power conversational search tool (AdWeek - LINK) while Instacart unveiled a new short-form, shoppable, vertical video feed offering called "Immersive Feed" that showcases meals and recipes (Chain Store Age - LINK.)
Branded Content - Branded content isn’t a new concept by any means, but where and how it’s being delivered is evolving. Albertsons and Procter & Gamble announced the launch of “Rico’s Tacos,” a scripted comedy-drama series featuring P&G products and informed by real shopper data (Wall Street Journal - LINK.) 15-second teasers will be played on in-store screens while shoppers can watch full episodes inside the Albertsons app and on social media. Walmart is also launching its own series of branded programming which will be featured on Walmart-owned Vizio television home screens and made available via free streaming channels (Variety - LINK.)
Human Voices in the Spotlight - Creators have been a growing part of Cannes for a number of years but this year saw them show up more as true creative partners vs simply part of a media buy (Digiday - LINK.) We also saw new tools being announced from TikTok (LINK) and YouTube (LINK) that use AI to help brands better identify trends and creators. Amazon announced the launch of a Creator Hub on FireTV which will house videos and podcasts from digital creators, expanding their reach beyond social media and into connected TV (Variety - LINK.) Reddit also announced new tools that leverage the over 25B posts and comments by their community to inform brand creative and audience strategies (LINK.)
Integration is the New Black - We continue to see an acceleration of new types of commerce players open up their data and capabilities to advertisers, most notably in the travel and finance verticals (The Drum - LINK.) A key trend that is emerging alongside the proliferation of media networks is the need for interoperability and collaboration to enable true scale as advertisers try to make sense of an increasingly complex media ecosystem.
Matt’s Hot Take™ - Cannes is always a good moment to pause and look for inspiration. This comes to life through all of the amazing creative work but also via all of the interesting ways brands and the broader advertising ecosystem continue to innovate. I intentionally did not include a specific “AI” section because this year marked a real shift away from AI as a stand-alone topic and towards an integrated enabler of strategy. Over the last couple of years we’ve gone from “what is AI?” to “AI is important!” to “how can we deploy AI to make our systems and processes work better?” As the technology continues its march forward, it’s hard not to see the outsized presence of creators as a bit of a counterweight representing reality amid a sea of artificial intelligence. The risk I see right now with so many different tools and different ways to go to market is brand marketers chasing hype and increasingly losing their grip on what problems they are trying to solve for consumers. The fundamentals have never been more important with consumer insights and brand strategy being key ingredients in getting the most out of these incredibly powerful tools. Without a solid foundation, flashy innovation may score some points in the trades and on LinkedIn but industry clout doesn’t show up in a share report.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal Spinoff Gives Hollywood Its Next Major Deal Target (Wall Street Journal - LINK)
TL;DR – Comcast just announced that they will spin off NBCUniversal and Sky into a separate company while Comcast will continue to focus on their core connectivity business. NBCU includes Universal movie studios and theme parks, the Peacock streaming service, and brands like NBC, Telemundo and Bravo.
Matt’s Hot Take™ - The official statement talks about unlocking value as separate pure-play entities but given the broader dealmaking that has been going on in the media space as of late, it’s hard to ignore how ripe of a target a stand-alone NBCU could become for a potential suitor. It’s important to note that Comcast tried to merge NBCU with Warner Brothers Discovery in an unsuccessful bid in late 2025 so this wouldn’t be a totally new idea. With Paramount winning the WBD sweepstakes, could we see a runner up in that deal, i.e. Netflix, make a play here? Potentially. Here’s a wildcard to spark some thought; perhaps a tech firm makes a bid? With Meta now experimenting with long-form, episodic content meant to be viewed on televisions (The Hollywood Reporter - LINK) and the likes of Amazon and Apple continuing to invest in content, I’m not sure it’s that outlandish of a leap to see someone outside of a pure play media company look to acquire these assets. It will take time for the split to be finalized and potential bidders would have to wait two years to avoid a tax hit given the nature of the spin-off but how this plays out will be a major story to monitor over the coming months and years.
Quick Hits
Amazon’s Prime Day Drives Online Sales in the US Up 9.3% (Retail Dive - LINK) - Last week was Amazon’s mid-summer sales event, Prime Day and like years past, a lot of protein shakes, trash bags, and Kindles got sold online. With retailers like Walmart, Target, and others setting up similar sales events and consumers becoming conditioned to the timing of the event, total U.S. online spending ($26.4B) during “Prime Day” is approaching Cyber Week levels ($32.5B.) Additionally, we’re seeing roughly half of consumers now shopping deals outside of Amazon and comparing products and prices (Numerator - LINK) and only 59% of Prime Day shoppers reported high satisfaction with the discounts on Amazon, down from 68% last year. One of the most creative executions by an Amazon competitor looking to take advantage of cooling Prime Day excitement was Etsy’s campaign urging consumers to buy products from “non-billionaire Jeff’s” in a playful dig at Mr. Bezos (Inc - LINK.) For brands as behaviors continue to shift, it’s never been more important to take an omni-channel approach to ensure demand is being captured wherever consumers are landing.
Mark Zuckerberg Directed Meta to Create a Predictions Market App (New York Times - LINK) - With a staggering 3.56B people visiting one of Meta’s apps every day, growth is becoming harder to come by. This is why Meta is looking for new avenues for growth, one of which being a predictions app similar to Kalshi or Polymarket named “Arena.” Meta has its eye on this space because prediction apps raked in $50B in online trades in 2025 and halfway through 2026 that figure has already ballooned north of $130B. However, with the ability to bet on virtually anything on these platforms, there is a significant risk of insider trading that has come to light in recent months. The addictive nature of online gambling combined with the attention eight-ball that is social media feels like a dangerous and irresponsible combination. Truth be told, I hope this never sees the light of day.
Snap Finally Debuts its Long-Awaited AR Glasses, Specs, and, Oof, They Aren’t Cheap (TechCrunch - LINK) - They’re expensive at $2195 and they make you look like a total dork, but to be fair, Snap’s new AR glasses have some interesting features. Users can watch videos, play games and even ask about objects that they are looking at and have the glasses pull up information using contextual AI. However, Snap is competing with Meta who just unveiled a cheaper, $299 version of their smart glasses (TechCrunch - LINK.) While they don’t have all the features of Snap’s Specs, Meta’s smart glasses are significantly cheaper (thanks in part to Meta being comfortable losing $4B/quarter on Reality Labs (no, really - LINK)) and still offer a lot of utility for users. Smart glasses continue to steadily grow in popularity but at this price point, I doubt these will do much to drive accelerated consumer adoption of the the tech.
