But staying cool was a different victory at the 73rd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity that ran from June 22–26. Under a punishing sun, attendees along the Croisette were rescued by little robots ferrying water and fans – a neat, faintly absurd emblem of the week's central tension. While AI hummed in the background of almost every session, the loudest argument on stage was for the one thing technology cannot automate: the human element.
AI inspires conversation around what technology cannot automate: the human element
VML celebrated a historic milestone at the 2026 Cannes Lions, earning No. 2 Creative Network of the Year.
At the center of it all sat creativity, not as a nice-to-have, but as a competitive advantage and a driver of growth. "Creativity can be a dollar multiplier on your investment," argued Chipotle's Chief Brand Officer, Fernando Machado. "It drives results." Festival CEO Simon Cook made the same case from the opening stage: creativity, he said, "is not a luxury in these tough times – it's in fact a necessity."
Across more than 500 speakers and 150-plus hours of content, that necessity was defined by a return to the brave, the emotional, and the imperfect.
Here are the trends that defined the week.
Six key trends that emerged during Cannes Lions 2026
1. Escaping the age of beige
Two years after Cannes fretted about a "dullocalypse" in advertising, the consequences are hitting home. A study released during the festival found that 84% of brands suffer consumer indifference, and speakers argued the industry is manufacturing it at scale.
Orchard’s Chief Creative Officer David Kolbusz warned of a "tsunami of the mediocre" driven by safe, derivative work. Sir John Hegarty put it blunter still: "we are making a worse product… people are paying good money to avoid advertising." The cause, some argued, is a simple failure of nerve, and a reticence to fight for bold or radical ideas.
Chipotle Chief Brand Officer Fernando Machado admitted that when others called him fearless, "I was afraid every f*cking time.” His advice? To act anyway: "The point is that you do, even when you are afraid." Citing research from the University of Pennsylvania, he explained why novel or brave ideas rarely survive contact with an organization.
Anything that's different brings uncertainty. Uncertainty brings fear… and we kill the idea.
Fernando Machado
Chief Brand Officer, Chipotle
Unilever CMO Leandro Barreto argued that brands have also grown too comfortable producing safe, polished content. Approving Vaseline’s work on creator product hacks, he recalled thinking the risk "would either change the brand or would get me fired," and having to fight the instinct to hold on to control of the brand. The choice he kept returning to: "play it safe, or trust that people would carry the fire if you were brave enough to light it."
For those who take a risk, bold moves pay off. Suncorp's "Haven" won this year’s Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix by shifting its own strategic approach from disaster recovery to disaster resilience. Bravery can also be understated. AB InBev's Global CMO Marcel Marcondes pointed to Stella Artois' Wimbledon campaign, where the brand abandoned its signature palette to honor the tournament's all-white dress code. In a category obsessed with visibility, trusting culture to do the work feels almost radical.
The reward is work people will care about. John Hegarty pointed to cultural storytelling phenomena such as Netflix’s "Adolescence" and ITV’s "Mr Bates vs The Post Office" as reminders that even the most complex issues gain traction when they become stories people actively want to engage with. "To engage you need to entertain," he said.
2. Feeling machines
We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think," Anam Ahmad, founder and chief creative officer at The Hanging House, told the festival, borrowing from the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. In a year dominated by another kind of machine, it was a telling rallying cry. Human qualities like emotion, empathy and true ingenuity are a crucial differentiator, said many speakers, and something that machines cannot yet automate.
Emotional connection was top of mind for many. Lion of St Mark awardee Susan Credle urged attendees to “go back to storytelling and joy and touching people emotionally." Lions Laureate Jim Stengel told his audience, “My legacy, and I believe all of your legacies will be defined by one thing, and that is how you make people feel.”
Most notably though, AI's own architects conceded the human advantage. Demis Hassabis, who runs Google DeepMind, admitted the piece still missing from AI is "true creativity — not just remixing of existing things, but a leap into the novel." The soul of the work, he said, "comes from the human creator. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon." Nik Kleverov, whose company Native Foreign builds AI-driven films, put it plainly: "When we resonate with a story, it's coming from a human." P&G veteran Marc Pritchard translated it into more practical terms: no machine trained on millions of data points would ever have surfaced the British ritual of soaking dishes, because nobody records it as data. "That takes human observation, empathy, and intuition."
Perhaps the most striking proof came via Fernando Machado, who shared a 2024 prediction from OpenAI’s Sam Altman that AI would take over 95% of creative and strategy work, "nearly instantly, and at almost no cost." Some irony, then, when OpenAI released its own first campaign, that human craft was central to the output, which was shot on 35mm film, not AI-generated. "We are not in the picture of losing our jobs," quipped Machado.
If there's a caveat, it's that brands no longer speak to just human audiences. The first thing to meet a brand is increasingly a machine, so the task isn't only to move people; it's to stay legible to systems that never feel a thing. Research from INSEAD, Jellyfish and WARC found zero correlation between how humans and LLMs judged 480 Creative Effectiveness Lions, signaling that the work that wins hearts isn't the work that wins algorithms. Despite that, insisted Pritchard, “no matter the technology, the tool, the speed, the gadgets and the features, [creativity] always will be a deeply human endeavor.”
3. Fandom fluency
Last year’s momentum around empowering fandoms and building communities extended into this year, as the brand narrative shift from broadcast to relinquishing control continues to unfold.
As Leandro Barreto put it, “We have decided to stop asking what our brands want to say and start asking what others want to say about our brands.” He warned that treating creators as merely a channel is a mistake, “The moment people stop reshaping our brand is the moment it stops mattering.” Reddit’s Head of Community Laura Nessler cemented this shift, saying “Audiences get spoken to, communities speak to each other.”
Sega’s session, “The Sonic Effect: How Japan’s Fandom Culture Elevates Playful Worlds” shared insights into Sonic the Hedgehog’s evolution. Debuting successfully in 1991, the brand struggled in the early 2000s, but was eventually revived thanks to Sonic Mania, a game made by fans for fans. Tetsuya Honda, CEO of PR consultancy Honda Office, concluded that “the best way to grow a brand is not always to find new fans, but to revitalize the passion of fans that you already have.”
Success is also about listening to those fans. After backlash to Sonic’s initial movie design, Paramount Pictures postponed the film for a character redesign. Shuji Utsumi, the president and COO of Sega Corporation, praised the decision, calling it “the power of fandom.” Utsumi explained that Sega’s modern strategy is focused on “preparing ingredients rather than content,” giving fans the tools to express themselves and further develop the brand.
This collaborative approach to commerce was echoed by eBay CEO Jamie Iannone, who noted that “community and content and commerce are kind of coming together in one.” Meanwhile, NBCUniversal’s Matt Strauss observed that audiences "follow talent, they share the clips, they create memes, they build communities” and ultimately, “they turn shows into movements and personalities into brands.”
Audiences today don’t just want to watch, they want to participate.
Matt Strauss
Chairman, NBCUniversal Media Group
WPP’s panel discussion “Building Trust at Scale” emphasized the power of creators in translating global brand equity into local subcultures. Aude Gandon, chief digital and marketing officer at Estée Lauder, believes “creators are giving opportunities to [brands] to really continue to carry the storytelling of a global brand but then make it highly relevant to a local culture, even to local subcultures.” Meanwhile, Nicola Mendelsohn, head of global business group at Meta, stressed that the most successful brand-creator relationships rely on creative freedom. "People trust creators more than they trust anybody else. More than half the stuff bought now is driven by creators in some way," she said.
From fans and communities to creators, if brands want to stay relevant, they must engage with these key audiences and surrender control.
4. Friction renaissance
Brands are intentionally slowing down to build long-term growth. After years of promoting technology to strip every ounce of friction from the consumer journey, Cannes Lions 2026 revealed a sharp countertrend as brands rally behind building friction back in.
“For everything gained in efficiency, many brands find themselves asking a harder question,” noted broadcaster and MC of the festival’s Rotonde stage, Ria Hebden. “Is it possible that the industry perception of efficiency is pushing creativity towards an optional extra?” Patricia Varella, creative director at Polaroid, was even more direct. “By optimizing for efficiency, we just create a system that is destroying our creativity," she said.
The antidote to this robotic homogeneity is intentional, human friction. Musician Questlove proved this by ditching his “well-oiled” DJ formulas to force himself to manually explore unfamiliar music, while AB InBev’s CMO Marcel Marcondes revealed the business uses a dedicated internal group and an uncompromising external council to probe their ideas because “the comfort zone is a place for dead people.” Similarly, Pizza Hut’s Head of Growth Marketing Ashley Travis cautioned that chasing automated efficiency through “composable creative” risks making brands look “cookie-cutter and generic.” Additionally, P&G’s Marc Pritchard also advocated for a pushback against automated “batch” marketing systems in favor of localized, human-to-human sprints that capture cultural nuances.
Is it possible that the industry perception of efficiency is pushing creativity towards an optional extra?
Patricia Varella
Creative Director at Polaroid
This pushback is about reclaiming creative control, as Scott Belsky, partner at A24, put it. "I haven’t met many artists that are willing to make that trade [control for speed]," he said. In agreement is Glenn Wastyn, head of B2B EMEALA at Magnific, noting that premium AI must prioritize “intent” and “giving control to creators… to tell better, authentic stories” over endless generation.
At Pinterest’s "Manifestival" beach activation, the very essence of human craft and creativity was brought to life. As Noémie Michaud, a company representative, told VML Intelligence, the mission was to encourage physical, “less URL, more IRL” interactions, like mailing physical postcards, getting a tattoo or experiencing a personalized tasting session with custom patisseries. Michaud shared Pinterest research highlighting how 82% of Gen Z want to disconnect. “The best thing you can find online is a reason to go offline," she said.
Companies are realizing that real human connection cannot be automated. Instead, brands must slow down and reclaim the human messiness of friction to embrace cultural nuance and creative prowess.
Manifestival Pinterest Beach at Cannes Lions 2026. Courtesy of Pinterest
5. Purpose evolves
Reports of the death of brand purpose were everywhere at Cannes. So were examples of what it might become next.
The obituary came from the Debussy stage. In “Five Marketing Truths We Can Actually Agree On,” Mark Ritson, a marketing professor and columnist, and Byron Sharp, a professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, were united in skepticism. "Both of us flagged more than a decade ago brand purpose is nonsense," Ritson declared. "Nobody gives a f*ck about your toothpaste and how it feels about racial equality." Sharp claimed that data showed no one ever chose a brand because of purpose, adding that spending shareholders' money on "your favorite charity" was "completely immoral."
Yet the conversation at Cannes suggested there were competing ideas of what purpose means. Former P&G Global CMO Jim Stengel led the pushback. "Doing good and doing business are not mutually exclusive,” he said. "They could be great friends."
Several examples at Cannes reflected exactly that idea: purpose expressed not through communications, but through the way a business creates value.
The real reason you're here is to be in service to something greater than yourself.
Oprah Winfrey
Alex Weller, Patagonia’s VP of creative, explained how the business has directed $180 million towards environmental work since transferring ownership to a nonprofit. Elf Beauty shared how its commitment to value creation has enabled it to grant $250 million in equity to employees. And audiences heard how Dove's long-term support for the Crown Act has helped to outlaw discrimination against natural hair in multiple US states. Rather than purpose-led messaging, they offered examples of purpose embedded into how a business operates.
The question, then, became what those commitments are ultimately in service of. Oprah Winfrey argued that "the real reason you're here is to use yourself in service to something that's greater than yourself." Weller scaled the philosophy to the organization, arguing that if a company hopes to survive for 100 years, "its values had to be coded from the beginning." And at the grandest scale, DeepMind's Demis Hassabis urged businesses not to forget human growth in the rush for business growth, describing AI's mission as "maximum human flourishing."
Perhaps the Cannes verdict is this: The era of purpose as a campaign line may be fading, but in its place is a tougher standard – purpose that shows up in products, policies, incentives and long-term commitments. Not a superficial badge attached to the brand, but a value embedded into it. As Stengel put it: "When purpose is not grounded in business, it will not be sustained."
6. Creating brand legacy
Amidst a culture of hyper-acceleration, a prominent theme on the Palais stages this year was one of persistent brand consistency.
Interpublic’s Susan Credle branded performative marketing and fast, cheap digital activations as “advertising pollution” during her talk track. Instead, she advocated for brand consistency, saying, “once you have consistency, it allows you to do so much more creatively” and that can ultimately “lead to some of the most creative ideas you’ll ever come up with.” In addition, she noted that it offers a “shorthand” with audiences, building lasting recognition and trust. This pursuit of creative purpose was echoed on stage by Oprah Winfrey, who reminded the audience that "your call to be here as a human being is the greatest adventure and the biggest miracle anyone can ever experience… how you use it to continue to fulfill the fullest, highest expression of yourself is exactly why we're all here." Grounding the concept of legacy in human impact rather than corporate metrics, Winfrey quoted the legendary Maya Angelou: "Your legacy is not one thing. Your legacy is every life you touch."
Unilever’s Barreto framed the practice as an act of long-term brand building. In his keynote titled “Who Carries the Fire?” Barreto said, “Consistency is not repetition, it is stewardship. Clarity travels, confusion doesn’t.” Marketing effectiveness expert Les Binet echoed this sentiment, believing that “big outstanding effects come from long-running consistent campaigns where you’ve got consistency across channels.” Meanwhile, former CMO of P&G Jim Stengel shared that, “Great luxury brands, great consumer brands, and great technology brands are consistent over time.”
However, maintaining this discipline requires resisting the internal urge to constantly reinvent. Several speakers highlighted that marketers often become fatigued with their own brand assets. “Consistency, we get bored with it," Credle observed. Byron Sharp agreed, noting that while consistency is "something that everyone believes in," many fail to execute it due to "a lack of discipline." He reminded the audience, "You're getting bored with your own work, but it's not about you. It was never about you. Your consumer hasn't even seen your new campaign... We know from good data you've got two or three years to get the most from that campaign." Sharp summarized the danger of this internal fatigue, warning, “You go changing things, [and consumers] just don’t see you.”
Once you have brand consistency it allows you to do so much more, which can ultimately lead to some of the most creative ideas you’ll ever come up with.
Susan Credle
Global Creative Advisor, Interpublic
This premature fatigue has led to a drop in campaign lifespans. Mark Ritson observed, “30 to 40 days is the average length [of a campaign] for big brands. It's getting shorter... What we're seeing is a complete ignorance of this point. You've got to leave your cakes in the oven for longer. It takes 10 years to build even a molecule of brand equity." For marketers tempted to ditch their hard-won assets too soon, Ritson’s advice was blunt, “You get sick of your own distinctive brand assets… but the lesson is to push through the vomit.”
Winner of eight Cannes Lions awards at this year's festival including a Grand Prix, VML's KitKat Heist demonstrates how brands can stay consistent yet culturally vital. The brand, born in 1935, coined the phrase “Have a break, have a KitKat” in the 1950s and has faithfully kept that sentiment going for decades. However, rather than letting the asset grow dusty, the VML and Burson teams proved that consistency is a springboard for incredible creativity when a real-life crisis struck. At the end of March, the brand was met with a criminal challenge when thieves made off with a massive shipment of stock just before Easter. A spokesperson said, “We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat, but it seems thieves have taken the message too literally and made a break with more than 12 tons of our chocolate...We have chosen to go public with our own experience in the hope that it raises awareness of an increasingly common criminal trend.” Rather than keeping the PR crisis quiet, the brand went public, launching a digital “Stolen KitKat Tracker” that invited the public to play "chocolate detectives" by scanning their bar's batch codes. By using their 70-year-old brand platform to turn a real-life theft into an interactive community game, KitKat proved that legacy isn't about standing still – it's about having a foundation so strong and recognizable that you can play with it in real-time.
What it means
Ultimately, this year’s Cannes Lions proved that staying power belongs to the brand guardians who play the long game. Whether it’s Dove’s decades-long commitment to real beauty, NBCUniversal’s unwavering advocacy for creative storytelling for a century, or BYD’s global expansion anchored in what Executive Vice President Stella Li calls a “long-term vision,” the strategic approach remains unchanged. As AB InBev’s CMO Marcel Marcondes put it, “Consistency compounds over time… for those who manage to have the discipline of staying consistent in the long run, it is gold.”
As technology continues to rewrite the speed of execution, Cannes Lions 2026 suggested that the greatest competitive advantage is still the slow, messy, and fiercely human work of building a brand legacy.
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