The 2025 Cannes Lions Festival wrapped with a clear message: creators aren’t just collaborators, they’re cultural leaders shaping how brands show up in the world. From mainstage panels to private villa takeovers, the week’s focus shifted from awards to influence.
Originally Published by LocalFactor
TikTok stars, YouTube personalities, Twitch streamers, and Substack writers were attendants and the stars of the show. They were hosting sessions, leading brand workshops, and co-creating campaigns in real time. Amelia Dimoldenberg, Alix Earle, and Kai Cenat were among the many creators who brought their massive audiences (and real-time feedback loops) into brand discussions. As Becky Owen of influencer agency Billion Dollar Boy put it, “It’s going to be the biggest [creator year] for sure,” and Cannes delivered on that promise.
Creators Are Reshaping the Buyer’s Journey
The shift toward creator-led storytelling is more than a trend; it’s a transformation in how brands engage with consumers. A panel hosted by Axios at Cannes explored how community connection is driving both growth and engagement. Rather than focusing solely on reach, brands are increasingly prioritizing relevance, authenticity, and emotional resonance, which are all qualities that creators bring in spades.
Platforms like Twitch, once known primarily for gaming, are now being recognized as community hubs. “Twitch isn’t about gaming… it’s about community,” said CEO Dan Clancy, highlighting how creators are redefining where and how people engage with content and ultimately, with brands.
The numbers support this movement. Influencer marketing is projected to grow to $13 billion by 2027, as more brands recognize the trust and intimacy that creators build with their audiences. This year’s Cannes also featured curated “Creator Funds” from major agencies and platforms, emphasizing how seriously the industry is now investing in this space.
From Glitz to Commerce: The New ROI Equation
If last year’s Cannes was about experimentation, this year was about execution. Brands weren’t just talking about creators, they were building full-funnel strategies around them. Digiday’s coverage underscored the festival’s shift from asking ‘why creators matter’ to mapping out how to integrate them at scale. Retailers like Target and CVS unveiled plans to work directly with creators to power social commerce and retail media networks, creating measurable results through influencer content and affiliate-based activations.
This evolution from brand halo to transactional impact has forced CMOs to reimagine what attention really means and how to measure it.
How LocalFactor Bridges the Creator Economy Gap
At LocalFactor, we’ve always known that attention is more than a metric; it’s a moment. That’s exactly why we developed Attention+, a creative technology designed to help brands connect the dots between cultural resonance and campaign performance.
Attention+ makes it possible to integrate creator-led content into scalable omnichannel campaigns, whether that’s CTV, programmatic video, or DOOH. We help brands amplify creator messaging without losing the intimacy that makes it so effective. Think of it as turning the influence of creators into tangible impact, whether that means driving foot traffic to a store or generating sign-ups for a new service.
Where other platforms may stop at repurposing content, Attention+ ensures that the message is seen by the right people in the right moment. Paired with our proprietary Geo-Graph™ and LFID™ audience technology, we identify high-intent audiences based on geo-intelligence using millions of data points, without relying on cookies or traditional identifiers. Then, Attention+ engages those audiences across the most relevant digital channels by repurposing creator-generated content and aligning your brand’s story with the moments that matter most.
Why This Matters Right Now
Younger generations are gaining more buying power, and they trust people over platforms. Gen Z and younger Millennials are shaping trends in fashion, food, wellness, and entertainment, and they’re getting their recommendations from people they follow, not search results. Traditional ad creative isn’t resonating like it used to. They want content that reflects their world, not interrupts it.
At Cannes, this was obvious across nearly every major brand activation. Creators weren’t just endorsing products; they were co-creating campaigns, scripting branded videos, and even influencing media buys. In this landscape, a brand’s ability to connect with consumers through real, relatable voices is essential for brand survival.
What’s Next?
If Cannes 2025 taught us anything, creators are now core to strategy, not just execution. The brands that win in this new era won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets; they’ll be the ones who understand where culture is headed and partner with those shaping it.At LocalFactor, we help brands stay culturally relevant and on trend by bridging the power of creators with the precision of geo-targeted media. With Attention+ and Geo-Graph™, you’re not just reaching an audience, you’re reaching the audience, in the exact context and mindset that drives action.
