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CANNES, FRANCE — Creator Adrian Per attended his first Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with TikTok for Business in 2024, the year the festival launched its creator program. Coming from a filmmaking background, he said that attending felt like an “I made it” moment — but he found the industry vibe more competitive than celebratory.
“I didn’t feel welcome, to be honest,” he said. “The space was still so focused on traditional media … I was everything from cut in line, interrupted when I spoke, to feeling like a second-class attendee, maybe even third-class.”
He described a disconnect between the high-level decision makers like CMOs and CEOs eager to partner and speak with him about the future of their work with creators, and the overall industry questioning creators’ expertise and resenting them for attracting advertising dollars.
When he returned last summer with Meta and Adobe, he said he felt a “vibe switch.” Now, in the South of France for his third Cannes, Per said “there is more FOMO from my creator friends who aren't going to Cannes than there was for Coachella.”
If "Coachella is the influencer Olympics, Cannes Lions is the networking Olympics for creators,” Per said.
The international advertising festival Cannes Lions has quickly become a marquee event for the creator economy, known within the industry as the top destination for creators and executives to build relationships and make deals with top decision makers. This year, the event has physically upgraded its creator space in a sign of how dominant creators have become to marketing.
“The opportunity to have real access, real touch points with real decision makers in the room with you is invaluable,” said Ty Flynn, a UTA creator agent who represents clients like Keith Lee, Markiplier and David Dobrik. He describes the festival as the primary moment when C-suite level executives from both brands and platforms gather to discuss the state of the business and the creator economy.
This year the agency represents more than 70 creators at the festival and for the first time has opened a “Creator Lounge” in their UTA Beach space for creators to recharge and make content on the Croisette, the main street along the beach where brands set up stages and posh meeting spaces.
Flynn said some of UTA’s clients — beyond those going with platforms or brands — will choose to attend on their own because of the value of being there. He pointed to a client that met an executive in the food and beverage space at last year’s festival, leading to a Super Bowl spot with the brand.
Per said the experience can cost up to $20,000 to $25,000 but is so valuable that he planned his last trip before having any brands approach him about attending, viewing it as a career investment.
Brands are also adapting quickly to capitalize on the festival’s creator programming and impact.
“This is the first year where they've really scaled that creator presence out to be the beach, and it's a lot more significant than it's ever been, so we've moved from how we show up as an enterprise level brand to how we show up as a brand for creators on the ground,” said Jared Carneson, Adobe’s head of social media who oversees creator efforts. This summer, the company is the official headline partner for LIONS Creators, the festival’s official creator program, and Carneson said they are scaling up their investment to match the event’s growing focus on creators and broader tech presence.
He said Adobe’s creator strategy has rapidly developed in the last few years from a focus on creators like filmmakers and designers who are influential online documenting their process, to “anyone who is making any kind of content for any audience, whether it is yapping about sport or nail art or talking about the film that they’ve just made and are debuting at Sundance.” It’s a recognition of how creators have taken an “undeniable … center stage within entertainment,” he said.
Despite the exclusivity of Cannes and high cost of attendance, Carneson predicted that accessibility will grow for creators.
As Per prepared for his third Cannes, he urged advertisers and brands on the ground to be open minded to creators, noting that despite the massive strides the event has taken towards creators there’s still work to be done.
“It might sound unorthodox, we understand that what you've been doing for decades has not been this, and we're not saying we know how to do your job better than you, but we do know how to connect organically with an audience during this current age better than you,” Per said.
This story is part of Verified, a newsletter that is published by Washington Post Creator, a team outside The Washington Post’s newsroom that is focused on the creator economy and content partnerships with independent creators. Learn more about Washington Post Creator.
