Cannes Lions is the most prestigious festival of the advertising industry, and for years it belonged to agency and brand bosses. This year creators are the stars, and for the first time on such a scale. They have their own programme, their own beach and their own award category. YouTube is bringing around 500 of them, and investors with hundreds of millions of dollars are arriving behind them. The festival runs from 22 to 26 June 2026, and brands are signing multi-year deals with creators there.
From the Palais rooftop to the beach
LIONS Creators is the third edition of the programme for the creator economy, which started in 2024. The main partner is Adobe, and the festival describes the space as “the business of influence”.
This year the programme is moving from the roof of the Palais to the beach, Palais Beach.
A ticket for creators costs €1,245 plus 20% tax, and according to Digiday it is about 70% cheaper than a classic marketing ticket at €4,465, while at the same time being the fastest to sell out. Capacity is limited, and entry is by application. The programme is built around topics such as co-creation, the integration of AI, the role of creators in B2B marketing, building sustainable businesses and developing partnerships. Speakers include Dhar Mann, Hannah Stocking and Max Klymenko, alongside managers from TikTok, Twitch, Gap, DoorDash and Mastercard.
Brandon Baum, a creator and owner of a production studio, sums up the shift in the words “A couple of years ago, we were a colorful sideshow. Now content creators are the keynote speakers, not the panelists”.
Creators have their own Lion category
In 2025 Cannes Lions renamed the Social & Influencer Lions category to Social & Creator Lions and added a separate Creator & Influencer Marketing section with six subcategories, ranging from organic reach to working with creators and building community. Results in the judging carry a 30% weighting. Entries must be signed by both the brand’s management and the entrant.
Ed Davidson, who leads the creator programme at Cannes, sums up the shift in words “Creators are now a critical part of the marketing ecosystem”.
YouTube is building a Creator Club
YouTube is bringing around 500 creators to the festival, and more than 400 came last year. In its Creator Club it expects more than 200 creators during the week. It describes the club as “a dedicated hub for creators to connect and become brand-deal ready”, and sums up the dynamic with the line “brands will be coming to creators rather than the other way around”.
In March 2026 YouTube renamed its BrandConnect tool as YouTube Creator Partnerships and linked it directly to YouTube Studio and Google Ads.
The tool gives brands access to more than three million creators in the YouTube Partner Programme, and to matching via Gemini, which selects creators by audience similarity, organic brand mentions and subscriber growth. According to YouTube, creators who shared data about their channel in the tool appeared in search results 60% more often.
Instagram, TikTok and Twitch are also sending their own managers to the programme.
Multi-year deals and B2B creators
Neil Waller, co-founder of Whalar Group, named multi-year deals with creators as one of the main themes of the festival. An example is State Farm, which became the official insurance partner of Dude Perfect and the main partner of their show Overtime.
Gordon Glenister, an influencer marketing strategist, says “Creator marketing budgets will become permanent, not pilot budgets or experimental budgets”. Whole brands have grown up around creators. Rhode, the cosmetics brand, made net sales of $212 million in the year to March 2025, according to Anastasia Evans of the agency Influencer, before e.l.f. Beauty bought it for roughly $1 billion.
Christine Göös, a creator on LinkedIn and marketing director of the agency Croud, sums it up as “B2B is the cool kid in town”. According to research by TopRank Marketing, 58% of B2B marketing teams already involve influencers on an always-on basis. Patrick Zielinski, CEO of Drive Agency, brought 10 B2B creators and summed up attendance with “Going to Cannes is probably going to pay off more than if you didn't go.” The theme of diversity in partnerships is represented by Ziad Ahmed, Head of Next Gen at UTA.
The Creator Fund programme from Billion Dollar Boy had three times as many applications as places this year, 20 in total, and around 75% of creators arrive with support from platforms, agencies or brands, while about 25% self-fund.
Capital flows to creators
Tucker Brown, managing partner of Compound Creative Holdings, has $250 million, according to The Ankler, for acquisitions of businesses built around creators, and advised on an investment round of more than $100 million for Dude Perfect. Accenture Song has also bought the agency Whalar, one of the co-compilers of The Creators List directory.
A directory of 200 creators for brands
The Creators List is a public directory of more than 200 creators expected in Cannes. It was compiled by Tubefilter, Comscore, Whalar Group and Gospel Stats. UTA is opening its own space, UTA Beach, and bringing more than 70 names. Among those confirmed are creators such as Steven Bartlett and Dhar Mann.
Instagram without Mosseri
Instagram head Adam Mosseri is not going to the festival after all, and VP of Product Tessa Lyons is going instead. Creator economy expert Lia Haberman reads from this a move by Instagram towards a platform that handles short and long video, podcasts, live streams and serial and episodic content. She says Instagram is also giving users more control over what they see, through features such as Your Algorithm and grid rearrangement.
Half a trillion dollars and creators at the centre
According to Goldman Sachs, the creator economy could approach half a trillion dollars by 2027. For European creators and brands, Cannes is home turf.
Emily Lorimer, who leads social media and influencers at the British bank Monzo, says according to Hello Partner that “Creator marketing has become too significant an investment to survive on 'vibes' alone”. Anastasia Evans of the agency Influencer adds that creators increasingly shape purchasing behaviour and product strategy, not just advertising. According to Creator's Hub’s own analysis, the European creator economy today has 8.64 million earning creators and a value of €28 billion, and could grow to €135 billion by 2032. Most of the data so far comes from France, where more than 348,000 creators earned money in 2025. Alexandre Jacquemin of BNP Paribas sums it up as “A creator manages an audience, a brand, partners, sometimes a team. In other words, they run a business”.
At the festival, creators are becoming the main commercial partners of the advertising industry.
Comments