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At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Expedia Group revealed that it connects with Gen Z through creator collaborations (such as a global travel livestream with IShowSpeed) and brand partnerships (like the Ken ad with Mattel), while expanding marketing channels beyond traditional media. Company executive Natalie Wills emphasized the value of creators as independent channels and the brand's pursuit of authenticity in the AI era.
Starbucks will pilot a custom creator network it helped create within TikTok's content suite to expand employee-driven marketing. The program builds on the Green Apron Creator initiative, allowing Starbucks to share briefs and compensate creators through ad revenue sharing. The pilot will launch in the summer, with expansion based on learnings.
Data collaboration platform LiveRamp has been active recently, including reaching a measurement partnership with OpenAI and planning to be acquired by Publicis Groupe for $2.2 billion. At the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, company CEO Scott Howe was interviewed on these hot topics, elaborating on the company's positioning in the AI advertising era, a new partnership with Adobe, and a commitment to maintaining platform neutrality after the acquisition.
Gap Inc. announced the launch of an AI-driven marketing modernization initiative covering its Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Athleta brands. The company will leverage its existing partnership with Google Cloud to build a unified data foundation and collaborate with Zeta Global and Publicis Sapient, starting with owned marketing channels to deliver personalized experiences at scale, optimize customer engagement, and accelerate campaign delivery.
OpenAI made its official debut at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, pitching its ChatGPT advertising platform, launched just four months ago, to brand marketers. It emphasized a shift from the attention economy to an 'intention economy' and disclosed ad testing data and trust principles.
Lowe's is merging its Creator Network with the Into the Blue program, allowing creators to submit product ideas or existing products for commercialization through its supply chain and retail channels. This move marks the retailer's transition from content collaboration to product co-creation.
Target's retail media division Roundel has announced a partnership with DirecTV Advertising to pilot the use of Target's first-party shopper data for targeting premium video ads on the DirecTV platform, covering scenarios such as household TV, live sports, and out-of-home screens, and to track the correlation between ad exposure and sales conversion through a unified measurement framework. Danone has become one of the first test clients, and Roundel is actively expanding participation from more brands.
The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) has launched a consumer-facing commercial brand, Plyrs Untd, to manage NBA players' name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. The organization will collectively leverage player influence to collaborate with brands on fan experiences, licensing opportunities, merchandise, content, investments, and player-brand co-branded projects, and plans to open a Plyrs Untd high-performance center in Los Angeles this summer. Plyrs Untd effectively replaces the NBPA's previous B2B division, Think450.
Lippincott's latest study, CMO Outlook 2026, reveals that CMOs have limited influence within organizations, with only 28% rating themselves as "very high." To enhance their internal standing, CMOs are increasingly prioritizing short-term results at the expense of long-term brand health. Bureaucracy, slow decision-making, and AI investments squeezing budgets for infrastructure such as user experience have emerged as prominent challenges.
Uber Advertising has, for the first time, extended ad placements beyond its own apps, introducing new tools like Offsite Ads that cover platforms such as Google Shopping, and adding various new ad formats, aiming to attract more advertisers and leverage user data to enhance ad effectiveness.