Cannes Lions, decoded.

The Fospha team had an absolute blast at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, where we got to connect with our partners and other industry leaders along the Croisette.

And amidst the yacht parties and beach panels, the conversations that resonated most were focused around growth, creativity, and smarter performance.

Here were some of our biggest takeaways:

1. Retail media is booming but increasingly fragmented; clarity on incremental impact is essential.

2. Unified, outcome-based measurement is no longer optional—it’s the engine for sustainable growth.

3. AI is reshaping performance marketing, but success depends on combining automation with human insight and robust measurement.

4. Creators and communities are merging content and conversion; proving the commercial impact is critical.

TLDR: Growth in 2025 belongs to brands investing in clarity alongside creativity.

Keep your eye out on our page throughout next week, where we’ll be sharing all the exclusive insights and interviews we gathered straight from Cannes!

Here are the big themes that stood out to me that are essential takeaways for e-commerce marketers:

️ Retail media is exploding — but so is complexity

Walmart Instacart Amazon Pinterest and Uber all unveiled new ad products, better audience targeting, and more closed-loop data. Great news — but also a reminder: media buying is only getting more fragmented.

Without unified measurement, it’s hard to know what’s truly working. It was encouraging to hear more brands asking not just “Where can I spend?” but “What’s actually driving incrementality?”

Measurement is no longer optional — it’s the engine

Amid the AI, creator economy and commerce hype, one message came through loud and clear: you can’t grow what you can’t measure.

Platforms like Fospha are leading that charge — helping brands finally move past siloed reporting and last-click models, to get a full view of what’s really driving growth across Meta, Google, TikTok retail media and beyond.

Every conversation about scale came back to one thing: trusted, independent, outcome-based measurement.

AI is reshaping everything — including performance marketing

Meta sessions on AI-driven campaign generation and TikTok smart creative tools were impressive. But again — smart tools still need smart measurement.

It’s not about automating everything. It’s about combining AI’s scale with human insight — and using measurement to make sure we’re building profitable acquisition strategies, not just pretty dashboards.

Creators, communities & conversion

We saw brilliant examples of brands working with creators not just for awareness — but for bottom-funnel performance. YouTube Shopping, live commerce integrations, TikTok Shop — it’s clear the line between content and conversion is fading fast.

But again — how are you attributing sales? How are you proving that community-building is also commercial?

AI was everywhere on the Croisette this year. Panels. Promos. Prompts on every stage. But for all the excitement, there’s a growing tension too — especially for creators and brands.

Because what’s the value of a tool that speeds up your workflow, if it also undermines your ownership?

At Adobe, we don’t just celebrate creators and brands — we build with and for them. And as we unlock new possibilities with generative AI across Firefly, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Express and more, we’re equally focused on protecting creative rights, attribution, and authenticity.

Because here’s the truth: creators are the cultural engine. Their ideas, their communities, their content drive everything from purchase to purpose. If we want AI to serve them — not the other way around — we need systems for brands and creators that recognize both human craft and digital truth.

At Cannes, everyone was talking about the future of creativity. But the real test isn’t what’s possible. It’s what’s principled.

Couldn’t be prouder of our 100% in-house TikTok for Business social team. We brought a community-led content strategy to Cannes that reflected how our audience actually feels: authentic, relatable, and impactful. Real-time moments, creator-driven storytelling, and content that made people ask, “Wait… this is B2B?”