Cannes takeaways: 2024 ad trends

Around 15,000 people across the media, marketing and advertising industries attend the Cannes Lions Creativity Festival in southern France each year. Here's what you need to know if you missed last week's event:

1. Barbell economics: Advertising is moving faster into two buckets: hyper efficient vs. high impact. Anything in the middle, mostly cookie-based targeting against banner ads, is being leveled out. Publishers' share of the ad market is shrinking as a result.
2. First-party data boom: Retailers, grocers, delivery services and finance companies that have troves of first-party customer data had a bigger presence at Cannes this year. While M&A talk appears to be at a lull, data partnerships between media companies and firms like Insatcart, Uber and Walmart are plentiful, Axios' Kerry Flynn notes.
3. Rise of the conveners: The business of connecting the ad industry is getting hotter. Michael Kassan launched a rival firm to his alma mater MediaLink at Cannes. MediaLink still hosted the festival's biggest dinner of the week. Firms like Brand Innovators and The Female Quotient stacked lounges with big programming lineups.
4. Politics is out, AI is in: In the aftermath of COVID, there was a huge focus on brands leaning into purpose marketing. Now, as The Drum notes, the focus has shifted to using AI and creators to authentically target customers.
5. Power of live: Sports and concerts were a bigger focus this year, as brands continue to look for more ways to connect with consumers around premium, live experiences. The glut in ad supply from streamers like Amazon and Netflix, who are adding more live events, has caused rates to plummet.