At Cannes Lions, PR leaders saw creators, AI, newsletters and trusted content reshape the future of brand storytelling — while communications teams powered much of the work behind the scenes.
Chris Harihar is executive vice president of communications at Mod Op.
Cannes Lions is officially wrapping up. It was incredibly hot, but hopefully you managed to survive on water and free rosé.
I had the chance to speak with a lot of comms folks, marketers and creators throughout the week.
Here are a few PR takeaways I’m bringing home from the event.
Creators take center stage
Over the last few years, Cannes has become increasingly creator driven. This year felt like the first where creators and creator partnerships became a dominant focus.
That’s a reflection of how marketing has evolved, of course. Consumers are spending more time with creators and less time with traditional media, and smart brands are adapting accordingly.
What’s becoming increasingly important, however, is authenticity. The relationship between a brand and a creator has to feel “real” and genuine. If it comes across as a cash grab for the creator or an audience rental for the brand, it will fail.
How we talk about AI
AI dominated conversations across Cannes. Are you surprised?
At the same time, the AI discourse seemed overly focused on streamlining work and maximizing efficiency. What was under-discussed was how AI actually improves the end-user experience with brands and their marketing.
Keep in mind, from a PR perspective, AI has an image problem. A growing number of consumers view it negatively. Marketing is a consumer-facing industry, and if we only talk about AI’s back-end efficiencies instead of the benefits it delivers to people, we risk making that perception even worse.
The newsletter boom is here
This might be cheating since it overlaps with the creator economy, but newsletters continue to gain momentum.
At Yahoo Beach, for example, I saw newsletter creators like Cat Goetze, Casey Lewis and Alex Heath play a key role in the programming. Newsletter writers are becoming influencers in their own right, creating new partnership and PR opportunities for brands.
Yahoo also hosted the CEO of beehiiv, who talked about the company’s push to build an ad network for newsletters. That’s interesting. As monetization options expand beyond subscriptions and brand deals, more newsletters/newsletter influencers will be born. That has the potential to reshape both marketing and PR.
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Trust is powering premium content
Even with creators a focal point, it was interesting to hear panels and talks vouching for the value of premium media, whether that’s journalism, podcasts, streaming content or other trusted content types.
The internet is being flooded with AI slop. With that happening, trusted content becomes more in demand. In that sense, premium publishers and creators share something important — audience trust. And trust is ultimately what gives content its value.
For PR pros, this is important to recognize. As trust fragments and shifts across different platforms, creators and media brands, our storytelling needs to evolve in tandem. Understanding where audiences place their trust is the only way to effectively reach them.
PR people make it all run
For my final takeaway, it’s important to recognize how much of Cannes is powered by PR and comms teams. I know this as I supported a number of clients at Cannes and have been doing so for years.
Cannes is a marketing event, sure, but the amount of PR work behind it is almost inhuman. From press briefings and media outreach to panel development, content creation, message testing, and advising on how activations will be considered by press and consumers alike, the work is constant. Much of it happens behind the scenes, of course, but it’s critical to brands’ success at the event.
As Cannes wraps, it’s worth recognizing the people who quietly help make these moments happen: the PR people. Kudos!
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