Five days in Cannes, dozens of conversations — and one clear signal for creator marketing. Brands have stopped asking if it works. Now they are frantically building the infrastructure to scale before competitors pull ahead.
The most candid discussions happened outside official panels — at breakfasts and lunches where brand leaders and content creators dropped the scripts. Creator marketing is finally measurable down to the last dollar. Brands that embrace this rigor are pulling ahead.
Marketers Finally Have the Measurements They Were Missing
Previously, you couldn’t pinpoint which post led to a purchase. That has changed. We can now show a brand exactly which post drove which purchase, who saw it, who clicked, what they bought, and at what price — fully attributed down to the dollar.
Without this transparency, every decision becomes a negotiation between the CMO and CFO, speaking different languages. Closing this attribution gap is the biggest breakthrough in the industry right now. That’s why creator marketing is moving from a test budget to a core line item in annual planning.
«Brands get more from integrating and supporting smaller creators than they realize. Snapchat gives audiences a unique, unfiltered view of the creator’s life, and this deeper access is what drives real connection.» — David Dobrik
Brands That Underestimate Small Creators Lose Real Connection
We opened the week with a conversation between top creator David Dobrik and Quincy Kevaan, head of creator partnerships at Snap. The discussion centered on the value of authentic closeness between a creator and their audience. This is something brand strategists often miss.
A creator with a smaller but engaged audience on a platform built for intimate communication can outperform a much larger creator on a broadcast platform — depending on the goal. The trust Dobrik speaks of is harder to measure than reach, but it’s what turns attention into action.
The Best Brand-Creator Partnerships Start Before the Brief
The most memorable conversation was a lunch discussion with Dhar Mann and Shira Lazar. Dhar built a 200-person studio without taking a single brand partner for the first five years. This gave him the leverage to say «no» to unsuitable deals.
In that conversation, one theme kept surfacing: strong partnerships rarely start with a price list. They begin with a shared perspective, closer to creative collaboration than a media buy. Shira added that creator sustainability and partnership quality are not separate issues. A burned-out or financially unstable creator cannot consistently deliver for a brand, no matter how good the brief.
Brands Still Cling to Creative Control They Don’t Need
In a discussion with Keiko Mori (TikTok), Sabrina Callahan (Southwest Airlines), and comedian Connor Wood, a key insight emerged. Sabrina uses creator marketing to engage customers in real changes — including the airline’s controversial product shifts. This only works if the brand trusts creators enough to make content feel native to the platform, not committee-approved.
Connor put it simply: «When comedy feels forced, it’s dead.» Brands getting real returns from TikTok understand that the platform rewards content made for its feed, preserving the creator’s voice. Keiko noted that TikTok has long outgrown its reputation as a purely brand-awareness platform — discovery, consideration, and conversion all happen in a single scroll.
Creators Understand Your Brand Better Than Your Internal Team
Let’s be direct: a creator who communicates daily with your target audience for years understands how your brand is actually perceived better than any report or analysis. Marketers who accept this insight move faster and spend smarter than those who see it as a threat to control.
Advice for CMOs still hesitating: give creators strategic direction, then get out of the way and let them work.
Creator Content Becomes Raw Material for Brand Presence in AI Search
According to McKinsey, brand websites make up only 5–10% of what AI search references. The remaining 90–95% is third-party content: creator posts, community discussions, long-form videos, product reviews. Platforms leading in LLM citations include YouTube (16% of responses), Reddit (around 40%), Substack, and niche communities.
Brands fastest to build infrastructure for AI search understand that being good enough to rank in traditional search engines is no longer sufficient.
Cannes Confirmed the Model That Was Already Forming
Every conversation during the week returned to one idea: creator marketing has become part of the core marketing infrastructure. Brands that have embraced this are already building systems around it. As H2 planning progresses, the question has shifted from «whether to work with creators» to «how to weave creator content into every part of the funnel» — from awareness to conversion, into product pages, into paid traffic, into places where AI assistants pull answers.
Brands doing this well see growth and efficiency simultaneously. That combination convinces CFOs this is no longer a marketing experiment. Cannes confirmed the speed of this shift and provided the evidence.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you measure the effectiveness of creator marketing?
Use end-to-end attribution: track specific posts to purchase via UTM tags, promo codes, and pixels. Modern platforms allow you to attribute every action down to the dollar.
Is it worth working with micro-creators?
Yes. A creator with a small but engaged audience on a platform built for close communication (e.g., Snapchat) can deliver higher conversion than a large blogger on a broadcast platform.
How does AI search impact creator marketing?
AI models increasingly reference creator content (YouTube, Reddit, Substack) rather than brand websites. Investing in such content boosts brand visibility in AI search.
If you’re building in this space, let’s talk. Plan, publish, and analyze campaigns with Later.