Written by Kianna Best on Jun 10, 2025. Posted in Awards and Festivals

Looking forward to Cannes Lions 2025

The 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is poised to electrify the Croisette with a weeklong celebration of the most daring, visionary, and boundary-pushing work in the world of advertising and marketing. From global tech titans to indie creative disruptors, everyone will be there. Expect powerhouse panels, groundbreaking campaigns, and beach takeovers as the industry convenes to honour the past year’s best work and shape the next era of storytelling, innovation, and impact. Here's everything to watch for.

Image courtesy of Jovan Vasiljevic

Every June, the global creative community flocks to the glittering shores of the French Riviera to participate in what can only be described as the Oscars, Met Gala, and Davos of advertising all rolled into one. This year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity returns from 16 to 20 June with a lineup that is already generating serious buzz. With major brands, agencies, and tech platforms staking their territory along the Croisette, the 2025 edition promises to be both a celebration of creativity and a high-stakes arena for defining the future of communication.

The festival’s heartbeat remains its prestigious competition. In 2025, Cannes Lions will feature 30 categories that recognize excellence across traditional, digital, and emerging platforms. Standouts include the Titanium Lions for truly disruptive ideas, the Entertainment Lions for Music and Sport, the Creative Business Transformation Lions, and the Pharma Lions, which continue to spotlight health-related campaigns with increased urgency and nuance post-pandemic. The Innovation Lions are expected to draw increased attention this year as AI-generated and AI-enhanced creative work becomes a hotly debated centerpiece of the festival.

On the main stage, the speaker roster reads like a who's who of cultural architects. This year’s headline sessions will include insights from Shonda Rhimes on storytelling in the attention economy, a panel led by OpenAI’s Sam Altman on the ethics and artistry of generative creativity, and a much-anticipated fireside chat between Nike CMO Dirk-Jan van Hameren and rapper-entrepreneur Kendrick Lamar on brand activism and cultural resonance. Meanwhile, Meta will present an in-depth masterclass on immersive experience building in mixed reality environments, while Netflix’s marketing leads are scheduled to unpack the platform’s pivot to ad-supported content and what it means for narrative advertising.

Tech will be front and center across the Palais and beyond. Google, Amazon, and TikTok have each booked sprawling beach spaces that will operate more like mini-conferences than traditional brand activations. Google’s beachfront will feature daily AI labs, early access demos of its new Ad Creative Studio tools, and nighttime fireside talks under the theme of “machine empathy.” Amazon Ads is taking a more immersive approach, transforming its space into a virtual retail cityscape to showcase innovations in connected shopping and voice-first experiences. Meanwhile, TikTok is back with its now-iconic Ferris wheel, this year doubling as a content studio where creators and CMOs will collaborate live on short-form storytelling experiments.

Newcomers to the Croisette are also making waves. Adobe will host a daily AI design duel between top creators using its Firefly platform, and Reddit is partnering with VICE to run a pop-up newsroom exploring the intersection of community and culture. AI is everywhere, but so is a counter current pushing for slow, intentional, human-centered creativity. The “Craft Reborn” salon hosted by Wieden+Kennedy and The New York Times will spotlight analog techniques, live illustration, and storytelling off the grid.

But Cannes isn’t only about tech showcases and award ceremonies. It’s about influence, perspective, and the serendipitous collisions that happen over rosé-soaked lunches and twilight yacht panels. Industry veterans know that some of the most important moments don’t happen inside the Palais but just outside it, where senior creatives, strategists, and marketers from across the globe exchange ideas that may spark the next big campaign or collaboration.

A noticeable trend this year is a push for greater representation and sustainability. The Glass: The Lion for Change category continues to expand its influence, and the Young Lions competition is seeing record participation from creators across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the festival is rolling out new sustainability guidelines, asking all brand partners to limit waste, reduce emissions, and showcase carbon-conscious creativity.

The competition itself will be intense. Contenders from agencies like Droga5, Uncommon Creative Studio, Ogilvy, and BETC are generating early predictions for Titanium and Grand Prix nods. All eyes are on this year’s jury presidents, a globally diverse group that includes Publicis Groupe’s Carla Serrano, Unilever’s Aline Santos, and Dentsu Creative’s Fred Levron. Their decisions will not only determine winners but influence what the industry considers best-in-class for years to come.

Cannes Lions 2025 isn’t just a checkpoint on the ad world’s calendar. It’s a compass. As AI reshapes how stories are told and brands grapple with trust, transparency, and truth, the festival’s role as a cultural barometer has never felt more vital. Whether you’re on stage, on a yacht, or simply watching from afar, this is the week that reveals where creativity is heading next.