Reading time: 8 minutes
YOUR INSIGHTS OF THE WEEK
Cannes 2025, the future of creativity on the agenda.
1. Entertainment as a strategic principle and brand infrastructure.
2. Purpose under pressure: ESG has entered survival mode.
3. Data and performance enter the mainstream.
4. The new success metric: "Calculated Creative Risk".
5. Experiences as an ecosystem of influence and equity building.
- What Cannes made clear about the role of independent agencies in the future of marketing.
- Smart copilots take care of the data, CMOs drive the strategy.
- Reality, Jimmy Fallon and the brand brainstorming that ends up on stage.
Cannes 2025, the future of creativity on the agenda.
Between panels, awards and backstage conversations, Cannes Lions 2025 brought clear signals about the direction marketing is taking and some warnings that few are listening to carefully.
1) Entertainment as a strategic principle and brand infrastructure.
It's not that entertainment works. It's that it sustains the brands that are winning the battle for attention.
The logic of the classic funnel (interest → consideration → conversion) has been rewritten by brands such as Duolingo and the creators of the MrBeast ecosystem, where entertainment is the very channel for acquisition and retention and not an extra, but the backbone of digital audience building: creating participatory and humorous narratives generates active fans, not just followers.
Data: According to Nielsen, campaigns with a high entertainment value generate up to 58% more recall and 34% more purchase intent.
Insight: Brands no longer compete only with competitors. They compete with the algorithm.
2. Purpose under pressure: the ESG has entered survival mode
The festival reflected the climate of 2025: pressure for short-term results has grown and aversion to "divisive" themes has increased. Many brands retreated from social impact agendas for fear of backlash: bet on diversity and purpose or retreat towards the "universal safe"?
But the award-winning cases show the opposite: those who embrace a clear position, even if polarizing, build brand value with more cultural density.
Data: Brands with consistent activist positioning perform 28% better in terms of brand value over 3 years, according to a study by Kantar.
Insight: It's not about pleasing everyone, it's about being recognized for something.
3. Data and performance enter the mainstream
With categories such as Creative Data and Retail Media, Cannes showed that data is no longer "support", it is the protagonist. Examples? In Brazil, DM9's Consul transformed energy savings into a means of payment, generating values with not only an environmental but also an economic and social impact, and was the only Brazilian brand to win the Grand Prix, which is the category's highest accolade.
Other brands such as Natura, Piracanjuba, Burger King and iFood also stood out, showing Brazil's versatility in using data to create experiences.
Data: 67% of the award-winning cases in 2025 used data as a creative starting point.
Insight: Data is no longer a measurer. Now it's argument, direction and creative concept.
4. The new success metric: "Calculated Creative Risk"
The "State of Creativity 2025" report revealed that only 13% of brands consider themselves open to real creative risk, but these same brands report margins up to 4x higher. What's holding them back? Weak insights and a lack of cultural agility.
The paradox: brands know that boldness generates growth, but internal structures prioritize predictability. Creativity has become a victim of its own reports.
Data: Brands with a high propensity for creative risk grow by an average of 16.8% per year, compared to 4.1% for risk-averse brands.
Insight: Creativity without risk is just polished noise.
5. Experiences as an ecosystem of influence and equity building
Sport Beach (Stagwell), Women's Breakfast (WACL), and experiences like Vice's on the Croisette have revealed a new pattern: events are no longer about showing the brand, but about showing what it believes in. Experience brings together sport, culture and real conversations, creating networks of influence and authentic purpose.
The most memorable experiences were those that created community, intimacy and presence, not scale.
Data: 81% of global CMOs say they will invest more in face-to-face experiences in 2026, with a focus on micro-communities and high engagement.
Insight: Experience is where the brand promise is tested - live and unscripted.
"I went to Cannes with the indies. And I came back with more conviction."
- Davi Cury, partner and Head of Operations and Culture at Bpool.
I recently returned from Cannes Lions, where I had the privilege of moderating a panel on the scenario of independent agencies in Brazil. The repercussions were extremely positive, and not just among Brazilians
The interest of professionals from other markets has made it clear that the fragmentation of the sector is not a local or Latin American issue. It is a global movement.
The multiplication of ways to create value, impact audiences and solve business problems shows how much our role as marketing leaders has expanded. We're not just talking about advertising anymore. We're talking about creativity applied to business.
And that's what creativity is all about: finding non-obvious solutions to real problems. It's what leads us to question ready-made structures, look for new combinations, and design paths that are more adherent to today's complexity.
Being in Cannes meant immersing myself in deep conversations with people from very different companies. Networks, consultancies, platforms, indie agencies. Each with a piece of the answer. And that's when it all made even more sense: the world is too dynamic for one-size-fits-all solutions. No single model can cope with everything.
Independent agencies do have a strategic role to play in this scenario. They operate with more agility, closer to the owners of the ideas, and more connection with cultural tensions. But the real value lies in the composition, in the intelligent mix of specialists, lean structures and robust platforms.
Thinking about the movements that are happening globally - in the awards, in the business models and in the conversations at Cannes - reinforces what, for me, has become almost a mantra: marketing leaders need to know how to orchestrate, more than how to choose.
Because, in the end, it's not about having all the answers in-house, but knowing how to construct the right questions and activate the right partners at the right time. This is what differentiates those who are just following the game from those who are actually redesigning the rules.
If you lead a brand, you can't ignore what's happening in Cannes.
Access the full coverage of Makers with Davi Cury below.
DAY 1- AI doesn't save you. Leadership, creativity and diversity remain at the heart of the game.
DAY 3 - YouTube, constant learning and the secret to winning the attention game.
DAY 4 - Behind the scenes of Davi's panel on independent agencies and Brazilian protagonism.
DAY 5 - Influence is lent. Identity, no.
Intelligent co-drivers who steer the data while CMOs guide the strategy.
Have you ever been faced with a crucial decision, surrounded by dozens of dashboards, reports and graphs, and yet without a clear answer?
It's very common: we have too much data, too little time and increasing pressure to make the right decisions at high speed.
The problem has never been a lack of information. It's too much of it, fragmented and poorly digested, that prevents action. It's like trying to fly an airplane with the control panel locked.
Tableau Next, Salesforce's new functionality, has arrived as a new era in analytics. More than a tool, it's an intelligent co-pilot, which interprets business signals in real time, understands their context and suggests paths with precision.
It's the end of data paralysis. And the beginning of more agile, aligned and impactful decisions.
What you'll find with Tableau Next:
- Artificial intelligence that understands questions in natural language and generates insights automatically.
- Integrated data from different sources (CRM, social, website, media) in one place, in real time.
- Practical recommendations based on customer behavior and campaign performance.
- Interactive dashboards that evolve with the team's needs, without getting stuck in the spreadsheet.
Want to see how this works in practice? Click below and join Salesforce's Webinar on Intelligence that Converts Decision into Revenue.
Reality, Jimmy Fallon and the brand brainstorming that ends up on stage.
The briefing has left the corporate backstage and will now be on TV.
"Marketing has become a TV show."
"An agency inside a reality TV show."
"Strategy creation has become entertainment."
"A fake agency being broadcast to the public."
Everyone is talking about the release of On Brand with Jimmy Fallonthe NBCUniversal reality show where contestants are challenged to develop creative solutions and real campaigns for brands like Dunkin', Samsung and Southwest Airlines.
The program, which mixes strategy, creativity and pop culture, takes the briefing straight to public conversations and the winning team takes home US$100,000 and the title of "the best in the business".
Yes, it's fun. Yes, it's entertainment.
But on closer inspection, it's a surgical portrait of what's happening with marketing in the real world.
Jimmy is not just a presenter. He's media. He's a platform. He's an active voice in culture. And with this reality show, he demonstrates in practice how to use his influence to deliver value to brands in a way that no 30-second campaign could.
The reflection that remains is:
"What voices do I activate so that my brand exists in culture?"
Coming from Creators, partners or platforms.
The impact on practice:
- Although there is no public audience data yet, NBCUniversal has already licensed the format globally, and the holding company's shares rose by +3.2% after the announcement.
- A study by BENlabs shows that 75% of viewers look for products after seeing them on reality TV, and 57% actually buy them.
- +58% in advertising investments in reality shows between 2022 and 2024: formats of this type attract big brands and increase the value of paid media
- Reality shows have 60% more online engagement than scripted series, with + 1 billion interactions on the networks.
It's time to understand that building a brand today means competing in the same field as creators, platforms and cultural narratives.
Those who build brands, like those who build culture, don't fight for space. They occupy it.
LIONS launches "The State of Creativity 2025" report
Creative confidence is falling, see global report based on research with insights from over 1,000 marketing and creative professionals.
Jimmy Fallon's new venture and the rise of late-night cultural capital
Jimmy launches his reality show and creates strategic initiatives for TV without a script.
AI won't put an end to advertising, but it won't save it either.
Neil Mohan announces at Cannes that YouTube will add Google's Veo 3 to Shorts
The initiative aims to elevate the creation of AI content and facilitate productions for content creators in the community.
Savage x Fenty at Cannes mentions doubling down on inclusion, even as others back away.
Vanessa Wallace, marketing director for Rihana's Savage x Fenty, emphasized that while brands quietly move away from commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, Savage X Fenty builds its identity and commercial strategy around its brand values.
Team,
Cannes 2025 has revealed that the next decade will be marked by a new equation:
Bold creativity + Real-time data + Soulful experiences = Culturally relevant brands.
The risk? Continuing to operate with safe, soulless campaigns, optimized for the average.
The challenge? Breaking the cycle of approval and building institutional courage.
The invitation? To create brands that deserve to exist and be remembered.
I'd like to take this opportunity to invite you to Round 2 of CMO Day, which will take place on July 22 in São Paulo.
Makers has opened up 3 exclusive places for you, Brands by Makers subscribers. Just click on the link below and you'll have the chance to join us and Brazil's top CMOs!
Have a great week everyone! Big hugs!
