The eyes of the marketing world are on the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity this week. And it’s noticeable how creators have moved right up the agenda. There’s an award for creators and an event called LIONS Creators – featuring the likes of Kai Cenat, Grace Beverley and Amelia Dimoldenberg.
Agency giant Publicis is also pushing the importance of creators this week – through an intriguing experiment designed to showcase the power of social.
Explaining the plan, Publicis said: “This year, the most famous lion in Cannes won’t be metal – and it won’t be in the Palais. With a global campaign harnessing the largest connected influencer platform in the world, Publicis will give a live demonstration of the power of creators, technology, and AI, to make an unknown lion the most talked-about figure on the Croisette.”
Publicis said its own lion (George) will deliver “more than industry accolades. Thanks to Influential powered by Captiv8, a network of more than 19 million creators, and boosted by Epsilon’s data, it will show how clients can generate Super Bowl reach (over 127 million impressions) for a fraction of the price.”
The initiative launched on June 16th, with a joint Instagram post from top wildlife influencers @shandorlarenty (9.3m TikTok, 596K Instagram) and @Pubity (40m Instagram, 17m TikTok), to introduce George. From there, the activation has been expanding across Influential and Captiv8’s network of creators, covering 90% of influencers with more than 1 million followers, and 95% with more than 5000. A Tracker will monitor the lion’s growing audience in real time. To drive the point home, the programme is backed by a digital OOH play.
Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis Groupe, said: “With every acquisition — from Captiv8 to Influential — and every innovation, like CoreAI, we’re building a future-ready platform to help clients navigate an increasingly complex and challenging landscape. At Cannes this year, we’re focused on turning AI hype into business upside — with solutions our clients can put to work immediately”.
