5 Things We Heard at Cannes Lions 2026

As Cannes came to a close, one thing became clear: the industry had moved beyond the old debates.

The conversations that took place across the Croisette at the Perion’s Rado Beach weren’t about whether AI mattered, whether retail media would grow, or whether measurement was important. Those questions had already been answered.

Instead, marketers focused on execution: how to earn attention, activate audiences in real time, connect channels into cohesive experiences, and prove outcomes across every touchpoint.

Here are five themes we heard throughout the week.

1. Attention Can’t Be Bought. It Has to Be Earned

From leading conversations around creativity and culture to discussions, a consistent theme emerged: impressions alone weren’t enough.

The brands breaking through were the ones creating relevance before asking for action. That meant understanding where audiences were, what mindset they were in, and how to deliver value in the moment.

For advertisers, attention became less about scale and more about context. The ability to activate media in the right environment and at the right time has increasingly separated meaningful engagement from background noise.

It’s a shift Perion had long been building toward. Through Outmax, Perion’s AI-native execution agent, brands can activate across CTV, digital out-of-home, commerce and retail media, social, and digital environments in real time, allocating spend to the placements driving incremental outcomes.

2. The Channel isn’t the Strategy. The Audience is

Whether the discussion centered on retail, commerce, or brand building, one message kept surfacing: consumers didn’t think in channels, so marketers shouldn’t either.

Executives emphasized the importance of building strategies around audience behavior rather than media silos. The challenge, of course, was that many organizations still planned, executed, and measured campaigns on a channel-by-channel basis.

The result was fragmented customer experiences and disconnected insights.

The industry’s direction was clear: unify data, activation, and measurement around the audience. That’s the foundation Perion One was built on, an AI-native operating system that connects search, social, CTV, and programmatic DOOH into a single platform, optimizing in real time across every channel where modern media runs.

3. Cultural Relevance Depends on Real-Time Execution

Relevance was only the starting point.

The brands generating momentum weren’t just reacting to culture; they were participating in it. They were identifying opportunities as they emerged and activating quickly enough to join the conversation.

That’s easier said than done.

The window for cultural relevance continued to shrink, and marketers needed tools that helped them move quickly without sacrificing consistency, governance, or performance. Outmax addresses exactly that challenge, detecting untapped opportunities, reallocating spend in real time, and reducing waste across channels. As AI-native execution infrastructure became table stakes, the ability to move at the speed of culture increasingly became a competitive advantage.

4. Programmatic DOOH Officially Entered the Performance Era

One of the most practical conversations of the week came from a panel featuring Perion CEO Tal Jacobson, OUTFRONT Media’s CRO Jim Norton, and Billups CEO David Krupp.

The discussion centered on a question many marketers were actively trying to solve: how could out-of-home work harder in a performance-driven media environment?

The answer wasn’t bigger screens or broader reach.

It was data, automation, attention measurement, and curated measurement connected to outcomes.

Across Cannes, we heard that programmatic DOOH was no longer viewed solely as an awareness channel. Marketers increasingly expected the same accountability, targeting precision, and measurable outcomes from DOOH that they demanded from other digital channels.

Perion’s full-stack DOOH platform, spanning its ad server, SSP, header bidder, and DOOH Player, along with DOOH SOV for guaranteed delivery and Curated Measurement that connects planning inputs to outcome signals within a single workflow, demonstrates how technology continues to make that expectation a reality.

5. AI Governance Has Become a Marketing Priority

As conversations about agentic AI accelerated, another topic gained equal attention: trust.

During discussions, the focus wasn’t simply on what AI could do. It was on how brands maintained oversight as AI systems took on greater responsibility for planning, optimization, and decision-making.

Governance, transparency, and explainability were no longer just technology concerns. They became core marketing responsibilities.

The companies that will succeed in the next phase of AI adoption won’t necessarily be those using the most automation. They’ll be the ones using it in ways that customers, stakeholders, and brands can trust.

That philosophy was reflected in Perion’s recent launch of Ask Perion, a self-serve, agentic interface within Perion One, and in a mobile app launched at the same time. Ask Perion combines an Insights Agent that answers campaign performance questions in plain language with a Planning Agent that transforms marketing briefs into structured, cross-channel media plans, helping marketers move from insights to action faster while maintaining visibility into the decision-making process.

By making campaign intelligence and planning accessible through a conversational experience rather than a black box, Ask Perion demonstrates how agentic AI can accelerate execution while preserving the transparency and control marketers increasingly demand.

The View From Cannes

If there was one theme connecting these conversations, it was that marketers were demanding more from every aspect of advertising: precision, accountability, intelligence, and adaptability.

The expectation was no longer simply to reach audiences. It was to understand them, engage them, and drive measurable outcomes across an increasingly complex media landscape.

That was the challenge debated across Cannes, and it’s exactly the challenge Perion continues to focus on solving every day.

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