The Cannes Lions festival in the French Riviera drew to a close this Friday. The convention, euphemistically subtitled, an “International Festival of Creativity”, is the world’s largest advertiser convention.
The event grew as an offshoot of the Cannes Film Festival that was targeted at cinema advertising. Its alignment of cinema, stars and digital platforms showcased what advertising looks like in the mid-2020s.
The 2025 was themed as a requiem for the Mad Men days of the advertising industry. Yet advertising is anything but in decline.
Global advertising revenue is estimated to have now reached USD $1.1 trillion, having doubled over the past ten years. It seems that while the major players are changing, the monetisation of attention is stronger than ever.
Measured by revenue, over 70% of advertising is now digital. The rise has been rapid, with less than half of advertising being online as recently as 2018.
Google remains the world’s largest vendor of advertising, followed by Meta, TikTok and Amazon. These names have widely surpassed former titans like Fox, Disney and Viacom (CBS, Paramount, Nickelodeon, etc.).
These days, the platforms are joined by unexpected players also seeking to monetise attention. Airlines, for instance, are increasingly capitalising on their captive audience to become advertising vendors rather than advertising purchasers.
The Anglo countries are hot-spots of advertising spending. There are USD $1,245 of advertising spend for every man, woman and child in the United States. The UK comes in second and Australia third.
The other major figures in this new ecosystem are the stars. While they may not have hundreds of millions of customers captive in airline seats, the stars have millions of much more dedicated audience members and are often sought out for targeted campaigns.
Cannes Lions featured many such names: Anna Sitar (13.7m followers), Alix Earle (7.4m followers) and Jake Shane, aka Octopusslover8 (3.6m followers). These figures might earn between USD $10,000 up to $200,000 per post.
What’s interesting about Cannes Lion? The interest itself. Essentially it’s a gathering of people who have or control popular interest. Whether athletes, models, comedians or just relatable para-social online figures, we care about them, and so every now and then they convene to discuss monetising that fact.
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