Creators Took Over Cannes 2026. Here's What It Means for Your PR

The biggest shift at Cannes Lions 2026 was not a campaign, it was who filled the room. Creators arrived in force, and the meaningful change was in how marketers talked about them: not as a side tactic to bolt on, but as a core channel wired into the whole strategy. For anyone thinking about PR and earned attention, that changes where your story now travels.

From side tactic to core channel

Creator and influencer marketing is not new. What changed, as several people told Marketing Dive, is the treatment: more marketers now see creators as a core channel connected into their broader ecosystem rather than a siloed line item. The money confirms it. The Interactive Advertising Bureau forecasts US creator ad spend to reach 44 billion dollars in 2026. As the agency David's Fernando Musa put it, this joining of forces between creators, creatives and brands is simply the new way of doing things.

Your story no longer travels only through journalists. It travels through creators with trust and reach.

Why creators earn attention journalists cannot

Creators hold direct, trusting relationships with specific audiences, and there is a different creator for almost every part of a business, as Expedia's Natalie Wills noted, which lets a brand speak to a clearly defined audience. TikTok framed the underlying shift bluntly at the festival: the era of passive consumption is over, and audiences want to feel something before they follow, buy or share. That emotional, trusted connection is exactly what earned media is built on, and creators now carry a large share of it.

The authenticity rule

The fastest way to waste a creator budget is to script the humanity out of it. The strongest programmes give creators a real brief and genuine freedom. TikTok is even building custom Creator Networks so brands can activate trusted voices, and its first, with Starbucks, extends the idea to employees, letting staff participate as creators with ad revenue sharing. The principle for founders is the same whether the creator is an influencer or your own team: authenticity is the asset, and over-control destroys it.

How to build creators into your PR

Treat creators with the same discipline you would apply to journalists. Research who genuinely reaches your audience, approach them with relevance rather than a mass brief, and build a real relationship rather than a one-off transaction. Match the creator to the audience segment, hand them a genuine angle instead of a script, and fold them into launches alongside earned media rather than treating them as an afterthought.

The caution

More reach is not the goal, fit is. A creator whose audience or values do not match yours costs more trust than the coverage is worth. Choose a small number of credible, well-aligned voices over a large number of loosely relevant ones. For related craft, see media relations 101 and how to build founder visibility that brings in real leads.

If you want creators built into your earned-attention strategy properly, that is the work we do. Talk to Fireflies Management.