Cannes Lions 2024: Unlocking Potential in CTV for Global Brands

Last week, Wurl jetted off to the stunning French Riviera for the Cannes Lions festival. This yearly event serves as a beacon for advertising industry leaders, innovators, and creative minds to explore cutting-edge technologies, network, and share invaluable insights. We were lucky to share a cabana with our parent company AppLovin — helping to promote key strategies for audience acquisition across CTV and mobile.

Thanks to all our partners who stopped by the cabana and to everyone who met with our Wurl team throughout the week. From our Women In Advertising roundtable to multiple panel sessions, it was a busy week — but we’ve brought together a few of our highlights.

Insights into the growing use of artificial intelligence

Wurl’s VP of Business Development, Peter Crofut, joined a panel titled “Measuring Business Impact in Emerging Platforms in the AI Era” with Media.Monks, TVScientific, 12 Labs, Claritas, and ID5. The panel delved deeply into AI-driven advertising strategies, drawing a keen audience eager to uncover the latest technological advancements.

ID5 touched on the use of AI to understand consumer behavior across devices, and on the measurement side, TVScientific took the stage to share their groundbreaking work in using AI to measure advertising outcomes and optimize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). TVScientific provided an example of how their AI technology can pinpoint what part of the ad creative is working to drive results, allowing brands to maximize their advertising investments with precision.

Pete highlighted how GenAI is key to reaching the “right person with the right content at the right time”. He also touched on how AI is uniquely positioned to understand multimodal — providing a really deep understanding of the context and content, rather than a few superficial metadata tags.

The session also featured compelling success stories and cutting-edge technologies including a Media.Monks case study that demonstrated a remarkable sevenfold increase in brand consideration through their strategic approach to audience understanding and optimization. This case study highlighted the importance of leveraging advanced data analytics and AI to create more targeted and effective advertising campaigns. Media.Monks’ insights provided a clear roadmap for brands looking to enhance their engagement with audiences and achieve significant growth in brand consideration.

Spotlight on: Microsoft Beach

We were also thrilled to be part of an exclusive evening hosted by Microsoft and AIXLIVE discussing “AI in Video and Ads: How to Ensure the Path Remains Green.” This event underscored the industry’s commitment to sustainable practices and innovation in AI-driven advertising.

Making new connections: evolving the ecosystem for everyone

Both Pete, and Wurl’s VP of Advertising Partnerships, Ria Madrid, joined Beet.TV panels, with Ria’s focused on collaboration and the evolving landscape of digital advertising.

Discussions at this panel highlighted the importance of cooperation among SSPs and DSPs to address market growth barriers — such as reducing the complexity for the end buyer of programmatic inventory.

The panelists emphasized the necessity of supply partnerships and the integration of agency and brand collaborations to enhance the consumer experience from end to end. Ria explained how it is more important than ever, with how much growth potential there is in CTV, to push for simplicity and transparency in the programmatic space, advocating for clearer communication and streamlined processes to avoid leaving money on the table.

Ria’s panel underscored the importance of creating value for customers through collaboration and innovation, ensuring a consumer-first approach in a rapidly evolving industry.

An incredible week with friends and partners at Cannes

The closing night began with a champagne toast, celebrating the week’s successes and the exciting future ahead. Attendees enjoyed a delightful spread of French cuisine and cocktails, with live music setting the perfect backdrop for an evening of entertainment and networking.

Here’s to many more Cannes Lions events, where we will continue to share Wurl’s vision for the future of advertising on CTV! We look forward to hearing from all our friends and partners soon and continuing to push the envelope with more innovative technological solutions for streamers and advertisers. See you next year!