It’s been one week since the highly anticipated Cannes Lions 2023 – the event of the year for advertising and creativity. We’re thrilled to share our top four key takeaways from the event, showcasing what the industry will prioritize in the upcoming year.
Signal loss
At Cannes Lions 2023, experts underlined the detrimental effects of signal loss on advertising and emphasized the significance of having diverse channels. Discussions emphasized the importance of adapting paid media strategies to align with evolving consumer behaviors in order to remain relevant in the ever-changing landscape.
Urgency in planning and avoiding being caught without a solid strategy was a common theme throughout the event. Alternative identifiers, like first-party data, were highlighted, as they prioritize privacy-centric approaches. Contextual advertising emerged as a key part of the solution, providing relevant ads that fit seamlessly into the user’s experience.
Collaboration
Collaboration was a major theme at Cannes Lions 2023. Attendees explored topics such as maintaining privacy and identifying the right attributes for effective targeting. Clean rooms were discussed as a way to ensure privacy when sharing data, and highlighted partnerships as the key to unlocking interoperability within the advertising ecosystem. The discussions underscored the need for industry players to join forces and collaborate on solutions that benefit all stakeholders in the ecosystem.
“What makes Cannes unique is that you have a lot of decision makers in the room at the same time. This leads to more efficiency in terms of coming up with goals and objectives and really getting to the heart of the key aspects for us to build partnerships.”
alison omealia, vp, customer success, experian
Personalization
Personalization was a key topic of discussion at Cannes Lions 2023, with its growing significance in advertising taking center stage. The event emphasized the need to focus on serving up tailored content that resonates with individual consumers, cultivating brand affinity.
The intersection of science and art was highlighted, emphasizing the role of data-driven insights and creativity in supporting frequency capping and delivering engaging content.
Advertisers are adapting to cookie deprecation by shifting from cookie-based third-party targeting to first-party data solutions. This is due to the significant changes in the consumer privacy landscape, which have limited advertisers’ access to signals emitted by consumers through their devices and browsers. As a result, alternative IDs like UID2, Ramp ID, and ID5 are emerging as viable options for advertisers to continue personalized targeting.
Balancing AI and creativity at Cannes Lions 2023
Participants shared invaluable insights on how to strike the right balance between harnessing AI’s capabilities and nurturing creativity to keep the human touch alive. The event emphasized the importance of understanding the boundaries of AI while utilizing tools that drive innovation and imagination. Attendees explored the dynamic roles that AI provides and discussed how it can help push the boundaries of their creativity while still keeping the human element intact.
As technology continues to advance, so does the need for advertisers to adapt their approach and integrate AI in a way that enhances their creative output.
Experian events at Cannes Lions 2023
We hosted a series of events that included a kick-off event and four panels. The activities were designed to provide attendees with valuable insights on various topics related to advertising and data privacy. Here’s a recap of what we covered during the week.
Experian’s Cannes Lions kick-off event
We co-hosted a kick-off event on Sunday with Audigent. It was a successful event that brought people together to launch an important week in the AdTech industry and build connections with clients and prospects alike.
Data on the sell-side
Ongoing signal loss has marketers, agencies, and platforms tapping directly into the sell-side for high-quality audience and context. In this panel, industry experts from Truthset, Captify, Audigent, Newsweek, and PubMatic joined Experian to discuss the imminent disappearance of cookies and the need to adapt and future-proof data privacy strategies. The deprecation of third-party cookies presents an incredible opportunity to redefine data privacy practices and empower consumers.
Our panelists emphasized the need to adapt and invest in alternative identifiers in order to thrive in a cookie-less future. Publishers were urged to create valuable content, engage in first-party activities, and consider the next generation of consumers who are growing up without traditional identifiers. The fragmented landscape calls for a variety of tactics and partnerships, while AI can provide opportunities to explore beyond deterministic identifiers, fostering creativity and innovation in advertising practices.
Stacking the marketer’s toolbox for success
In partnership with Adweek Abroad in Cannes, industry leaders from FreeWheel, Tubi, and Instacart joined Experian to discuss opportunities for brands to unlock deeper, richer, and more scalable insights into current and potential customers.
The panelists highlighted several key considerations, including building a robust first-party data strategy, ensuring accuracy in data quality partnerships, and establishing better-connected communications and relationships with consumers.
Participants acknowledged the value of consumer data and urged advertisers to remain purpose-driven, always putting the viewer first. The freshness and recency of data were identified as critical factors for establishing quality connections with consumers and staying attuned to consumer trends.
What does the future of identity hold?
During this panel discussion, industry leaders from the IAB, MiQ, Cint, Direct Digital Holdings, and Tatari joined Experian to explore the future of identity.
The panelists discussed the challenges cookie deprecation poses in programmatic advertising and the need for new identifiers and solutions. They also acknowledged the expanding media landscape and the importance of frequency capping and attribution measurement in a post-cookie era. Trends to watch for include the potential consolidation of identifiers and the movement of first-party data in-house by larger media companies. Panelists shared different views on cookie deprecation readiness and the overhype of AI in the industry.
Streaming takes center stage
OMG, Roku, AMC Networks, Paramount, and Disney joined Experian to discuss streaming TV as a fragmented and evolving landscape. The panelists debated whether it has become a performance channel and emphasized the need for client education, attribution, and optimizing performance metrics. They also discussed reaching audiences across different mediums with data interoperability, audience targeting, and reliable identity solutions. The panelists explored the emerging trend of AI, optimizing ad placement, refining targeting, streamlining creative approval, and enhancing ad breaks.
“A lot of trends in AdTech are relevant to TV, but the most consistent trend has definitely been having a solid identity source throughout the whole lifecycle of a campaign within TV.”
ali mack, sr. director, platforms, experian
Let’s keep the conversation going
The innovation and possibilities for signal loss, collaboration, personalization, and balancing AI and creativity are limitless, but understanding exactly how to get there is what can make all the difference.
As we wrap up another successful week at Cannes Lions, let’s use these conversations as an opportunity to advance together toward a more connected future — what trends are you most looking forward to? If you’d like to discuss any of these topics further, get in touch with us!
Check out more Cannes content:
- Insights from a first-time attendee
- Four new marketing strategies for 2023
- Exploring the opportunities in streaming TV advertising
- The future of identity in cookieless advertising
- Maximize ad targeting with supply-side advertising
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Healthcare and Life Sciences teams map the patient journey to spot care gaps and guide interventions. However, clinical records cover only what happens inside clinics, not the forces driving patient decisions. Enriching these records with lifestyle, socioeconomic, and consumer-behavior insights reveals the “why” behind health outcomes. That’s where non-clinical insights step in – revealing the real-world forces that shape patient results. To address these blind spots, Experian and Komodo Health have teamed to integrate de-identified insights from millions of patient journeys with Experian’s socioeconomic and lifestyle data. This enriched view lets enterprises see each journey in full, identify care disparities, and craft smarter strategies – while rigorously protecting privacy. Driving tangible outcomes and better patient care This collaboration focuses on turning insights into action. With Experian and Komodo's integrated clinical, socioeconomic, and lifestyle data, Healthcare and Life Sciences teams can move from insight to accuracy, building adherence programs, finding hard-to-reach patients, and demonstrating treatment success. They can: Layer Komodo’s de-identified patient-level medical and pharmacy insights and analytics with Experian lifestyle and socioeconomic attributes Segment patient populations by condition, treatment history, and socioeconomic status Prioritize outreach – reducing waste and focusing resources where care is needed most For instance: Neighborhood-level gaps Identify opportunities to capture untreated patients and improve clinical trial inclusion. Income-related support Flag populations most likely to benefit from cost-saving programs, ensuring communications highlight co-pay assistance or financial relief options. Inside the data stack At the core of Komodo Health's AI-enabled healthcare analytics platform is its Healthcare Map®. This innovative tool integrates de-identified patient-level medical and pharmacy claims data from the patient journeys of over 330 million unique individuals – providing insights on diagnoses, treatments, outcomes, and care patterns across the United States. Experian enhances this data by adding socioeconomic and lifestyle characteristics that influence up to 80% of health outcomes. Together, this combined data effectively addresses essential questions such as: Which neighborhoods face the highest diabetes risk? Where is therapy abandonment spiking? When should co-pay assistance messages drop? How can we accelerate HCP outreach or clinical-trial recruitment? Experian's socioeconomic and lifestyle insights: Fueling data-driven care decisions In this context, Experian provides valuable insights into socioeconomic factors and lifestyle patterns, covering everything from household composition and income ranges to psychographics and other attributes that help build a broader understanding of an individual's circumstances. Where deep patient understanding, health engagement, and real-world evidence converge As healthcare marketing, patient engagement, and real-world data converge, the Experian and Komodo collaboration is empowering Healthcare and Life Sciences teams with fast, actionable insights. Fusing de-identified patient-level clinical data with socioeconomic and lifestyle attributes helps teams engage the right patients, and fuels research from product launches to community programs. It elevates experiences while proving impact with real-world evidence. Ready to utilize these insights? Latest posts
Brand and tech leaders share insights to guide marketers forward Cannes Lions 2025 brought its usual charm, rosé, and lively discussions, but what stood out was a shift in tone: brand and tech leaders aren’t talking in theories anymore – they’re rebuilding how advertising works. From identity to outcomes, the consensus was clear: marketers need bold, structural changes to thrive. At Experian, we spoke with leaders from Ampersand, Butler/Till, Comcast Advertising, Fox, OpenX, Optable, Snowflake, VideoAmp, and Yieldmo. Their message? Foundational change, not incremental tweaks, is the way forward. Here are five moves marketers and CMOs should be making right now. 1. Make identity the foundation, not an add-on Identity must be the core of your marketing strategy, not an afterthought. Building a strong identity framework from the outset ensures that your data and tech stack work seamlessly across channels. This means investing in first-party data assets and identity resolution tools that inform every campaign and tactic. Identity isn’t just a feature; it’s the base layer of everything successful marketers do today. "There’s no AI strategy without a data and identity strategy. Marketers who want to stretch every media dollar and personalize each touchpoint need a unified, deeper view of the consumer – insight they can carry straight into downstream ad platforms.”David Wells, Snowflake Next step: Treat identity resolution as a prerequisite to every campaign, not a task to address later. Align your data management platform (DMP), customer data platform (CDP), and collaboration partners around a unified identity spine (Experian’s or your own) to ensure data flows uninterrupted from planning to reporting. 2. Curate, don't automate. Programmatic is getting personal Programmatic advertising remains relevant, but its purpose is evolving from mere automation to intelligent, data-driven curation. This shift requires moving beyond static site lists to dynamic, page-level contextual engines that determine, in real-time, which impressions to display. Today, it’s about carefully selecting and curating inventory to ensure transparency, quality, and relevance for your audience. Marketers are increasingly turning to private marketplaces (PMPs) that offer curated, brand safe inventory and clear supply paths to deliver meaningful results. Expect continued growth in curated PMPs, AI-assisted forecasting, and supply-side innovations that combine premium connected TV (CTV) inventory with deterministic data. The goal is to reach the right viewer and understand exactly how and why they got there. “What we’re talking about right now is almost like curation 2.0, which is bringing more of the capabilities that historically sat with the demand-side platform (DSP) into the hands of the supply-side platform (SSP) – that is, supply-side targeting, or what we call data-driven curation."Matt Sattel, OpenX Next step: Audit your supply chain. If you can’t clearly explain every step from bid request to delivery, explore curated deals or direct SSP partnerships that align with your quality and transparency standards. 3. Connect teams like you connect data Fragmented results often stem from fragmented teams. Persistent silos (like TV buys on one floor, digital on another, and data science somewhere else) slow down budgets and create inconsistent messaging. Forward thinking organizations are restructuring teams around unified KPIs and shared data. When planners, buyers, and analysts work together (or at least share dashboards), campaigns move faster and creative stays consistent. “We restructured our teams to focus on all forms of video – linear, streaming, and online. This allowed us to embrace partners who cross over these verticals and technical approaches.”Gina Whelehan, Butler/Till Next step: Map your current workflow end-to-end. Where does a brief stall or data stop flowing? Restructure teams or create shared success metrics to eliminate bottlenecks. 4. Turn disconnected data into unified insights Marketers have spent years gathering massive amounts of data, but hoarding data isn’t a winning strategy. The future belongs to those who can collaborate with partners to connect and utilize data effectively, all while respecting privacy and security. Rather than chasing the next data source, leading marketers are finding ways to safely connect data already available in-house or via partners. This might involve data clean rooms, secure data sharing agreements, or joint analytics initiatives – but the common thread is working together on data, not operating in isolation. “We've been encouraging marketers to tie in first-party data and to really utilize that data and to work with trusted sources and deterministic sources in order to overcome a lot of the challenges around signal loss with cookies, in particular. The other way is also clean rooms. Clean rooms really enable the opportunity to collaborate in a private, safe way, and connecting to those more deterministic sources in order to deliver the results that advertisers are looking for.”Carmela Fournier, Comcast Advertising Next step: Identify gaps in your first-party data. Then, collaborate with a provider like Experian to safely match data sets and unlock insights without exposing sensitive info. 5. Focus on outcomes, not clicks Impressions, clicks, and other output metrics have been the currency of marketing for decades. But the consensus at Cannes is that those proxies aren’t enough – business outcomes are what matter now. Marketers must shift their focus to measuring real results, such as sales lift, new customer acquisition, lifetime value, or brand impact, rather than getting bogged down in intermediate metrics. This move to outcome-based measurement changes how campaigns are planned and judged: success is defined by the value created, not just the volume delivered. Unified, identity-based analytics are finally making it possible to see who saw an ad and what they did next, across TV, CTV, and digital. That intel drives smarter budget shifts and tighter creative feedback loops. “Outcome-based measurement is table stakes in today’s media ecosystem, and Ampersand has woven it into almost everything we do. Thanks to Experian’s strength in identity, audience insights, and outcome measurement, we can give advertisers the attribution they need at every stage of the funnel.”Justin Rosen, Ampersand Next step: Identify metrics that matter to your bottom line, then find a partner who can measure them accurately. If measurement stacks don’t talk to each other, they’re holding you back. Preparing for the challenges ahead The common thread across these five moves is connection – connecting data, teams, and outcomes. Marketers who act on these imperatives will be ready for whatever new screen, format, or privacy rule comes next. Experian can help you: Establish an identity spine Enable secure data collaboration in or out of clean room environments Curate premium CTV inventory with deterministic audiences Measure business outcomes across every channel Ready to make your next bold move? Let's start a conversation Latest posts
Marketers are searching for better ways to connect with their audiences across screens and prove results. Optimum Media is at the forefront of this development, helping brands plan, activate, and measure campaigns across linear TV, addressable TV, connected TV (CTV), digital, and social platforms. To support this approach, Optimum Media partners with Experian, combining their subscriber data with Experian’s trusted audience and identity solutions. Together, we help brands not only find the right consumers but also understand their behaviors and measure real outcomes. Here’s how Optimum Media and Experian are working together. Build a complete customer view with rich data from Experian Optimum Media starts with strong first-party data, including viewership and exposure information from millions of households. However, reaching a deeper understanding of these audiences requires more than what subscriber records alone can offer. Through Experian’s Marketing Attributes, Optimum Media gains access to thousands of demographic and behavioral attributes to its data sets. These attributes—such as income ranges, lifestyle interests, and retail purchasing behaviors—help advertisers build a more complete view of the consumer. "We work with trusted partners like Experian to deliver the additional audience insights—like demographics and lifestyle—that are critical for our clients' success."Natalia Irmin, Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, Optimum Media Combining Experian’s Marketing Attributes with Optimum Media’s subscriber footprint helps brands segment audiences more precisely, develop refined media plans, and tailor messaging based on the real behaviors and interests of consumers. Move beyond basic targeting with Audience Engine To support more personalized and scalable targeting, Optimum Media uses Audience Engine—Experian’s self-service platform for audience management and activation. Through Audience Engine, Optimum Media can: Access Experian’s syndicated audiences Not just what’s available directly on their platform. Build custom segments Using Experian’s demographic and behavioral insights. Tap into our data marketplace To explore additional segments from Experian and our Partner Audiences through trusted third-party providers. These tools give Optimum Media and its clients the ability to move beyond basic targeting. Whether a brand wants to reach families preparing for back-to-school shopping, in-market car buyers, or upscale consumers planning home renovations, Audience Engine makes it possible to identify and activate those audiences with greater accuracy—based on real data, not guesswork. Extend campaign reach with Experian’s Digital Graph While Optimum Media has a substantial owned footprint, they often work with advertisers who need to extend reach beyond traditional subscriber bases. To support this, they rely on Experian’s Digital Graph. Our Digital Graph connects mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), IP addresses, CTV IDs, and hashed emails into unified household and individual profiles. This enables Optimum Media to identify and reach audiences outside of their network with the same level of accuracy as inside it. For even deeper audience insights, Digital Graph can be bundled with Marketing Attributes. This combination helps advertisers go beyond basic targeting to include real-world behaviors like shopping habits, travel preferences, and lifestyle characteristics. The result: campaigns that do more than deliver impressions—they connect with the right households across any channel. Turn viewership into measurable business outcomes One of the biggest challenges in multiscreen advertising is connecting exposure to real business results. With Experian’s solutions, Optimum Media can: Plan based on audience behaviors across screens, not just age and gender demographics. Activate household-level audiences across linear, CTV, digital, and social. Measure campaign performance using unduplicated reach, frequency, and attribution across devices. By offering advertisers access to a more complete consumer profile and maintaining consistent measurement across channels, Optimum Media and Experian help clients make better decisions about where to spend and how to adjust strategies over time. Why the Optimum Media and Experian partnership delivers Deeper audience understanding: By combining first-party viewership with Experian’s demographic and behavioral data, advertisers gain a fuller picture of who they are reaching. Seamless cross-platform execution: Identity solutions like Digital Graph allow brands to reach audiences across multiple devices and channels without losing precision. "Optimum Media has been instrumental in helping Experian strengthen the precision, quality, and real-world applications of our data. Their ongoing feedback is invaluable in making sure our solutions continue to meet client needs and perform at the highest level."Chris Feo, Chief Business Officer, Experian With a single, trusted partner offering both identity and audience solutions, Optimum Media avoids the complexity many advertisers still face when piecing together different data sets and vendors. “Having Experian’s identity and audience solutions under one roof makes it easier for us to plan, reach, and measure across every channel. It’s a complete solution that simplifies advertising and improves performance.”Natalia Irmin, Sr. Director, Strategic Partnerships, Optimum Media Start building better campaigns with Experian Ready to improve your audience targeting and measurement strategies like Optimum Media? Connect with our team today to learn how Marketing Attributes, Audience Engine, Digital Graph, and our other solutions can help you build stronger, more measurable advertising campaigns. Connect with us About Optimum Media Optimum Media is a multiscreen advertising business that partners with small and medium businesses, as well as national, political, media and entertainment, and agency clients across the United States. They work with advertisers to develop custom multiscreen advertising solutions powered by proprietary technology and a massive aggregated database of audience data points and TV viewership data. Latest posts