At A Glance
Advertisers are embracing CTV, data collaboration, and AI to deliver more personalized, efficient, and impactful campaigns, transforming living rooms into interactive hubs, utilizing creator-led programming, and streamlining workflows. At Cannes Lions 2025, industry leaders highlighted how privacy-first data practices, supply path optimization, and AI-powered tools are reshaping the advertising ecosystem - areas where Experian plays a key role in enabling trusted, measurable, and innovative outcomes.As artificial intelligence (AI), connected TV (CTV), and data collaboration continue to advance, advertisers are discovering new ways to meet audiences where they are; on their terms and in their spaces. These innovations are creating opportunities to deliver more personalized, impactful campaigns that were unimaginable just a few years ago. At Cannes Lions 2025, we sat down with industry leaders from Butler Till, Comcast Advertising, Index Exchange, IQVIA Digital, Optable, PMG, Samsung Ads, and Sports Innovation Lab.
From reimagining the living room experience to using AI in practice for better outcomes, here’s what we learned about the trends driving advertising forward.
1. CTV turns living rooms into active spaces
CTV has turned the living room into a hub of interaction, discovery, and commerce. Younger audiences are using their TVs like mobile devices; streaming, learning, and even controlling their homes. This shift is creating new opportunities for advertisers to deliver relevant, personalized experiences where audiences are already engaged. With premium content and interactive tools, the living room is no longer just a passive space, it’s where attention meets action, and where brands can connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
How Experian helps
With Experian, advertisers can connect first-party data with CTV IDs, ensuring accurate and measurable targeting while maintaining a privacy-first approach. That means brands reach viewers with messages that feel personal, without losing trust.
“We surveyed 1,000 smart TV owners and found that younger audiences are using their TVs like mobile devices. Two-thirds use them for social media, 40% for self-improvement like Coursera or TED Talks, and 25% for interactivity; controlling appliances or home temperatures. Interactivity with connected TVs is skyrocketing.”
Samsung Ads Justin Evans
2. Creators build stronger connections with audiences
Creators are no longer limited to social media; they are now a driving force in CTV. Creator led programming is capturing attention and driving post view actions, offering advertisers a unique way to connect with passionate, engaged audiences. By thinking of creators as “micro networks” with built in communities, advertisers can meet fans where they already gather and deliver authentic, impactful messages that resonate.
How Experian helps
Experian helps advertisers tap into the creator economy by identifying topical audiences that align with influencer niches—like food, travel, gaming and entertainment—and activating them across the open web. Through Audigent’s integration with DV360, brands can pair Experian’s expansive audience targeting capabilities with Audigent’s Curated Deals to reach engaged viewers in creator-led environments. This approach ensures ads appear where audiences are most receptive, enhancing relevance and performance.
“The creator economy is moving into TV. It’s incredible to see social influencers, once dominant on platforms, now creating high quality content for streaming, networks, and more.”
Butler/TillGina Whelehan
3. Data collaboration that drives better results
Advertisers rely on data to reach the right audiences, but privacy concerns are reshaping how it’s collected, shared, and used. Data collaboration enables brands to combine multiple data sets (like first-party data and syndicated audiences) to improve planning, activation, and measurement. While privacy remains a priority, the focus is on creating actionable insights that drive better results and build trust with consumers. By focusing on consented, privacy safe identity solutions, advertisers can achieve better outcomes while respecting consumer privacy; a win-win for brands and audiences alike.
How Experian helps
Experian’s privacy-first approach ensures that all data activation occurs with compliance and consent. By maintaining high match rates, offering flexible collaboration options (including clean rooms, first-party data onboarding, and syndicated audiences) and adhering to transparent methodologies, Experian facilitates seamless collaboration between brands, publishers, and platforms. This helps build trust and strengthen long-term connections with audiences.
“The area we’re most excited about is identity resolution on the publisher side. Publishers can reinsert signal and create better results for advertisers. This wasn’t always well-articulated, but today we have case studies proving publishers can help improve outcomes.”
OptableVlad Stesin
4. Optimizing supply paths for better outcomes
Supply path optimization (SPO) helps advertisers improve campaign efficiency by increasing viewability and reducing waste. Supply-side decisioning builds on this by identifying the audiences advertisers want to reach, the content those audiences consume, and the publishers with the most relevant inventory. Together, these strategies create a more intelligent and efficient ecosystem, ensuring ads are delivered in the right context, to the right people, on the right platforms.
How Experian helps
Experian’s data solutions, including both Experian’s and Audigent’s contextual and identity capabilities, are available across sell-side (SSPs) and buy-side (DSPs) platforms, enabling smarter decision-making throughout the media supply chain. Audigent’s direct integrations with publishers provide an unfiltered view into available inventory, offering deeper insights that inform campaign optimization. These insights can be activated in real time and transacted within advertisers’ existing buying platforms.
By powering real-time intelligence across the ecosystem, from advertisers to DSPs, SSPs, and publishers, Experian and Audigent help drive better outcomes, more efficient media spend, and greater value for all participants.
“Sell-side decisioning activates the intelligence of the exchange, along with partners like Experian, to optimize auctions in real time. This helps pre-decision buys that flow to the DSPs, making the buying process smarter, more efficient, and ultimately driving better value for marketers and publishers.”
Index ExchangeMike McNeeley
5. AI that streamlines agency workflows
AI is a practical tool that agencies are using to streamline workflows and deliver better results. From planning and pacing to creative iteration, AI is helping teams move faster and smarter. In fact, 67% of global marketing and communications professionals now use AI for content creation frequently or all the time, underscoring its role in modern workflows. The key is to think of AI as a navigator, not a replacement. It handles repetitive tasks, freeing up teams to focus on strategy and creativity, while enabling faster tests, fewer dead ends, and better client clarity.
How Experian helps
Experian uses AI and machine learning to deliver highly personalized marketing solutions. In our Digital Graph, advanced clustering algorithms analyze household and individual device connections, improving targeting and measurement accuracy. We also use AI powered audience recommendations to create tailored audience solutions for clients. Our contextual data models, powered by Audigent’s contextual engine, further improve this process by analyzing bidstream traffic in real time, ensuring audiences are aligned with the most relevant inventory.
“We’ve extended our platform with Marketplace, which lets us integrate third-party partners, new tech, and data seamlessly into activation. Clients are asking for this level of innovation, especially with the speed at which AI is evolving and transforming what’s possible in marketing.”
PMGSam Bloom
Connecting the dots: Data, creativity, and outcomes
The common thread across these insights is how we connect with audiences, collaborate on data, and create meaningful outcomes. By reimagining the living room experience and utilizing AI and creator-led programming, brands are embracing innovation.
How Experian helps
Experian helps you build privacy-first identity foundations, collaborate seamlessly, optimize supply paths, streamline with AI, and connect through creators.
Let’s start a conversation
FAQs
CTV brings premium, interactive streaming to the largest screen at home, allowing brands to reach engaged viewers with measurable, personalized experiences.
It’s the consented, secure use of first-party and partner data (often via clean rooms) to improve planning, activation, and measurement without exposing raw consumer data.
SPO streamlines the path from advertiser to publisher, reducing waste and improving quality. Sell-side decisioning adds real-time intelligence to the exchange, delivering the proper context and audience more efficiently.
Creator-led programming functions like “micro networks” with built-in communities, helping brands show up where fans are already engaged and ready to act.
Viewers use TVs like mobile devices, discovering content, learning, shopping, and interacting; advertisers can meet their intent and drive post-view actions.
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With campaigns applied to seven major holding companies, Tapad continues to see healthy adoption with The Trade Desk clients NEW YORK, NY – August 23, 2017 - Tapad, now a part of Experian, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, today announced its ongoing momentum with The Trade Desk, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTD), a global technology platform for buyers of advertising. Tapad is providing cross-device segments from the groundbreaking Tapad Device GraphTM through The Trade Desk’s platform. Since 2015, Tapad has seen steady growth in the use of its cross-device data across The Trade Desk platform. This forward progress continues, as 1H2017 saw important milestones for Tapad. Seven major private and independent holding companies now apply Tapad’s data to their campaigns, in addition to more than 1,500 unique brands. Tapad’s proprietary Device GraphTM connects billions of devices, providing unified and insightful data for brands, agencies, and marketers across the globe. Several of these clients, representing varying industries from financial, to auto, CPG and retail, apply Tapad’s data across a number of key tactics and strategies, including: first party CRM extension, third party audience extension, cross-device retargeting, cross-device frequency management, and more. Clients in these verticals continue to rely on Tapad’s cross-device data, as Tapad saw the amount of usage by financial and retail clients grow by four times over the past year, and double for automotive and CPG clients. “We are pleased to offer our clients access to Tapad’s device graph”, said David Danziger, VP of Data Partnerships, The Trade Desk. “Their cross-device identification capabilities have been a powerful addition to our omnichannel platform.” “This integration is a shining example of the amplifying effect of two of the best platforms working together,” said Chris Feo, SVP of Global Partnerships at Tapad. "Clients leveraging Tapad's Device Graph in The Trade Desk platform have the potential to see higher returns and reach with access to substantial cross-device data, as well as a very effective media platform." Contact us today
Tapad Device Graph™ and Sojern’s mobile offering unify travel intent signals; achieve amplification rate of more than 600 percent NEW YORK, June 15, 2017 – Tapad, a part of Experian, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, is partnering with Sojern, travel’s direct demand engine, to provide marketers with an even stronger understanding of travelers as they research and shop across multiple devices. Combined with its 350 million global traveler profiles and billions of predictive purchase intent signals, Sojern utilizes the Tapad Device Graph™ to resolve the complex travel consumer journey, target travelers more precisely, and derive more actionable insights for its travel clientele. According to Sojern’s research, travelers visit hundreds of websites preceding their trip purchase, with some consumers reaching upwards of 450 touchpoints prior to booking. Sojern’s partnership with Tapad will help unify these touchpoints across devices, enabling travel brands to more effectively nurture and engage potential buyers during the purchase process, regardless of which device they use. “Sojern’s been focused on travel for over a decade, helping brands activate predictive purchase signals and leverage our traveler profiles into effective performance marketing campaigns,” said Mat Harris, Sojern’s VP of Product, Enterprise Solutions. “The cross-device insights we gain from the Tapad Device Graph provide a valuable tool for our customers to reach travelers across devices in real-time and at scale, on the right device.” Prior to selecting Tapad as its cross-device partner, Sojern surveyed several probabilistic and deterministic cross-device vendors and performed an extensive global test. The test was an examination of scale, match rate and several other factors, which enabled Sojern to learn as much as possible about each vendor. After examining the final test results, Sojern selected Tapad based on its excellent test performance, tried-and-true experience in the market and complimentary business model. To date, Sojern has already seen an amplification rate of more than 600 percent as a result of the integration, meaning that the Tapad Device Graph is connecting an average of six or more device and browser IDs for every one existing Sojern ID. “Not only is Sojern a compatible partner for our singular Device Graph capabilities, but they are also an incredible data partner to help expand our work in the travel industry,” said Pierre Martensson, SVP and GM of Tapad’s global data division. “Working with the team at Sojern allows us to solve a true challenge within the travel industry today: creating a unified view of customers so travel brands can better understand and access their key audiences at every point along their path to purchase.” Contact us today