Cannes Lions is becoming an increasingly important moment for the creator economy.
Five years ago, seeing a large group of digital creators attending the festival might have felt unusual. Today, it reflects how significantly the role of creators has evolved within the wider media and advertising landscape.
This year, Ziggurat XYZ is bringing 18 creators to Cannes Lions as part of a deliberate effort to ensure subject-led creators are present in the conversations shaping the festival. The initiative reflects the company’s view that creators with deep expertise should be represented where the future of brand and creator collaboration is being discussed.
Creator presence at Cannes has grown rapidly in recent years. What was once a smaller strand of the programme is now a central part of the Lions schedule. Even the move from the Palais rooftop to the beach feels symbolic of that evolution.
As that presence has grown, so too has the need for clearer representation. For brands, Cannes can be a place to host panels, announce partnerships or explore new directions. For creators, however, the week can easily become an overwhelming schedule of activity without structure.
According to Charles Haynes, Managing Director of Ziggurat, what matters increasingly is intention: who is attending, why they are there, and how those conversations translate beyond the festival itself. That thinking underpins Ziggurat’s approach this year, as the company supports a curated group of creators whose work spans science, engineering, art, education and storytelling – individuals who have built substantial audiences through expertise and long-term work.
Among those attending are Mike Shake (4.7M YouTube subscribers), aerospace engineer and maker Xyla Foxlin, science communicator Steve Mould – whose experiments have been tested by NASA astronauts – and artist Bobby Duke (4.6M subscribers).
Across the wider group are founders, historians, engineers, authors, designers and business owners who have built loyal audiences through sustained expertise. That trust, built over years, carries significant weight in brand partnerships, and many already collaborate with global brands.
For Ziggurat, the focus this year is ensuring that creators are recognised not simply as content producers, but as founders and operators of creative businesses. Many are building intellectual property, launching products and maintaining communities at the intersection of media, education and entrepreneurship.
Cannes Lions has increasingly become a meeting point for brands, platforms, publishers and independent creators who often operate as production companies in their own right. In that sense, the growing presence of creators at Cannes is less a novelty and more a reflection of how the media landscape itself is changing.
At Cannes this year, Ziggurat’s role is to support that shift in practical terms. In practice, that means helping creators attend with purpose, facilitating thoughtful conversations with brands and platforms, and ensuring they are recognised not simply as campaign partners, but as long-term collaborators capable of building meaningful, sustained partnerships.
As creator-led businesses continue to mature, moments like Cannes Lions are becoming less about visibility and more about strategy – bringing together the people shaping the next phase of media, culture and the creator economy.
For companies like Ziggurat, the opportunity lies in ensuring that the creators who have built serious, sustainable audiences are part of those conversations.
