LiveRamp joined global advertising leaders at Cannes Lions to share which advertising strategies and best practices are driving businesses forward.
Is anywhere more inspiring to plan and envision the future of advertising than Cannes Lions? Energy, innovation (and the delightful French Riviera sunshine) radiated from the banks of the Croisette last week, creating the perfect place for advertising leaders to share how they’re meeting market demands and transforming business success.
LiveRamp joined leaders from United Airlines, Kroger Precision Marketing, Target Roundel, Google, and more on stage to discuss how they’re improving media measurement and ROAS, capitalizing on the value of media networks, and leveraging data collaboration – even in the face of signal loss and industry shifts.
Here are the top five trends we heard at Cannes for maximizing your advertising impact.
1. Commerce media networks are on the rise
One of the hottest topics at Cannes was the rapid expansion of commerce media beyond retail. In the past year, there’s been a growing appetite from data owners across industries to launch new media products for deeper customer insights and personalization. United Airlines made headlines this month with the launch of Kinective Media, the airline industry’s first media network. During a Cannes exclusive, Travis Clinger, LiveRamp’s Chief Connectivity & Ecosystem Officer, shared how LiveRamp’s clean room technology supported this trailblazing launch.
“The LiveRamp Clean Room, powered by Habu, is a crucial connector helping to power growth in commerce media,” Clinger said. “As more cutting-edge commerce media networks emerge, marketers will need to work with identity solutions to connect measurement from conversions to business outcomes, enabling the closed-loop they’ve been chasing.”
Packaged insights and measurement transparency across partnerships and channels were also highlighted as critical trends by companies building media solutions and advertisers alike.
2. Data collaboration partnerships are growing between retailers and CPGs
While commerce media took center stage at Cannes, retail media 3.0 was another focal point. The excitement around collaborating with data in expanded ways continues to blossom between retailers and CPGs. In fact, 93% of enterprises agree data collaboration is critical to driving revenue growth.
In his panel with Kroger Precision Marketing, Kevin Dunn, LiveRamp’s VP of Industry Sales, Retail and CPG, described this as the “golden age of collaboration” when data is the absolute differentiator for companies across industries and sectors.
“Brands have an unquenchable appetite for consumer data,” he said. “Across the board, the media industry is becoming more and more addressable, and leveraging data for personalized experiences is absolutely essential to connect deeper with consumers.”
But that doesn’t mean both partners need an extensive library of first-party data for data collaboration to be successful. In our Beet.TV panel with Havas, LiveRamp’s SVP, Product GTM Daniella Harkins said data collaboration comes down to creating strong partnerships that have the “pipes” to make accessing data and insights possible in a privacy-enhanced way.
“Companies need to understand that effective data collaboration comes from a healthy network. Without growing this network, companies won’t see the maximum benefits of data collaboration,” she said.
3. Identity has a crucial role in the evolution of CTV
The buzz around CTV’s explosive growth could be heard up and down the beach. Industry leaders came together to discuss improving cross-screen measurement and fuel data-driven insights, even as signals deprecate and market shifts occur, such as live events increasingly moving to streaming channels. This is another data-driven channel where identity will be crucial in achieving accurate, privacy-focused measurement.
To extract more value from CTV, LiveRamp announced a partnership with Nielsen to enhance planning and measurement for brands, agencies, and publishers. Nielsen’s integration of RampID will empower both brands and agencies to improve activation and publishers to enhance the value of their inventory.
It was no surprise that the scale of CTV is also drawing interest from retail media networks. At the event, Albertsons Media Collective announced the launch of Collective TV, powered by first-party data, closed-loop measurement, shoppable ads, and premium inventory. By partnering with LiveRamp and Google PAIR, Albertsons will be able to connect informed shopper audiences with premium content, while enhancing security and privacy through the /LiveRamp Data Collaboration Platform.
4. Privacy-focused AI is driving better business and customer outcomes
If there’s one tool every advertiser wanted to know more about, it was generative AI. Compared to Cannes 2023, this year’s talks around AI innovation shifted focus from technical details to practical outcomes, such as how to drive business impact and enhance customer experiences. For example, AI can help advertisers derive insights from clean room data, speed up optimizations and efficiencies through AI-driven workflows, and empower users with natural language prompts. Despite the excitement, much about AI’s potential is still being explored, particularly in advertising, where human creativity and relationships remain crucial.
Advertisers agreed that one part of AI is unquestionable – as the role of gen AI in advertising grows, prioritizing consumer privacy is vital. Generative AI offers a significant opportunity to leverage your first-party data, but the quality and accuracy of this data are essential. An enterprise-wide identity strategy is key for responsibly integrating AI into your consumer data strategy and building valuable data assets for future applications. Not to mention, training AI requires extensive data. Data collaboration powered by clean rooms can enhance your AI’s capabilities, unlocking new data sets and valuable customer context, such as retail transaction data for CPGs.
As the industry explores AI use cases, the core tenets to keep in mind are customer privacy, high-quality first-party data, and data partnerships for growth.
5. Programmatic disruption is driving companies to the cloud
Lastly, leaders at Cannes predicted that new channels are set to shake up traditional programmatic spending. A leading CPG brand shared an eye-opening insight: despite spending hundreds of millions in influencer marketing, leveraging actionable data across this investment remains challenging.
Data owners across industries confirmed they are eager for more transparency about how their data is used. The desire for a clearer customer view and deeper campaign insights lead the way to new data partnerships, creating alternative pathways for programmatic spending. As a result, we’re likely to see a boost in the development of native and embedded solutions within the cloud ecosystem, where advertisers can connect disparate data, measure its impact, and discover new insights to power marketing strategies.
If you’re ready to maximize your advertising strategy, learn how LiveRamp’s solutions can help. Chat with us here.
