Cannes Lions 2026: your essential programme guide
Whether you’re heading to the Croisette as a delegate, sending a team from your agency, or tracking the week as a brand looking for signals on where the industry is heading, this is our first pass at some of the headline sessions worth dropping in your diary.
We’ll be going deeper over the coming weeks — with awards, partner events from the beach and moments that matter.
We will be on the ground in Cannes covering the festival. If you have news, interview opps, a launch, or an event that we should know about know about, get in touch.
Cannes Lions 2026 runs 22–26 June at the Palais des Festivals.
Monday 22 June
AB InBev: Creative Marketer of the Year
10:00 · Lumière Theatre · 45 mins · Creative Impact
Marcel Marcondes, Global CMO, AB InBev
The festival’s opening keynote slot, awarded to the year’s Creative Marketer of the Year. Marcondes has overseen some of the most talked-about campaign work in recent years across AB InBev’s brand portfolio.
Making things that make things: a playbook for the intelligence age
11:45 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Tiffany Rolfe & Nick Pringle, R/GA
R/GA’s global and EMEA creative leads set out their working framework for creativity in an AI-enabled environment.
Entertainment Person of the Year
12:15 · Lumière Theatre · 30 mins · Talent & Culture
Eddy Cue, SVP of Services, Apple — in conversation with Jerry Bruckheimer, film and TV producer
Apple’s annual Cannes Lions Entertainment Person of the Year award goes this year to Eddy Cue, the executive who has overseen the build-out of Apple TV+ from its first original releases to its current position as one of the more critically respected studios in television and film. The session is a fireside chat on how that was done — the creative and commercial thinking behind a slate that has prioritised quality and originality over volume.
Five marketing truths we can actually agree on
15:30 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · Creative Impact
Mark Ritson (MiniMBA) & Byron Sharp (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute)
Ritson and Sharp are two of the most publicly combative voices in marketing, and they spend most of their time disagreeing with each other. This session puts them on the same stage to find common ground — five areas where the evidence is clear enough that both will sign off on it. For anyone building strategy on contested foundations, it’s a useful reality check. Some arguing is promised.
From Creator to CEO: Building Scalable Brands With AI
16.30 · Creators Stage · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Steven Bartlett (Diary of a CEO) and David Wadhwani (Adobe)
Share insight into modern creator leadership, focusing on how AI is reshaping who gets to build, lead and scale brands – and what it takes to do so responsibly and creatively
Debate: creative taste is not opinion, but an objective truth
16:45 · Rotonde Stage · 45 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
David Kolbusz (Orchard Creative), Lynsey Atkin (Baby Teeth), Richard Brim (Ace of Hearts), Chaka Sobhani (TBWA\Worldwide) — hosted by Campaign
A formal debate on whether creative judgement can be objective. Four senior creative directors argue the motion, hosted by Campaign. Sobhani also chairs the jury for one of this year’s Lion categories.
Tuesday 23 June
The Cannes LionHeart seminar: Oprah Winfrey
10:00 · Lumière Theatre · 30 mins · LionHeart
Oprah Winfrey
Winfrey receives the 2026 LionHeart Award — one of the festival’s highest honours — at the Tuesday evening Awards Show. This morning seminar precedes that ceremony. The LionHeart recognises individuals who have used their platform to drive meaningful change.
CMOs in the spotlight: Kraft Heinz
10:30 · Rotonde Stage · 45 mins · Creative Impact
Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer, Kraft Heinz North America
A recurring series throughout the week that puts senior brand leaders in the chair to talk through where they’re investing, how they’re measuring it, and what the CMO role actually looks like right now. Kaplan has been one of the more outspoken marketing voices in the food and beverage space — expect a frank read on priorities.
Advertising in the age of AI
11:15 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Denise Dresser, Chief Revenue Officer, OpenAI
OpenAI’s commercial lead addresses what the technology means for the advertising industry specifically. One of the few Cannes sessions where an AI company is speaking to revenue and industry structure rather than capability.
The evolution of creativity
12:30 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, Meta
Mosseri on how creativity and creative distribution have shifted on Instagram and across Meta’s platforms. Runs just before the Estée Lauder / Meta session on the Rotonde Stage — the two are distinct but thematically connected.
The anatomy of an icon
13:45 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Aude Gandon (The Estée Lauder Companies), Nicola Mendelsohn (Meta)
A session examining what makes certain creative ideas endure, using AI as an analytical tool. Gandon leads marketing across Estée Lauder’s brand portfolio; Mendelsohn heads Meta’s global business group.
Robots can’t build brands: the new S-curve of creative transformation
14:30 · Lumière Theatre · 30 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, P&G
Pritchard’s annual Cannes talk has become a fixture of the programme. This year’s title signals a position on where human creativity sits in relation to AI-driven production — a subject P&G has been publicly vocal about.
Unscripted: how stories earn attention across culture and media
16:00 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
Malcolm Gladwell (Pushkin Industries) & Questlove (The Roots / Two One Five Entertainment)
A conversation between two practitioners — Gladwell as a writer and podcaster, Questlove as a musician, filmmaker and cultural archivist — on how stories move through culture. Hosted by iHeartMedia.
How Mel Robbins turns ideas into movements
16:15 · Creators Stage, The Palais · 30 mins · LIONS Creators
Mel Robbins, author and podcaster
The Mel Robbins Podcast was Apple’s number one show in 2025 and a Golden Globe nominee — alongside a string of bestselling books including The Let Them Theory, translated into more than 40 languages. The session is her Cannes debut, and covers the mechanics of how she works: using social posts to test ideas, turning everyday observations into content that travels, and how she approaches brand partnerships. Less about influence marketing in the abstract, more about how one practitioner actually does it at scale.
Discovery vs belief: where does brand power really sit today?
16:45 · Rotonde Stage · 45 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Richard Edelman (Edelman), Dan Roth (LinkedIn), Jim Squires (Reddit), Tati Lindenberg (Unilever Home Care)
Brand visibility and brand credibility used to move together. Now they’re being pulled apart — platforms determine what gets surfaced, while creators and communities determine what it means. Drawing on Edelman’s latest Brand Trust Report, the session frames this as a debate: does being seen matter more than being believed? With voices from LinkedIn, Reddit and Unilever alongside Edelman himself, it covers where brands actually have control, and where they’ve already lost it.
Wednesday 24 June
WPP’s 2026 seminar
10:00 · Lumière Theatre · 30 mins · Insights & Trends
Cindy Rose, CEO, WPP
Rose took over as WPP CEO in 2024. This is her first Cannes address in that role. WPP’s annual seminar slot typically covers the group’s strategic direction and its reading of where the industry is heading.
Forward, not flawless: the creative tension between values and scale
12:15 · The Forum, Rotonde · 30 mins · Insights & Trends
Alex Weller, VP of Creative, Patagonia
Weller leads creative across Patagonia, a brand that has made its values a central part of its public identity. The session addresses what happens when a values-led approach meets the pressures of commercial scale.
Our world of contradictions: the creative–populace divide
13:45 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · Insights & Trends
Mark Penn (Stagwell), Craig Brommers (American Eagle)
Penn, founder of Stagwell and a long-standing analyst of public opinion, examines the gap between how the creative industry sees itself and how broader audiences actually receive its output. Brommers brings the brand-side perspective from American Eagle.
The future of creativity with Demis Hassabis
14:30 · Lumière Theatre · 30 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder & CEO, Google DeepMind
Hassabis co-founded DeepMind, which merged with Google Brain to become Google DeepMind in 2023. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. The session looks at creativity through the lens of AI development.
Creativity over clicks: reclaiming retail media for brand building
16:45 · The Forum, Rotonde · 30 mins · Creative Impact
Pedr Howard (Ipsos), Gülen Bengi (Mars)
Retail media is now a $150bn channel and still, by most accounts, a creative wasteland. This session — billed as an exclusive debut — sees Mars and Ipsos unveil what they’re calling the Shoppable Masterpiece, a framework for treating the retail feed as a brand-building environment rather than a conversion mechanism. The central argument is straightforward: the Buy Now button doesn’t have to be where brand equity goes to die.
From franchise to frenzy: the global fandom engine
15:30 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · Insights & Trends
Seth Meyers, Alan Cumming, Colin Jost, Rachel Zoe — NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal brings four of its on-screen talent to the programme to talk about fandom, franchise, and how entertainment properties build and sustain audiences across global markets.
Thursday 25 June
Stop working in advertising: to engage you need to entertain
11:15 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
Sir John Hegarty, Co-Founder, BBH
Hegarty co-founded BBH in 1982 and has been a recurring presence at Cannes over several decades. The session title reflects a position he has articulated in various forms over recent years — that entertainment value has been subordinated to performance metrics.
Everyone is a seller: circular commerce is redefining creative industries
12:45 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · Insights & Trends
Jamie Iannone (eBay) & Stella McCartney
McCartney and eBay’s CEO discuss how resale and circular commerce are changing the relationship between brands, consumers, and creative work. McCartney’s label has been an active participant in the secondhand fashion market.
Creativity has to strike back
15:15 · Rotonde Stage · 30 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
Fernando Machado, Brand Advisor (formerly Burger King, Activision)
Machado oversaw some of the most widely discussed campaign work of the last decade during his time at Burger King, including work that won multiple Grand Prix. The session addresses what he sees as a retreat from creative ambition in the current market.
Rich Silverstein blends AI and storytelling into a Broadway musical
15:30 · Debussy Theatre · 30 mins · The Creativity Toolbox
Rich Silverstein, Co-Founder, Goodby Silverstein & Partners
Silverstein presents a project using AI tools in the development of a Broadway musical — exploring what the technology contributes to, and takes from, long-form narrative storytelling.
Friday 26 June
CMOs in the spotlight: Visa, Diageo, Opella
11:00 · Rotonde Stage · 45 mins · Creative Impact
Cristina Diezhandino (Diageo), Danielle Jin (Visa), Amanda Lobato (Opella)
The CMO in the Spotlight series runs throughout the week with different guests. Friday’s edition brings together marketing leads from three large consumer brands across drinks, payments, and healthcare.
Future Gazers: the trends defining the next 18 months
12:30 · The Forum, Rotonde · 45 mins · Innovation Unwrapped
Ned McNeilage (Sphere), Paul Dolan (LSE), Felicia Okoye Otolorin (Google)
Friday’s Future Gazers features Sphere’s Head of Creative alongside a professor of behavioural science from the LSE — two quite different frameworks for thinking about what audiences want and how they respond.
Creativity in the making: shaping tomorrow with 2026 jury presidents
12:30 · Debussy Theatre · 1 hour · Talent & Culture
Chaka Sobhani (TBWA\Worldwide), Pelle Sjoenell, Monique Nelson (UWG), Kazoo Sato
Note: runs simultaneously with Future Gazers. The jury presidents’ closing session, in which the chairs of this year’s Lion categories discuss what they found in the work and what it tells them about the state of the industry.
On top of all this there’s a tonne of fringe events – 3CV, Adobe Takeover, Amazon Port, Brand Innovators Beach, Canva Creative Cabana, Dept Secret Garden, Freewheel, Infillion, Influential, LinkedIn Rooftop, Les Monks Café, Microsoft Gardens, Nikkei FT Teahouse, Pinterest Manifestival, RTL Beach, Salesforce Beach, Spotify, Sport Beach, The Female Quotient, FQ Beach, TikTok Garden and LIONS Impact | The Empower Cafe and Yahoo.
