What Cannes 2025 Got Right (and Missed) About Brand | The Paid Social Marketer Newsletter

Lions Unleashed 🦁

What Cannes 2025 Got Right (and Missed) About Brand
✍️ By Sam Carter, CEO of Fospha

At Cannes Lions this year, one word kept surfacing: brand.

In a performance-obsessed world, brand feels harder to defend. It doesn’t show up in ROAS or fit neatly into a reporting cycle. But that doesn’t mean it’s not driving results.

As Rory Sutherland put it, “A brand is like a pension… one day you wake up and go: bloody hell, where did all this equity come from?”

He’s right. Our data at Fospha shows brands investing more than 10% in upper-funnel activity see 2x the overall marketing efficiency. But belief isn’t the issue — buy-in is.

To protect brand budgets, we need better evidence. That’s why we’ve identified early signals—like branded search and engaged visits—that connect brand activity to business outcomes.

👉 Read the full article
📊 Download the Glow Report to explore the data behind the brand debate.

Sector Spotlight 🎥

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Pinterest Shares Tips on How to Align Your Pin Listings With Visual Search

Pinterest unveils tips to enhance Pin listings with its evolving visual search tools, emphasizing catalog updates, use of lifestyle imagery, and Pinterest Performance+ targeting. 

With 570 million active users often in a shopping mindset, marketers are encouraged to leverage these AI-powered tools to align product listings with user behaviors, ensuring broader reach and relevance.

CREATOR-LED SHOWS

YouTube's Expanding Role in Scripted Shows Transforms TV Viewing Experience

YouTube is surpassing traditional TV platforms in viewership, positioning itself as a vital player in the entertainment landscape. With the rise of creator-led scripted series, such as "Shanked," and increased partnerships with influencers, YouTube offers fresh opportunities for marketers to engage with large audiences through 20-minute episodic content.

CANNES INSIGHTS

Cannes Lions 2025 Insights from Ad Executives Steal the Spotlight

Cannes Lions 2025 demonstrated a shift away from typical networking locales, with ad executives and agencies highlighting valuable industry trends. This year focused on the importance of creator measurement and tech, as well as purpose-driven marketing, spotlighting strategies by brands like Porsche and Lego to improve audience engagement. These insights are critical for marketing professionals seeking to enhance brand presence amid evolving advertising landscapes.

🏆 Announcing the ClickZ 25 of 25 Awards –
Powered by Fospha

While the world’s eyes were on Cannes last week, we’ve been spotlighting a different kind of creativity.

The ClickZ 25of25 Awards spotlights 25 standout DTC and digital-first campaigns that drove real impact this year — across five key sectors: luxury, beauty, wellness, home, and fashion.

Each winner represents smart, scaled, creatively sharp marketing — and we’re thrilled to celebrate their work.

You’ll find the full list — plus sector breakdowns and creative highlights — in our full awards report.

📥 Download the full report below

👉 Got a standout campaign or behind-the-scenes story to share? ClickZ is always looking to spotlight fresh creative — reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.

Optimization Hub ⚙️

ECOMMERCE TRENDS

eCommerce Marketing Trends to Know of in 2025

In 2025, eCommerce marketing is driven by five crucial trends:

• personalization and enhanced customer experiences using data and AI

• the rise of mobile commerce and shoppable content

• the impact of social commerce coupled with influencer marketing

• the importance of data analytics and marketing automation

• the evolving roles of SEO and content marketing.

These trends highlight the strategic use of technology and platforms in capturing and retaining customers, emphasizing the need for tailored experiences, efficient data handling, and adaptive marketing strategies for professionals in the field.

GEOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS

Geographic Insights Help Brands Expand Into Underserved Markets With Amazon DSP

Geographic Insights and Activation (GIA) on Amazon DSP empowers marketers to efficiently tap into underpenetrated markets by leveraging Amazon's first-party data.

This tool enables advertisers to identify high-potential geographic areas, optimize campaigns, and combine online and offline sales data for improved reach and ROI. By addressing challenges of localized personalization and operational friction, GIA offers a precise means to enhance advertising effectiveness and expand customer bases.