The underlying theme of this year’s Cannes Lions 2019 festival was the future of creativity. It was examined from all angles over the course of five days, as leaders of the industry shared ideas about emerging storytelling formats, strategies to overcome attention scarcity, and ways to more accurately and positively reflect society. Advertising shapes culture, and it was inspiring to see brand leaders demonstrate a genuine passion for purpose.

We invited six leaders across Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube to chat with our CEO Alex Collmer about a range of topics, including how creativity can be used as a force for good, how creative effectiveness can be measured, and how new storytelling formats are changing the nature of advertising by putting the consumer in control.

Doing Good, Doing Well

Rachel Elam from the Social Good Brand Partnership team at Facebook joined Alex in a discussion about the newly launched Instagram Stories donation sticker. Non-profit organizations and the 500M+ users of Instagram Stories can now raise funds to support important causes as easily as tagging a friend. VidMob and Facebook partnered on a Father’s Day campaign whereby we created Instagram Stories ads for St. Judes, Alzheimer’s Association ASPCA, American Cancer Society, and JDRF.

The Terrible Choice of which Ad to Produce

Creative-agency-vets-turned-Facebook-execs, Hope Cowan and Eric Schnabel, share their perspective on why Stories is changing everything. It lets consumers be creators and lets advertisers be playful. Ephemeral by design, stories let brands be vulnerable and take the creative risk with minimal financial risk. Thanks to Stories, Eric said advertisers no longer face a terrible choice on what to produce. Every good idea can be tested.

Pitch, Play, Plunge

Facebook also developed a creative framework to combat shrinking attention spans. It can be used to develop higher performance ads on Facebook and elsewhere.

Creative is the #1 Determinant of Success on SNAP

Creating vertical video ads is now a frictionless experience which is bringing so many new advertisers to Snapchat. Head of Global Creative, Jeff Miller, explains why AR on Snap is so unique and how keeping the camera at the core of the user experience encourages a sense of play.

The Secret to Happiness

Snapchat is grounded in self-expression with no judgment. With no likes or comments, you can do you. Jeff Miller explains how Snap is looking to bring that magic into the world to make it a happier place.

Connecting Content to Conversation

Video is Twitter’s fastest-growing ad format, driving over 50% of revenue. Stacy Minero, Head of Content Creation, takes us through the evolution of Twitter’s video business and offers examples of how Twitter both reflects and shapes culture.

A Machine will Never Create an Idea

Matthew Williams is YouTube’s Head of Creative Product Solutions and weighed in on how technology can make us more creative. The secret sauce revealed in Cannes Lions 2019 is to know when to use tech and when not to. A machine won’t ideate—that’s an exclusively human pursuit. YouTube has advanced many new self-service tools to help advertisers measure creative effectiveness and improve performance.