The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity brings together the world’s most senior marketers, content creators and creative leaders all in one place. And for the very first time. Smarts was asked to be part of the main festival programme, sharing our thoughts on the future of creativity with the Palais.
Our session explored a simple but urgent idea: in an era obsessed with speed, volume and efficiency, too many brands are stuck operating on the surface — when the real value lies in pushing work to greater creative depth.
To bring the concept to life, our Brand Futures Director, Nat Moores, was joined on stage by Kateryna Sadurska, world freediving champion, who walked the audience through one of her record-breaking dives — the preparation, the mindset, the physiological experience of the dive itself — before leading a mindfulness exercise grounded in her training.
Kateryna was the perfect collaborator for the session (identified by Smarts’ very own talent management team). She broke the national breath-hold record (seven minutes two seconds) just a week before Cannes, brings an incredible focus, perspective and vision to the stage, and is currently the subject of a forthcoming documentary from the team, whose team filmed alongside Nat and Kateryna throughout the presentation day.
In addition to Kateryna’s insight, Nat shared her thinking on creative depth – born from her own hypotheses and after speaking to CMOs, creatives and strategists from all walks of the industry. She argued that brands are in danger of creative depth being quietly eroded from their briefs, that agencies are compressing it from their creative processes, and its absence is being felt when the work is out in the world.
To combat that, Nat shared six key learnings – inspired by Kateryna – as well as some specially-created tools that helps creatives get into the flow state. Get access to them all here.
Following their Palais session, Nat and Kateryna were then guests at The Marketing Society’s annual Cannes lunch, hosted at Le Club MSQ. In a room full of the UK’s leading marketers, Kateryna spoke about her freediving journey, whilst all guests received their own individual cut of ‘The Line’, an artefact designed by Smarts’ Emma McKernan, taken from an 88-meter rope (the length of Kateryna’s world record dive), paired with our research into what creative depths brands should strive for.
And that wasn’t all, Nat and Kateryna were back the following day for a second Cannes appearance, discussing the next generation of female role models at WACL’s Empower Cafe. Should brands, the pair asked, reconsider what makes a ‘role model’ in a world where audiences are increasingly drawn to stories ground in resilience, purpose and possibility?
Cannes Lions also gave Smarts the opportunity to put some of our clients and their work in the spotlight. Our Business Director, Kerri Young, joined the panel for one of Cannes’ flagship fringe events – the Network One’s Indie Forum – to debate Earned Media: Dead of Alive? With agency leaders from the US, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Australia.
Kerri shared stories from Smarts’ work on Booking.com and Asda, including how our ‘Love is in the Aisles’ campaign generated an increase in customer buzz score, as well as injecting pride and excitement into the brand’s employee base.
And we loved seeing our clients master panel sessions of their own. Booking.com’s Stephanie Frank discussed the changing nature of agency-client relationships with Creative Salon, MSQ and procurement expert Tina Fegent at Beyond Billable, and also joined our own Group Marketing Director, Matt Williams, on his 10 Questions on Advertising podcast, with The Drum.
Matt was also joined by the brilliant Tulani André, Vice President, Social, Content & Creator of Zalando, for her own 10 Questions – watch out for the entire series due to drop on The Drum soon.
Cannes Lions 2026 was always going to be a valuable barometer in where the creative industry is at right now and where it is heading. To be one of the few agencies invited to speak as part of its programme was a huge honour. If you’d like us to bring the conversation and further findings to you, get in touch and we’d love to share more.