From OpenAI doubling down on advertising to Google, TikTok, and Criteo expand their advertising ecosystems – all the latest from day two at Cannes Lions.
Affiliate Leaders’ editor Jyoti Rambhai is on the ground at Cannes Lions this year to bring you the latest news, launches and inside chatter among marketers along the Palais des Festivals.
We rounded-up the latest announcements from day 1, which saw Uber talk about its new tech platform; Omnicom announcing a deal with Netflix; Nvidia partners showcasing their AI capabilities; Spotify partnering with Coach; and Reddit talk about AI-generated product recommendations.
Day 2 saw Google launch new creative tools for YouTube; TikTok introduces Symphony Agents; Criteo expands integration with OpenAI; and the ChatGPT owner shows off its ad suite to marketers.
Google adds new creative tools to YouTube
Google announced new insights tools for creator marketing, from its hub along the French Rivera.
The updates include new trending insights within Google Ads Insights Finder in the United States, offering advertisers more detailed information on topics and content gaining popularity on YouTube, which could help offer a “more granular look” at what’s popular on YouTube.
The content and creator insights API are set to provide deeper information about a creator’s audiences – letting agencies establish more effective media planning.
Gemini, Google’s AI, is set to help creators optimise Demand Gen campaigns on YouTube with creative insights and tips about how visuals can help boost performance.
TikTok expands its ecosystem
At this year’s Cannes Lions festival, TikTok introduced Symphony Agents.
These AI agents turn “inspiration into action by combining advertisers’ goals with insights from top-performing content and emerging trends to develop customised video content, source the right creator content, and find the right creator to drive impact”.
The agent covers three creative solutions; content suite, creative studios, and TikTok One.
The Symphony Agent for creative studio helps advertisers make high-performing TikTok ads, letting them combine advertisers brand goals and platform insights with performance signals.
The Symphony Agent for TikTok One will streamline creator discovery and campaign execution. Brands can quickly generate creator briefs, identify and discover creators at scale who can adapt content across markets, and help marketers develop and execute specific and targeted creator campaigns.
The Symphony Agent in Content Suite looks to make it easier for brands to “discover and scale existing creator content”. The new agent will sort through thousands of relevant videos to help marketers identify content that aligns with their goals.
“Creativity has always been lifeblood of TikTok, and now agentic AI is helping accelerate the creative process in entirely new ways,” said Andy Yang, global head of creative and brand products at TikTok.
“With Symphony Agent, we’re empowering brands to turn insights into ideas, ideas into content, and content into results faster than ever before. Whether it’s creating TikTok-first campaigns, discovering creators and community content, or scaling creative across markets, we’re building tools that help marketers unlock the full potential of creativity powered by technology.”
Criteo’s integration with OpenAI moves forward
Criteo has announced it is expanding its integration with OpenAI as its first adtech partner.
Over 2,000 brands are now using Criteo’s integration to advertise on the chatbot platform, having launched in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, and Canada.
The adtech claimed early testing has revealed campaigns within ChatGPT that use Prompt Smart Ads, which combine catalogue data, commerce intelligence, and prompt-level insights, generate approximately four times higher spend after activation, helping advertisers improve campaign delivery, complete budgets more efficiently, and scale investment within ChatGPT.
“We are seeing continued advertiser growth in these markets week over week, reflecting growing global demand for advertising opportunities within conversational AI experiences,” Criteo said in a statement.
“Apparel, home furnishings, consumer electronics, automotive and beauty have emerged as the leading categories running ads in ChatGPT through Criteo, underscoring strong consumer engagement across key commerce verticals.”
As a rapidly growing brand, over 80% of ad-driven ChatGPT Ad traffic is from new customers, and conversion rates are consistently outperforming other channels, as are click through rates – often two to three times higher than similar formats.
OpenAI shows off ad suite
OpenAI introduced its ad pilot around four months ago, and it has no plans to slow down.
At Cannes Lions this week, OpenAI showed off its newly developed ad suite to marketers, outlining its unique positioning and engaged user base, which helps its ad products to strike in “the perfect moment for an advertiser to deliver a targeted message”.
“We have an entirely new ads product, an entirely new ads experience,” said Dave Dugan, vice president of OpenAI’s global ads solution. “Roughly 20% of queries on ChatGPT have a direct commercial intent and even more than that have upper-funnel predictive commercial possibility.
“The big difference is, for our app, people come in with a job to be done,” Dugan said, describing users as “super intentional.”
OpenAI’s ads manager has been delivering for advertisers, the company said, and the platform has already evolved from cost per mile-based to cost per click-based, outlining its commitment to improving measurement.
