Day 1: Charlie Collier’s Fox-Roku Debut; 4 Top Marketers With Creator Cred

Salut from Cannes Lions, where it’s going to be a scorcher — and I’m not just talking about all the deals that will get done. Bring your pocket fans, and stay hydrated!

Amid the splashy branded takeovers of the cafés, villas and plages along the famed 1-mile Croisette, there’s so much programming packed into this five-day festival that I’ve tapped Ankler contributor Claire Atkinson to help me cover all the biggest news, buzziest panels and chicest parties. You’ll hear from Claire below with her dispatch from Ankler Media CEO Janice Min’s interview with Roku Media president Charlie Collier, where he gave his first public comments about the company’s sale to Fox. Plus, Claire has a report on TikTok’s presence here, and I’ve got a spotlight on four brand marketers who really get creators.

But first, there’s no better way to kick off a week of networking than with… a little networking, over an iced café américain and pain au chocolat. And that’s exactly what I did here on Monday morning at a brunch I co-hosted with Avail co-founder and CEO Chris Giliberti and Mad Realities CEO Alice Ma and head of content Emily Tess Katz. The gathering was a real cross section of the Cannes Lions attendee list this year, including Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian, Adweek executive chairman Rich Battista, CAA’s Brent Weinstein, FOX Entertainment’s Billy Parks, Spotify’s Jordan Newman, Gold House’s Bing Chen and Creator Vision’s Jamie Gutfreund.

If you’re in Cannes, don’t miss Team Ankler’s full day of Tuesday programming starting with my Collins House conversation with Real Housewives of New York’s Sai De Silva and Dancing With the Stars’ Alan Bersten and Emma Slater (register here). At 4:10 p.m. Janice will be interviewing Netflix president of advertising Amy Reinhard at the Brand Innovators Beach Stage at Rado Plage (RSVP here).

We’re also taking over the Impact Lounge for the afternoon. RSVP here for our lineup:

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Charlie Collier: Fox Deal Will ‘Propel’ Roku

Fresh off the news of Fox’s $22 billion bid to acquire Roku, its top media executive made his way to Cannes, where he sat down with Janice amid soaring temperatures to make his first public comments about the blockbuster deal, which is set to catapult Fox into a top three streaming entertainment player.

“I can’t talk about anything but I can say I’m excited the two companies have complementary strengths. If any of you listened to Lachlan Murdoch and Anthony Wood, our founder, [they] did an investor call, and I thought elegantly described a lot,” Charlie Collier told the audience at Brand Innovators’ Showcase Stage at Armani Caffè.

“It will propel us to our long-term vision faster,” he continued. “We will operate as an independent company till close, so we are focused on making sure Roku keeps flying.”

The deal will mark a reunion of sorts for Collier, who was chief executive of Fox Entertainment for four years before joining Roku in 2022. Wood is set to join the Fox board as part of the deal.

The deal has, if nothing else, put a spotlight on just how powerful Roku — with its market-leading connected TV platform — is in the streaming business. Janice noted that Roku surpassed broadcast TV viewing according to Nielsen and has 21.4 percent of all TV viewing. “About half of streaming happens on Roku,” Collier said.

The panel drew an impressive crowd, including BofA Securities managing director Jessica Reif Ehrlich, who currently has a sell rating on Fox, as well as FOX’s Wade and Lachlan Murdoch’s communications chief, Brian Nick. Wall Street investors have so far punished the Fox stock for the deal given that it brings more complexity to the simple Fox narrative about live sports and news. That perspective is expected to evolve as the Street considers what Fox might look like without a major scale play in streaming, which some see as necessary to retaining continued access to major sports rights.

Collier also touched on the future of TV, where advertisers are demanding better performance metrics and viewers are trying to navigate the discovery part of finding the sports and shows they want to watch across myriad streaming services. (Read Claire’s Ankler feature about the Cannes ad market here.) The company has been building out Roku City, the virtual metropolis that appears when viewers turn on their Roku devices and has featured advertisers like Spotify. Collier also noted that Roku is so popular in some neighborhoods that people walking down the street can see a purple glow from windows thanks to the Roku Home Screen. — Claire Atkinson

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4 Marketers Making an Impact with Influencers

It might get lost in all the noise about the platforms gobbling up all ad spending, the AI platforms turning the entire industry topsy turvy and the celebrities nabbing all the hot beachside concert invites — but Lions’ roots are in recognizing creativity in advertising. So in that spirit, today I’m bringing you a spotlight on four marketers who’ve pushed the influencer marketing field forward.

I often hear about brands that aren’t hitting the mark or that rely on outside experts to help them navigate the always changing world of internet influence. But, to put it frankly, these executives actually understand what creators are all about. And while they’re not the only ones (please hit me up with your tips on other smart marketers working with creators) they came recommended by their colleagues and peers.

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Joey Maestas

Head of Consumer Creators, Microsoft

Maestas oversees a five-person team that focuses on partnerships with lifestyle creators like Alix Earle, Olandria Carthen and Brigette Pheloung to bring to life Microsoft’s suite of products. They’ve become particularly good at identifying creators right on the cusp of blowing up, striking the deal with Earle before she began competing on Dancing With the Stars and partnering with fashionista Pheloung, behind the Acquired Style account, before her impending wedding attracted a surge of new followers.

Every deal is custom to the individual creator. Carthen, for example, pitched Denver-based Maestas on reaching Black women, and has since recorded a video about using Copilot to select an HBCU and appeared at the University of Houston as part of the Windows Campus Creator Tour series.

@olandria_carthen

Big decisions deserve clarity. Plan your next steps using Copilot @Microsoft Copilot @Microsoft Surface #CopilotPartner

♬ original sound – Olandria

Though Maestas works with an outside creator agency (Poster Child, whose founder James Brownstein I profiled last week), he remains hands-on with every deal. “I want to be on every single creator call,” he says. “It’s figuring out the best approach based on what makes them [unique] and their audience love their content. The minute we force something, it just becomes inauthentic.”

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Lucy Tate

Head of Influencer Marketing, General Motors

Nearly a decade at YouTube gave Tate a deep well of creator knowledge when she took over influencer marketing for GM in 2024. The Los Angeles-based Brit has been creative in striking deals with creators of all sizes to help tell the stories of the automotive company’s suite of brands. Take Questionable Garage, a YouTube car channel with 451,000 subscribers that teamed with GM to restore one of the last remaining cars from its first line of electric vehicles.

Last year, she tapped Good Good Golf and influencer agency Portal-A to develop the Shorty Award-winning YouTube franchise Great American Golf Adventure, which highlighted the GMC Sierra EV AT4 as a group of golfers traveled the Wyoming backcountry on an extreme golfing adventure. And in March, GM took over five Hollywood soundstages and gave more than 100 creators all the tools to shoot cinematic social videos featuring iconic cars like the GMC Hummer EV, Chevrolet Corvette and Cadillac Escalade IQ. The more than 200 pieces of content shot and released generated 50 million-plus views.

@kinigradeon

Who yall think is going to Find the Inheritance FIRST! #kinigradeon #gmmotors #gmcreatorlab

♬ original sound – Kinigra Deon

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Lauren Vacca

Executive Director of Influencer Marketing & Brand Partnerships, Tarte

The 11-year veteran of cosmetics company Tarte, Vacca was instrumental in shaping the modern-day influencer trip alongside CEO Maureen Kelly. Since 2015, Tarte has brought more than 30,000 creators into the fold to experience the brand firsthand, making #trippinwithtarte a popular Instagram hashtag and leading to many millions of TikTok views.

Recently, Tarte traveled with Love Island star JaNa Craig for a birthday girls trip in Turks & Caicos. The makeup brand also sponsored the after party for former Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Whitney Leavitt’s Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago and threw Jesse Solomon’s birthday celebration timed to the Summer House reunion.

@tartecosmetics

tarte x @Whitney Leavitt ‼️💋The most iconic night celebrating the incredibly talented Whitney AKA Roxie in her Chicago debut. A night full of glam, shape tapes, red lips & fabulous company. Officially in our Broadway era💅💜 #tartexwhitney #chicagoonbroadway

♬ original sound – tarte cosmetics

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Jessica Williams

CMO, OnePay

For the last three years, Williams earned a reputation as a true ally to creators in her role leading brand and partnerships at point-of-sale system Shopify. While there, the San Diego-based Visa alum helped onboard creator-led businesses like MrBeast’s Feastables and Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee onto the Shopify platform. She also teamed up with Ryan Trahan on brand integrations in his videos and launched creator pop-up shops in New York and Los Angeles. The big name partnerships were key to establishing Shopify as the platform of choice for creators, but she says some of her proudest work involved investing in emerging talent like Max Siegelman and Chelsea Parke and helping them grow their businesses.

Last month, Williams left Shopify to become CMO at mobile banking company OnePay, where she plans to continue to work with creators to tell stories about how they’re actually experiencing money — from building businesses to supporting families to launching side hustles to paying down debt — to build trust with consumers. It’s all part of her mission to prove that financial services can participate in the culture.

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TikTok Takes the Croisette

Is Larry Ellison getting a discount on the TikTok ads hanging outside the Carlton?

Ellison’s Oracle is a backer of the U.S. version of TikTok along with MGX Fund out of Abu Dhabi; he is also famously backing his son David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery — in partnership with a host of Mideast sovereign wealth funds, including that of Qatar, whose government owns the Carlton.

TikTok brought along a host of creators to discuss their work in the poolside garden at the hotel, where it has held court in previous years as well. The company is also providing a series of watch parties for World Cup soccer fans and is also showing ad spenders its TikTok Live Shopping effort each day with L’Oréal and Crocs among the brands involved.

“It’s fascinating to see the businesses and brands that are activating across the Croisette. It’s an indication of how industry spend is changing,” says Amy Williams, from Good-Loop, an ad platform that helps companies channel ad impressions into supporting nonprofits. “Five years ago the agencies were all on the beach, the biggest names in town, and now MiQ is at the Carlton, Stagwell is the biggest beach. It shows you how quickly our industry moves.” MiQ is a programmatic ad company while Stagwell is an ad holding company run by former White House pollster Mark Penn.

Major brands are challenging media companies for ad dollars in the growing retail media category, which sees online shopping platforms selling their own advertising. “DoorDash is a good example of changing shifts in spend, they probably wouldn’t have had a presence at Cannes five years ago, and now they have a gorgeous cafe — and I’ve seen a big one from Kroger too, Walmart and Target,” says Williams. “This is a good snapshot of where the money is flowing.” — CA

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Speaking of TikTok…The social video giant announced a suite of new ad products on Monday. Particularly relevant to influencer marketing execs, the app will now let brands customize their own creator networks to collaborate with talent on brand-relevant videos. Starbucks is among the first partners and will use the network to share campaign briefs with its network of employee-creators.

Amazon’s Wondery has inked an exclusive sales and distribution agreement with Kevin Durant’s Boardroom for its slate of podcasts and digital series. The deal, announced on stage at Amazon Port, includes plans for the Houston Rockets forward to live stream on Twitch.

Spotify and Coach announced a new partnership to connect with Gen Z over music during a panel with Troye Sivan.

NBC has launched Rock Studios to offer creative solutions across integrated sponsorships, creators and branded entertainment.