TikTok is where culture starts, shapes, and spreads. At this year's Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, TikTok is celebrating the brands and creators leading the charge in tapping into trends and driving real-world impact.

The TikTok community has changed the way people and businesses are discovered and opened doors so that everyone on TikTok can be empowered to define success on their own terms. TikTok continues to spark inspiration and introduce the community to new trends and experiences – 81% of video platform users say TikTok helps them discover new topics they didn't know they liked. (1) From e.l.f. to Gap, brands this year on TikTok have gone beyond a viral moment and led trends far beyond the For You Page.

Sofia Hernandez, Global Head of Business Marketing and Commercial Partnerships, at TikTok said: "From igniting cucumber shortages to bringing a local coffee shop to the national spotlight, brands and creators on TikTok aren’t just reacting to culture: they’re creating it. This new wave of trend setting and creativity we're seeing is at the heart of what we call the Only on TikTok effect. We want to encourage more brands to be brave and lead with creativity to make an impact, on the For You page and beyond."

At Cannes this year, we'll unpack the Only on TikTok effect and help marketers engage audiences - from cultural moments to niche interests.

Introducing the 2025 MVPs of POV

TikTok has become the home for search, inspiration, and discovery, driven by the diverse POVs and perspectives we see in our For You feeds every day.

Discovery doesn't happen on its own. This year at Cannes Lions, we're proud to unveil the 2025 MVPs of POV: a recognition of the marketing leaders from across the globe who are building brand content that demands to be discovered.

The MVPs of POV are the standout marketers who are designing for this new era of discovery. These are the leaders behind content that isn’t just watched. It’s searched for, shared, and a driver of inspiration.

Learn more about the MVPs of POV and the marketers who are building content for what's next.

TikTok Creators @ Cannes Lions

From panels across the Croisette to meetings with clients and other exclusive events, creators will experience Cannes Lions first-hand and will be able to share behind-the-scenes content with their communities. TikTok is inviting more than 20 creators from around the world to attend the festival, taking over the garden at the iconic Carlton hotel to foster engagement between these creators, partners, and brands. Throughout the week, creators will also participate in a variety of panels that will touch on how they've built careers by bringing their authentic selves to TikTok — including a discussion on Wednesday, June 18 at 10:45am at the Terrace Stage featuring @keith_lee125 and @logagm, who will share how their TikTok content has made a wider impact on the food industry. For more information on creator sessions and to see where creators will be speaking throughout the week, be sure to check out our event schedule at https://tiktokatcannes.com.

New creative tools to accelerate impactful TikTok campaigns

At TikTok, we’re making creativity simple, so global brands to small businesses can unlock their creative potential. This week at Cannes Lions, we’re unveiling updates to TikTok Symphony, our suite of generative AI tools designed to streamline creative production and spark bold new ideas. These new updates will make scaling on TikTok faster, easier and more efficient. With Symphony Image-to-Video, we’re bringing static images to life to help unlock new creative formats, generate multiple variations of existing on-brand content or bring a full product catalogue to life. Next, with Symphony Text-to-Video, all it takes is short text prompt to bring an idea to life enabling advertisers to rapidly generate, test, and iterate on a range of creative executions or customize content at scale. Finally, Symphony Showcase Products puts advertisers' products front-and-center by showcasing them with digital avatars to give marketers a new way to feature a product in TikTok-first creative content.

Andy Yang, Global Head of Creative and Brand Products, said: "We’re entering a new era of creativity, one where ideas move at the speed of culture, and where AI doesn’t replace imagination but rather accelerates it. With TikTok Symphony, we’re empowering a global community of marketers, brands, and creators to tell stories that resonate, scale, and drive impact on TikTok. By blending cutting-edge technology with human creativity, we’re building a new creative standard, one that’s more accessible, more agile, and more inspiring than ever before."

For more on the latest TikTok Symphony updates, including partnerships that bring the power of Symphony to the tools marketers use today, check out our recent newsroom post.

Partnership with Scope3 to help clients measure and reduce ad campaign emissions

TikTok has also recently announced we have partnered with Scope3, the third-party carbon emission measurement platform, to provide advertising clients with a new way to transparently measure the carbon emissions associated with their ad campaigns on TikTok. This new partnership will help brands track their environmental impact and support their wider efforts to reduce carbon emissions across their digital supply chains, something that is as important to many of our partners as it is to us.

Only on TikTok

TikTok is a world unlike any other where culture moves fast, and creativity fuels real-world impact. It turns culture into measurable business impact, faster and bigger than anyone else. Globally, TikTok helps support SMEs and household brands alike, unlocking real-world opportunities to reach new and growing communities. What happens on TikTok doesn't stay on TikTok, but travels far beyond the platform. In the US, TikTok has become indispensable for businesses of all sizes, with 7.5 million businesses on the platform supporting over 28 million workers. With more than 175 million active users across Europe, businesses depend on TikTok every day to reach customers, build brands, and drive commercial success.

TikTok’s impact extends beyond marketing. In the U.S. alone, 4.7 million jobs benefit from TikTok’s ecosystem, from content creators to sales, customer engagement, and product development teams, illustrating how creativity, community, and commerce converge on the platform.

TikTok Presents In The Mix

TikTok is the world's best platform for music discovery, where new artists emerge, and the place for artists to engage with global fans. This year, TikTok will close off Cannes Lions with a beachside takeover, where creativity kicks back to the sounds of the hottest artists on TikTok.

TikTok Presents In The Mix, is an intimate music showcase at Inkwell Beach featuring headliner Timbaland,  R&B singer Ravyn Lenae, whose soulful single 'Love Me Not' is trending on the platform, DJ Trauma, and WizTheMc, the independent South African-German rapper and songwriter who is having a massive breakthrough moment thanks to his Amapiano-laced anthem, 'Show Me Love' featuring Bees & Honey finding success through TikTok, with many fans already crowning the track as the "song of the summer."

Check out our immersive space at the Carlton Hotel during the Cannes Lions festival – open to the public from Monday, June 16th – Friday, June 20th.

(1) Source: TikTok Marketing Science, Business Impact Through Relevance, US, UK, AU, conducted by WARC, August 2024.

*Source: TikTok Marketing Science Global TikTok as a Discovery Engine Study 2023, conducted by Material