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Cannes Lions 2025: Elf Beauty’s recipe for co-creation and Unilever wants to make marketing sassy

Amelia Dimoldenberg and Alex Cooper celebrate YouTube's 20th anniversary at Cannes Lions 2025, Courtesy of Getty, France

Reese Witherspoon and Kory Marchisotto at Cannes Lions 2025, Courtesy of Getty, France

Esi Eggleston Bracey at Cannes Lions 2025, Courtesy of Getty, France

France – Day three of Cannes Lions 2025 featured panels on everything from Chinese social media to late-night tv and YouTube’s 20th anniversary. Among the standout sessions was a fireside chat with actress Reese Witherspoon, who introduced her new company Sunnie, set to produce content and events for Gen Z women.

Kory Marchisotto, chief marketing officer at Elf Beauty, joined Witherspoon to share how Elf fosters co-creation with its audience. Calling the brand’s method ‘zero distance’, Marchisotto explained: ‘I don’t wait for a report from some ivory tower. I get up every morning and watch TikToks to understand what our community is doing.’

When fans began repurposing Elf’s empty Halo Glow bottles to create oversized DIY lip glosses, Marchisotto and Elf’s chief commercial officer Jennie Laar joined a live-stream to make their own. Over 16,000 viewers tuned in, according to the brand. Within a week, Elf launched empty bottles for DIY gloss-making. ‘That’s what it means to co-create in real time,’ she said. ‘I want relationships with people, not reports.’

Later, at the Lumière Theatre, Unilever’s chief growth and marketing officer Esi Eggleston Bracey delivered a keynote entitled SASSY!! highlighting how the company aims to ‘build desire at scale’. She introduced SASSY, an acronym for Science, Aesthetics, Sensorial, Shared by others, and Young-spirited, the key pillars of Unilever’s trust- and emotion-driven brand strategy.

She cited recent campaigns like Vaseline Verified, where viral creator skincare hacks were tested and approved by dermatologists, earning a verified seal. Meanwhile, Unilever’s Dirt Is Good initiative celebrates stains as proof of lived experiences. Local versions tailored messaging: in the UK, Persil partnered with Arsenal Women to raise awareness about period stains; in Saudi Arabia, OMO collaborated with henna artists to discreetly embed period care information into traditional designs. Eggleston Bracey showcased how Unilever’s marketing approach reflects a broader shift from broadcasting to belonging.

Strategic opportunity

Evaluate your current pipeline, campaigns or product roadmap using the SASSY framework. Consider if it’s backed by research or results, visually appealing, experiential through touch, sound or smell, designed for organic sharing and conveys energy and boldness

Heineken 0.0 partners with F1 The Movie to champion moderation in the fast lane

Global – Heineken 0.0 has been named an official partner of F1 The Movie, a collaboration with Apple Original Films and Warner Bros. Launching ahead of the film’s global release on 25 June 2025, the campaign stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, and challenges outdated views about alcohol and socialising.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski and set within the film’s universe, the advertisement features Idris’ character reaching for a Heineken 0.0, prompting viewers to assume he’s driving, only for Pitt’s character to take the wheel. It supports the brand’s When Driving, Or Not message, highlighting how alcohol-free choices are part of modern social behaviour.

‘This partnership isn’t just about visibility,’ said Nabil Nasser, global head of Heineken. ‘It’s about making alcohol-free choices feel natural, accepted and relevant.’

As F1 continues its global cultural rise, Heineken 0.0 is positioning itself at the heart of the action. Exclusive content and behind-the-scenes footage will roll out across Heineken platforms in the coming weeks.

As previously analysed in our Sober Social Fix report, new spaces are emerging that combine sobriety and fun, creating opportunities for more meaningful social connection.

Heineken, Amsterdam

Strategic opportunity

Normalise alcohol-free choices in mainstream culture by embedding them into high-energy, prestige entertainment moments, helping consumers reframe sobriety as a socially confident, aspirational lifestyle choice – not a compromise

Stat: Gen Z turn to social media before search engines

HMD Barbie Phone, UK

US, UK, Australia – Social media platforms are fast becoming the primary gateway to online discovery for younger consumers, according to Sprout Social’s latest Q2 2025 Pulse Survey.

The survey of 2,280 social media users from the US, the UK and Australia found that 41% of Gen Z shoppers now turn to social media first when searching for information – surpassing traditional search engines (32%) and AI chat tools (11%). Platforms such as Facebook (81%), YouTube (71%) and Instagram (66%) remain the most used tools for search, with YouTube climbing to second place since the last survey.

The report highlights social media’s growing role in product discovery and e-commerce, with 90% of Gen Z and 84% of Millennials admitting that social media content influenced a purchase in the past six months. Beyond commerce, the platforms are also improving other aspects of life – 64% of Gen Z credit social media with enhancing their social lives, while 62% say it has improved their financial decision-making.

This shift towards social media platforms as discovery engines aligns with our Content Commerce report, which explores how discovery and commerce are increasingly converging in the same digital spaces.

Strategic opportunity

Develop platform-native, emotionally intelligent content that seamlessly moves audiences from inspiration to transaction within the same social media environment, capitalising on the collapse of the discovery-commerce divide