Each year, the Cannes Film Festival makes its mark as a global showcase for cinema, glamour, superstar pizzazz... and, more recently, influencer marketing. In 2025, brands, influencers and social platforms capitalised on the not-to-be-missed event to generate massive visibility and engagement. But beyond the glitz, what was the impact on hard data?
Using data from Kolsquare, following is a complete breakdown of the impact of influencer marketing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, from key indicators such as EMV, views, engagement rates and creator profiles. What are the main lessons for brands? Which influencers landed the biggest impact? Take a deep dive in the stats.
Key takeaways
Quantifying the impact of influencer marketing at Cannes 2025
The reference period (March to May 2025) around the Cannes Festival was marked by a spectacular rise in performance indicators linked to @festivaldecannes on Instagram.
1. Record Earned Media Value: €110.74M
Earned Media Value (EMV) reached an impressive level, with €110.74M generated, up +3.88% on the same period last year. The peak was reached on April 23, with €107.82M alone, a month before the opening ceremony and evidence of campaigns being launched upstream to maximise the build-up.
2. A colossal reach: 2.56 billion impressions
Content published with the @festivaldecannes tag generated an estimated 2.56 billion impressions on Instagram, representing growth of +3.35%. Once again, April 23 was the busiest day, with almost 2.5 billion impressions alone. The visibility generated during this short period is equivalent to several weeks' worth of traditional media campaigns for some brands.
3. Above-average engagement
With an average engagement rate of 3.08%, the @festivaldecannes mention on Instagram outperformed usual industry standards for large-scale events, which often come in at around 1% to 2%. The peak on April 23 reached 3.15%, a sign that the content was not only massively viewed, but also appreciated, shared and commented on.
4. A varied ecosystem of influencers
A total of 4,607 KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) mentioned @festivaldecannes during the analysis period, an increase of +1.02%. They include :
This balanced distribution reflects a 360° amplification strategy, combining mass visibility delivered by mega-KOLs and niche engagement generated by micro- and nano-influencers.
5. An explosion of content in the run-up to the festival
Finally, 18,104 pieces of content mentioned @festivaldecannes, with a notable jump around April 23, confirming the strategic launch of activations well before the red carpet was laid. This anticipation reflects the growing maturity of influencer activations around major events.
2025 vs. previous years: a smaller... but more strategic?
Looking at the Kolsquare data for the last three editions of the Cannes Film Festival, 2025 shows a mixed performance. Although the impact remains significant, some key indicators are down compared to 2024.
1. A fall in EMV and impressions compared with 2024
These declines can be explained by more targeted activations and/or a reduction in brand investments, and mark a significant break with the growth — +51% EMV year-on year — seen from 2023 and 2024.
2. A lower but stable engagement rate
2024 appears to be an outlier, with an exceptionally high level of engagement (+6%), likely linked to large activations, highly viral campaigns or a strong post-pandemic catch-up effect. In comparison, the 2025 engagement rate returns to a more consistent level, similar to 2023. It does, however, reflect a real and qualitative level of engagement, which is all the more interesting given that it is achieved with less content published.
3. Less content published... but a more targeted approach?
The decline compared to 2024 is evident (-16.4%), but more content was published in 2025 than 2023. The lower volume may reflect a rationalisation of campaigns, linked to a desire to optimise performance rather than multiplying publications with low added value.
4. Slight fall in the number of KOLs activated
The same is true here: there has been a moderate reduction in the volume of influencers activated compared to 2024 (-5.4%), while remaining higher than in 2023. This reinforces the idea of a more refined selection of talent, favouring relevance over quantity.
Looking at these figures, the Cannes Festival 2025 marks a turning point: fewer massive activations than in 2024, but a more targeted approach, based on a rigorous selection of KOLs and more strategic management of the online presence. Engagement remains solid and visibility is strong. Influencer marketing confirms its relevance as an agile and measurable lever, in contrast to traditional media campaigns that are often more costly and more difficult to track and measure.
Behind the impressive figures for influencer marketing at Cannes 2025 lies a reality: the power of content creators to generate authentic engagement, embody brand values and connect with global audiences. Here are four French and international influencers who demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy in 2025.
With 62.9 million subscribers, Paul Pogba's following extends far beyond football. He has become a cultural icon, admired as much for his charisma as for his outspokenness. At Cannes 2025, he shared an intimate moment with his wife during his first appearance at the festival, showing an engaging, family-oriented side to his personality. His Instagram post generated 245.09K engagements and an estimated €874,06K EMV.
Why is it strategic? Pogba represents the successful hybrid of sport, luxury and lifestyle. His presence adds an accessible dimension, while maintaining prestige.
Toulouse-based content creator Tuvok12 (Tuvok Wassenberg) has become a benchmark for viral short videos, notably on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. With playful videos based around street sports and spontaneous interaction, he has generated millions of views thanks to his accessible, rhythmic and universal tone. On Instagram, he has over 633,000 followers.
For Cannes 2025, he shared two pieces of content:
Why is it strategic? Tuvok12 embodies the YouTube-first generation, creative and ultra-viral, capable of capturing a young, mobile audience addicted to short formats. That a creator like Tuvok12 is being activated at Cannes demonstrates the festival's (and the brands') desire to broaden their audiences beyond the traditional circles of luxury and cinema.
Model, entrepreneur and founder of the @praktibeauty brand, Pritika Swarup (1.25M followers) is the archetypal influential 360° profile: she combines aesthetics, commitment, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Represented by Creative Artists Agency, she shared four stories from her experience at Cannes, with €2,59K EMV.
Why is it strategic? She is the embodiment of a new kind of international female leadership, committed to and aligned with beauty brands that want to be associated with credible talents and brand founders.
German fashion and beauty influencer Khelan Hajo (776K subscribers) is renowned for her minimalist, elegant and international aesthetic. For Cannes 2025, she produced five pieces of content, including two highly polished reels of her red carpet walk and three backstage stories.
Why is it strategic? Hajo reaches a premium German-speaking audience that is often difficult to capture, and enables brands to associate themselves with a high-end visual narrative in tune with Cannes standards.
These examples show that the Cannes Film Festival 2025 is no longer just about celebrity star power: it has become a lever for global storytelling, where sport, fashion, beauty, and entrepreneurship intermingle. Influencers, whether they are star athletes, brand founders or lifestyle designers, are now image generators in their own right, capable of promoting the festival to ultra-targeted audiences, from the French public to international communities.
Over and above the natural influence of the Festival, the historic sponsor brands are activating powerful influence strategies to amplify their visibility, embody their values and connect with new audiences. Here we focus on Dessange, BMW and Chopard, three sponsors who successfully combined content creation, image storytelling and performance stats.
With 48 pieces of Instagram content (including 22 Reels) published during Cannes 2025, Dessange opted for a qualitative visibility strategy focusing on beauty, routines and looks of the day. The content ranged from backstage beauty looks to presentations of hair styles and personal moments.
Average engagement: 747.08 interactions per content
Among the talent activated were Amandine Petit (former Miss France), Mademoiselle Soph, @chloelecareux and @maroussialab. Mademoiselle Soph's high-performing post generated €4,09K EMV and 2,42K engagements, with an engagement rate of 5.05%.
This selection of ambassadors reflects Dessange's desire to celebrate natural, accessible and embodied beauty. By opting for content with an intimate tone and familiar faces, the brand maintains a close relationship with its audience while asserting its role as beauty expert in exceptional moments.
BMW activated 11 influencers around Cannes 2025, using a visual and cinematic approach. The KOLs documented red carpet arrivals, BMW fleet journeys and behind-the-scenes event logistics.
Among them, Justin Personnaz created 21 pieces of content, capturing the comings and goings of celebrities. Bilal Zagaoui, for his part, proposed an immersive Reel produced as a mini-film, with 409 engagements and €705.23 in EMV, for an audience of 79.1K subscribers.
Other talents such as Egyptian actress Amina Khalil (4.99M subscribers) contributed to the brand's image with highly engaging posts. Her content on the BMW experience generated 36.5K engagements and €87,52K EMV.
BMW's strategy here was to showcase luxury in motion, where the car becomes both a symbol of prestige and a narrative tool. The content produced highlights innovation, elegance and the care given to each moment, while associating the brand with a cosmopolitan audience of celebrities and creative talents.
BMW affirme ici une stratégie de mise en scène du luxe en mouvement, où la voiture devient à la fois symbole de prestige et outil narratif. Le contenu produit met en valeur l’innovation, l’élégance et le soin apporté à chaque moment, tout en associant la marque à une audience cosmopolite, entre célébrités et talents créatifs.
As a long-standing sponsor of the Cannes Film Festival, Chopard once again implemented an international influence strategy, activating 279 KOLs during the festival. The storytelling highlighted fine jewellery pieces through the most prominent media personalities, embodying the elegance and power of luxury on the red carpet.
Brazilian footballer Marcelo (68.8 million subscribers), a world-renowned figure beyond the pitch, was one of the brand's most powerful ambassadors. At Cannes, he shared four pieces of content, including one particularly eye-catching post where he posed with his girlfriend in a carefully staged shot. This post achieved 32.22K engagements and an estimated €812,09K EMV, while his cumulative stories achieved €142,32K EMV.
Brazilian actress Marina Ruy Barbosa (42 million followers), who has a huge following in Latin America and Europe, created 12 pieces of content dedicated to her Chopard beauty routines. In one post, she wrote "French kiss🖤 bonjour cannes - opening my favourite season of the year!", sharing the moment she walked up the famous red carpet stairs. This content alone generated 10.23K engagements and €505K EMV, illustrating the power of desire the brand arouses in the film and lifestyle spheres.
Another star profile is Indonesian influencer Raline Shah (10M subscribers), who embodies a new generation of digital muses combining humour, glamour and self-mockery. In a stylish post, she wrote: "Do I take myself seriously? Do I take myself seriously? Never.", while paying tribute to Chopard among the brands that dressed her. This quirky, spontaneous content, which was also visually of high quality, attracted 133,7K engagements and €244,66K EMV.
Through these activities, Chopard is asserting a strategy of influence based on prestige, cross-disciplinary universes (cinema, sport, pop culture) and exceptional visual aesthetics. The brand does more than simply dress the stars: it draws on their narrative power to embody its values of refinement, authenticity and global influence.
The Cannes Festival, with its international aura, is a formidable stage for brands and content creators. But this exceptional exposure also acts as an amplifier of media and social pressures, where every outfit, every appearance, every word can become the subject of public debate.
In 2025, French mega-influencer Léna Mahfouf (Léna Situations) once again experienced just that. Attending the Chopard event in a flowing white dress by The Row, she received a barrage of racist abuse on social media from the public and political figures. Her outfit, interpreted as a religious symbol, sparked off a controversy combining identity attacks, sexism and misinformation. Some Internet users even started pregnancy rumours. Léna responded calmly and lucidly on Instagram, denouncing the intense criticisms directed at women, and expressing solidarity with those who are verbally judged and abused but do not have access to a community who rise to their defense.
Far from an isolated example, the situation raises the question of how the public image of an influencer is exploited, and how the brand partners can find themselves indirectly exposed. For influencer marketing professionals, this raises a number of issues:
What does this say about Cannes today? That the Festival is much more than a glamorous showcase: it has become an arena of image and narrative, where the tension between freedom, representation and perception is also played out. For brands, it's essential to carefully and strategically plan activations around profiles that convey their values, while providing a framework of support if the exposure turns to attack.
Every year, Cannes attracts hundreds of influencers from all walks of life. There are very specific strategic reasons for this, for both brands and content creators.
With over 4,600 KOLs activated in 2025, Cannes has confirmed its status as a strategic choice for influencer marketers. It's no longer just a film festival, but a hybrid ecosystem where image, content and performance intersect on a massive scale.
The 2025 edition of the Cannes Film Festival once again confirms that the event goes far beyond the cinema to become a veritable platform for brand storytelling on a global scale. While performance indicators are slightly down on 2024, the impact of influencer marketing remains undeniable, driven by better-targeted campaigns, qualitative activations and profiles with powerful, diversified audiences.
Brand partners and content creators have demonstrated their ability to capitalise on the emotional and visual potential of Cannes to generate visibility, engagement and, above all, meaning. From sporting figures like Paul Pogba, to ultra-viral creators like Tuvok12, and sophisticated activations by Chopard or BMW, each activation reveals a strategic aspect of influence today.
But Cannes is also an indicator of social tension. The Léna Mahfouf affair is a reminder that media exposure can also backfire on talent, and that the responsibility of brands goes beyond branding: it now includes protecting the voices of their partners.
For influence professionals, this 2025 edition is full of lessons: the figures count, but editorial consistency, the ability to embody values and anticipation of reputational issues are essential pillars for making the most of such closely scrutinised events.
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.
As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.
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