Cannes 2026 reflections: The year audio roared back

Opinion

Audio made its presence felt at this year’s Cannes Lions. Radiocentre CEO Matt Payton reflects on the festival and the latest findings from its audio effectiveness research.

Cannes Lions is a lot. Inspiring, exciting, and ultimately exhausting. It also acts as a reminder of why many of us got into media and advertising in the first place. Creativity and innovation, of course. But also connecting with people, places and new ideas.

In some ways, Cannes in 2026 was a microcosm of the ad industry as it has become. Tech platforms and social media command physical spaces, just as they have come to dominate advertisers’ media budgets.

However, this year something more interesting also happened. Look closely, and there were microphones everywhere, with content creators recording podcasts and audio summaries. The presence of US audio businesses like iHeartMedia, SiriusXM and Sounds Profitable was hard to miss. While Bauer Media and Goalhanger were flying the flag for UK audio.

This felt indicative of a broader sense that content media businesses are evolving and stepping up. Self-confident and ready to fight back, rather than cede the ground any further to tech companies with deep pockets and questionable business practices.

Yet it is difficult to do this and make a meaningful impact on behalf of a single media channel, such as audio. Particularly if you represent a single (non-US) market like the UK. But this year marked a concerted effort to seek to make an impact, despite these challenges.

For audio, this shift in approach was demonstrated graphically by an unprecedented collaboration between the audio industries in the UK, Ireland, Australia and the US. Coming together with Professor Mark Ritson to present global evidence that proves audio’s impact in the marketing mix – driving profit, trust and brand outcomes.

Ritson, along with Andrew Tindall from System 1, unveiled a landmark global study drawing on the Effie x System1 global Databank of 1,262 campaigns spanning 17 years to prove how commercial audio lifts campaign performance.

The results came as no surprise to the audio evangelists among us. But having this new evidence presented in Cannes by leading marketing effectiveness experts to a packed audience of marketers, agency leaders and media networks was a real highlight. Out of his dozens of engagements at the festival, the session was even selected by Professor Ritson himself as his pick of the week.

While we expected to see campaigns with audio outperform those without, this new analysis suggests its contribution is disproportionate across all the main commercial levers. For example, audio increased campaign effectiveness by an average of:

+75% on profit

+81% on trust

+81% on price insensitivity

+19% on customer acquisition

What’s more, the results for the UK campaigns exceeded the average outcome scores in other markets.

The findings also complement evidence from Radiocentre’s own High Gain Audio report. This found that audio amplifies advertising impact and drives business results, delivering strong ROI and outperforming much of the wider media mix, including pure-play digital platforms.

It verifies the positive effects of both broadcast radio and digital audio on enhancing campaign outcomes, and underpins the case for a greater share of media budgets (with ROI maximised when audio is allocated 25% of campaign spend).

So when the data is this compelling, it’s clear there is a strong case for advertisers to revisit audio and its true impact. And perhaps reconsider over-investing in tech platforms with attention-grabbing venues or events on the Croisette, but with weaker evidence of effectiveness.

Audio has been shown to drive trust and profitability in multiple markets. Smart brands are already taking notice and investing more in audio, a medium that Ritson described as “an unfair advantage hiding in plain sight”.

There was no doubt that audio roared back at Cannes in 2026. Backed up by global collaboration and groundbreaking new evidence. It might have been overwhelming, but for this reason alone it certainly felt like a week well spent.

Matt Payton is CEO at Radiocentre