LIONS B2B Summit Programme

8:30 to 9:20 Cannes Lions Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

Kickstart your B2B Summit experience with breakfast and the chance to connect with fellow Chief Marketing Officers. Catch up with old acquaintances and meet new people to expand your network.

9:20 to 09:50 Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

Paul Coxhill, Chief Operating Officer of LIONS and President of LIONS Intelligence, will launch our summit with a welcome address and set the stage for strategic thinking.

Then, you'll immediately dive into simultaneous roundtable discussions to engage in candid, unfiltered peer-to-peer conversations on the most pressing B2B challenges and emerging trends to uncover practical solutions and fresh perspectives.

Join one of the moderated discussions or embark on self-guided debate at your table on the urgent challenges. Structure:

• Share personal experiences around specific B2B marketing challenges
• Discuss innovative approaches to address these challenges
• Develop one actionable recommendation that most organisations aren't considering yet
• Offer bold predictions on how B2B marketing will evolve in the next 18 months

Moderated discussions include:

How to Differentiate Your Brand - Lisa Maxwell, Vice President of B2B Marketing, Mastercard

How to Make the Most of the Rise of the B2B Creators? - Elfried Samba, CEO & Co-founder - Butterfly 3ffect

We will finish by sharing key insights from the discussions.

10:00 to 10:10 Cannes Lions Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

Jessica Jensen, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, LinkedIn, will share opening remarks on the state of B2B to set the scene for a day packed with stimulating conversations and strategic takeaways.

10:10 to 10:30 Cannes Lions Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

What elevates B2B creative from good to excellent?

Join this talk for an exclusive look into the trends and insights emerging from the shortlisted campaigns for the Creative B2B Lions Awards.

Gain first-hand knowledge as our speakers dissect the standout work that will define the benchmark for B2B creativity in the year ahead. Discover the crucial elements that captured their attention, from ground-breaking creative ideas and strategic brilliance to flawless execution and impactful results.

Questions this session will answer:

• What key insights can we glean from this year's body of shortlisted B2B work?
• What trends and themes will shape the year ahead?
• What are the key takeaways from the work that fearlessly pushed creative this year?

10:30 to 11:00 FCB New York and Spotify Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

Everyone knows Spotify. But not everyone knows it as an ad platform. How do you get marketers to see the full value of a brand they already think they know? Spotify and FCB New York chose a path as unconventional as the Spotify brand itself - creating smart, calculated, and unexpected work that reached the right people in ways they'd actually feel.

This session breaks down the creative and strategic decisions behind award-winning campaigns like A Song for Every CMO and Spreadbeats, and shows how a client-agency relationship built on trust unlocked ideas that punched far above their weight. Hear how they broke from the traditional playbook and get fresh ideas on how to build a brand and creative strategy rooted in your brand's DNA.

Questions this session answer:

• How do you build brand meaning and shift perceptions with audiences who already think they know you?
• Which old formulas are holding marketers back and what questions should you ask to find your own path that fits your brand?
• How can brand and agency partnerships collaborate differently to unlock smarter, more effective creative solutions?

11:00 to 11:30 Stein Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

As long as brand in B2B remains stuck in the world of color ways, font families, home pages, and, yes, our beloved brand manifestos, B2B marketing will fall short of its immense potential to drive growth. But now, there’s a new B2B brand manifesto – a proclamation of the power of brand reframed to deliver greater commercial effect and genuine competitive advantage. To deeply influence the entirety of the customer journey and the totality of today’s buying groups. To build the collective confidence to turn consideration into closed-won. Join Jean English, CMO of CoreWeave, Abhinav Kumar, Global CMO of TCS, and Tom Stein, Chairman of Stein, as they address brand’s ability to drive buyability.

Questions this session will answer:

• What has the role of brand in B2B been – and what does it need to be for B2B enterprises to realise their full value?
• How can the new mental model of “buyability” move brands past consideration to “closed-won?
• Why are brand and demand, when left as silos, damaging to brand and an impediment to growth?

12:00 to 12:30 LinkedIn Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

12:30 to 13:00 Transmission Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

In B2B, the buyer journey doesn’t follow a linear path — it loops, jumps and rewrites itself. With large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven research changing how decisions are made, the mid-funnel (consideration stage) has become the new marketing battleground. Static nurture tracks and generic gated content no longer cut it. To win, brands must show up smarter, stay relevant longer, be hyper-personalised, and deliver trust at every unpredictable turn. All without increasing time to market and budget needs.

This session explores how AI is reshaping mid-funnel engagement — not just with automation, but with true personalisation at scale. Learn how leading B2B marketers are building dual-track strategies that meet both human and AI research behaviours, while using data to reveal unseen content gaps and emerging audience needs. You’ll discover how to scale relevance without sacrificing creativity or consistency.

Most importantly, we’ll show how brand remains the one constant in a chaotic decision journey — the emotional shortcut buyers seek when logic stalls. Expect real-world examples, practical frameworks, and bold perspectives on how to use AI to fuel your content engine and your brand.

Questions this session will answer:

• How is AI — and especially LLMs — reshaping the B2B mid-funnel?
• How can marketers structure content and strategy to be discovered by LLMs during the buying journey?
• What does it take to build or rebuild trust in an AI-mediated buying journey?

13:00 to 14:00 Location: LIONS B2B Summit, Carlton Cannes, a Regent Hotel

Conclude your B2B Summit experience with a catered lunch, offering one last opportunity to connect and continue conversations with fellow senior marketers.