Just a few weeks ago, influencers took over the Cannes Film Festival. Now, they’re coming to Cannes Lions.

As the influencer marketing industry continues to grow—expected to be worth $21 billion this year, according to Influencer Marketing Hub—so too does its presence at the annual ad festival.

Take Captiv8, an influencer marketing platform that’s investing in its first full-on Cannes activation this year with a flight to the festival full of dozens of marketers and creators on a boutique airline.

Between its own activation, the villas, and the beach set-ups dedicated to influencer marketing this year, Meridith Rojas, chief brand officer at Captiv8, told us that “there are all these pretty strong signs to say that the influencer marketing piece is becoming much more main-character energy.”

Read the full story here.—KH

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is still more than a month away, but ad inventory is already 90% sold out, according to Fox Sports, which will broadcast this year’s game in the US.

Why the heightened advertiser interest? FIFA expanded the tournament from 24 to 32 teams, which means more games and more ad inventory, for one. The US Women’s National Team is also going for its third straight World Cup win. Plus, women’s sports across the board have been drawing more viewers lately.

The advertisers: So far, the World Cup’s slate of advertisers includes brands in the auto, financial services, insurance, telecom, and wireless industries.

• Verizon will sponsor the pregame.
• Volkswagen is sponsoring the halftime show.
• Google will sponsor the “bridge” show that takes place between games.

In another win for women’s soccer, ad revenue is up 50% since the 2019 World Cup, Mike Petruzzi, SVP of sales for Fox Sports, told Ad Age. Kantar estimated that the last tournament generated more than $85 million from ad sales, per Sportico.

The team: The USWNT is one of only two teams to have won multiple Women’s World Cup titles. This year’s roster hasn’t yet been announced, but it’s sure to include superstars of the sport, some of whom Fox is already touting in a new commercial promoting the World Cup. It features Crystal Dunn, Naomi Girma, Rose Lavelle, Alex Morgan, and Megan Rapinoe.

+1: This year’s World Cup is on pace to be the most-attended women’s sporting event ever. FIFA has sold more than 1 million tickets so far, according to Gianni Infantino, the organization’s president.—AM

Apple is the most valuable brand in the world for the second year in a row, according to Kantar’s BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands report, which evaluates brands based on financial data and brand equity research.

The report found that the top 100 most valuable brands had a combined value of $6.9 trillion this year, down 20% from last year’s overall index, but up 47% compared to 2019.

Tech titans: In aggregate, tech brands represented the largest share of value in the top 100.

• Google took the No. 2 spot with a brand valuation of nearly $578 billion.
• Microsoft followed at about $502 billion.
• Amazon was the fourth most valuable brand at approximately $469 billion.

Give them credit: Both Visa and Mastercard made the top-10 list. Some brands outside of the tech space did as well, including McDonald’s and Louis Vuitton.

Soda wars: Coca-Cola was the only beverage brand in the top 10. It increased its brand valuation by 8% year over year to earn top-10 status again after seven years, per Kantar.

But its main competitor’s value rose faster: PepsiCo saw a 17% increase in its brand valuation, up to almost $19 billion, to secure spot No. 91 on the list.

Keep reading here.—AM

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Write it down: Thinking about starting a blog for your brand? Here are some tips to consider.

Explainer: Digiday breaks down Apple’s “privacy manifests.”

With flying colors: The basics of brand colors, including best practices and how to choose them.

Stat: 150 years. That’s how long Heineken has been around. To celebrate, the brand has rolled out a campaign featuring people who can’t seem to spell or pronounce its name.

Read: “How MrBeast became the Willy Wonka of YouTube” (the New York Times)

Quote: “Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication.”—Twitter’s new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, in her first staff-wide memo

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• UM CEO Sasha Savic has left after five months
• How Superfly promotes one of America’s biggest music festivals, Outside Lands
• Pinterest is trialing clean room tech with Wayfair