Lucy Smith Previews MIPCOM Highlights

Navigating the creator economy and branded-entertainment spaces are among the themes that MIPCOM Cannes is embracing with its agenda this year, Lucy Smith tells World Screen Weekly, while MIPJunior is set for a makeover.

MIPCOM Cannes returns October 13 to 16. Smith, on the heels of returning from Banff, StreamTV and Cannes Lions, caught up with World Screen Weekly to preview some of the highlights of this year’s event.

WS: Tell us about the overall thinking that’s guiding your strategy for MIPCOM Cannes this year.
SMITH: The creator economy is the major theme for MIPCOM Cannes 2025. That’s a broad term, but for MIPCOM, it means bridging the gap between digital native creators, digital studios, brands, agencies and platforms with mainstream media.

Of course, MIPCOM at its core is a global television and streaming content market. The creator economy focus is about opening up to new industry audiences wherever they are through new partnerships and collaborations.

In conversations I’ve had across different territories and business areas both in recent months and at Banff, StreamTV and Cannes Lions, our direction has resonated really well. It’s where the industry is, and what is needed is one global B2B market that brings these communities together. Plus, what is driving audience attention today is no longer only short-form, but there is more and more demand for longer-form content from audiences, and that is the sweet spot for MIPCOM.

WS: How are you bringing the creator economy to Cannes, given its impact on the overall business?
SMITH: By building on what makes MIPCOM unique and creating the right context and environment. For example, we’re expanding the remit of the MIP Innovation Lab and the MIP Producers Hub (which will become the MIP Creative Hub) and creating a series of new initiatives, including the MIP Creative Conference Programme that explores the explosive rise of creator-led and brand-funded studios, digital originals, new financing models and evolving rights strategies as well as curated matchmaking for these audiences.

WS: How did the BrandStorytelling alliance come about, and what can you tell us about the Cannes edition?
SMITH: Brand-funded content is becoming more and more important as the TV industry looks for new business models, and funding partners and brands look to engage with audiences in different ways. Our goal is to showcase examples of some of the best new brand-funded storytelling and to give participants case studies of projects going from conception to completion.

We have been great admirers of Rick Parkhill, the founder of BrandStorytelling, and his team for what they have built over a decade of summits at the Sundance Film Festival. They’re the foremost summit in this field, having developed a significant community and dynamism between global brands, platforms and creators each January in Utah. Our partnership marks the first international edition, running across Monday, October 13, and Tuesday, October 14.

The potential they recognized was how MIPCOM can deliver a unique meeting place for brands, brand studios and agencies to partner with the global television industry, who in turn can find new funding and co-production and distribution deals. Planning is well underway between our teams to stage a killer program—more news on that schedule to come soon!

WS: How are you positioning the always busy Producers Hub?
SMITH: We’re reformatting it to build on that energy and demand, so as I said earlier, it will become the MIP Creative Hub and bring in all areas of the creator economy, making it the central meeting point for creatives and creators in every sense.

Content financing, creation and production remain central to the offer, with the program focusing on bridging the gap between these areas and including creators, brands, agencies and platforms in the conversation. And in practical terms, we’ve reconfigured the whole beachside area to accommodate more meeting spaces alongside the conference stage.

WS: How are you expecting attendance to shape up?
SMITH: Strong, global and increasingly representative of the broader industry. Every major global media brand and territory will again be represented in Cannes. And the makeup of that attendance is evolving. Last year, over 70 companies exhibited for the first time, the majority from the digital content ecosystem, AI and tech, and we’re expecting these areas to grow more this year.

And, of course, central to our efforts, as ever, are buyers. Last year, we welcomed over 3,200, and we are again focused on ensuring the quantity, quality and international breadth of those investing in content in all ways and in all forms. So, funding partners, investors and brands, as well as commissioning and acquisition executives. Again, we are mirroring the evolving international market.

WS: What have you been hearing from your clients about what their needs are in this climate?
SMITH: Leaning into the creator economy comes directly from conversations with studios and producers. Our biggest television clients are actively working with digital creators and embracing YouTube and other platforms to expand distribution, to have more cultural impact and especially to reach younger audiences.

MIPCOM needs to be universal, a global marketplace where you can do it all and meet everyone across the television and digital landscape. By focusing on evolving models, methods and partnerships, and crucially to deliver everything for everyone in one place.

For many digital entrepreneurs, television is still the North Star. Just look at MrBeast and his audience on Prime Video. Creators are also increasingly major production companies in their own right with their own studios and IP. As they grow larger and expand internationally, they look to the biggest TV studios worldwide for new partnerships.

Also, what is being constantly reaffirmed is that face-to-face has never been so important. People do business with people. When you are figuring it out, you need to hear more voices, meet with more potential partners, and do it in person. Where else but MIPCOM in Cannes to bring together television, brands and digital creators on a global dealmaking level.

WS: What can you tell us about plans for MIPJunior this year?
SMITH: MIPJunior is having a makeover. We’re evolving and broadening MIPJunior to better serve the global kids’ community. The kids’ sector is where the industry transformation is being felt most strongly; everything has changed. And MIPJunior needs to be all about finding new business models and how to reach kids wherever they are interacting with content today.

That means reformatting the offer. MIPJunior continues to run across the weekend before MIPCOM, and our goal is to make it more accessible and help companies join the dots between attention, creator and experience economies through the worlds of programming, social, gaming, events and licensing.

We’re also literally bringing MIPJunior closer to MIPCOM, staging the program in the Debussy area of the Palais and making the adjacent Gare Maritime the destination for a whole new dedicated matchmaking program.

WS: What else can you tell us about the highlights for October?
SMITH: Our sole focus is to again deliver the annual largest and most impactful global market that the industry expects, needs and deserves. One that has the creator economy at its heart, that reflects the overall pace and opportunities coming from the changing industry, and that, with over 10,000 industry executives from over 100 countries in one place, is simply unmissable!

And in line with this, we also have a major partnership that we’ll be announcing very soon that will resonate with everyone! Exciting times ahead, and the countdown is underway.