CANNES, France — Content creators are flooding into the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity at scale, with themed programming taking over the sunny seaside promenade as online talent seeks brand partnerships with marketers who are pouring more media budgets into the strategy.

Expedia Group is among the companies doubling down on creator collaborations to better connect with Gen Z and further diversify beyond traditional media. Its namesake travel booking platform partnered with top streamer IShowSpeed in April for a global travel campaign, marking the streamer's first official travel sponsor. IShowSpeed, who has over 55 million YouTube subscribers and is known for his marathon livestreams — his first stream for Expedia lasted 12 hours — the campaign also included a mini-site where visitors could book experiences featured in the content.

"He has a significant impact on every economy he visits. It just goes to show that creators are a channel in and of themselves," Expedia Group Senior Vice President of Integrated Marketing and Creative Natalie Wills said of IShowSpeed (born Darren Jason Watkins Jr.). "He gets views that would make most media companies jealous."

Expedia Group, which also owns Vrbo and Hotels.com, has been trying to bring the brand closer to consumer culture through other types of partnerships, including a yearlong collaboration with toy maker Mattel that also factored into Expedia's Super Bowl ad. The animated creative showed Ken from the Barbie franchise taking his first solo trip, leveraging the convenience of Expedia's bundled services like flights, stays and car rentals. The Super Bowl work helped launch a bigger brand platform, "The One Place You Go to Go Places," cementing Expedia's position as a one-stop travel planning platform.

Marketing Dive caught up with Wills, who joined the company last year from rival Booking.com, at Cannes to hear her take on the value creators bring to Expedia Group brands and why Ken was the right choice for the Super Bowl push.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

MARKETING DIVE: How did the IShowSpeed partnership come about?

NATALIE WILLS: Actually, no travel provider had worked with him before, which is crazy. If you watch his streams, the content revolves around travel. He takes his entire audience along to experience a country's culture.

Especially in the age of AI, a lot of people crave authenticity. He is the embodiment of authenticity. He's very real. He just goes live and streams the whole thing, which is obviously a bit risky for many brands because nothing is edited. But we fully trusted him, and he did an amazing job.

When it comes to digital content, it doesn't have to be a 30-second ad. I was surprised by how captivated I was by a 24-hour livestream. It's so engaging because you don't know what's going to happen next.

When you say you're surprised no one had worked with him and that anything can happen in these streams, is it difficult for other brands to give up that control?

I think it might be for many brands, but there are already many brands that have worked with him. I just think it's crazy that he fits so well with the travel audience and no one jumped on it first. It is a big deal because you think, "Oh my god, is he going to curse?" He knows his audience best. We knew he would do well, and you do have to give up control.

That's true for all creator partnerships brands do today. We want to be authentic. Otherwise, it feels like we might as well have him do a paid ad. We want him to genuinely show how to use the product, how to actually experience the attractions bookable on Expedia. These are all bookable. That's why the mini-site was so important.

Expedia is IShowSpeed's first travel sponsor. Do you view this as a creator model, or does it depend on the partner?

Obviously, we activate across multiple marketing channels within Expedia Group depending on the brand, but creators are very important to our overall strategy. There's no better way to reach a specific consumer segment than through a creator.

In the creator economy, there's a bit of a backlash against heavily paid promotions. If you can show someone actually using the product and proving it works, that's 10 times more effective than someone saying "you should use this app." Creators are a big part of our strategy and will continue to be, from top-tier creators to micro-creators, depending on the country.

You've been busy with marketing overall this year, starting with Expedia's Super Bowl work.

We're very excited about the three brands at [Expedia Group]. They're all very distinct with great consumer platforms. Over the past year, we've essentially been developing these platforms and telling consumers why they should choose us.

The Super Bowl was just one part; there are many channels we activate across. Linear TV, connected TV, big partnerships are still very important in our media strategy because now people mainly watch live sports on linear TV. But where is everyone else? On social media and digital platforms. Who dominates on social media and digital platforms? Creators. You have to think about future media strategy in very non-traditional ways.

Regarding the Ken work, how do you think about embedding Expedia more broadly into culture and using partnerships to do that?

Similar to creators, partnerships are extremely important to us. We like to say we're like a "cultural chameleon." You'll see Expedia not just with one single creative for everyone, but with more diversity, more different channels, and very diverse media strategies across different countries.

For the Super Bowl, you have to do something unexpected. The ads that perform well are the ones that make people stop and watch. For Ken, he's never left Malibu. And Ken leaving Malibu, we thought, was a great opportunity to tell the story of the app's ease of use — because even if you're Ken, who's never left Malibu, Expedia is simple enough. Now look at him, he's in Tuscany.

We have a great brand partnership with Mattel. We've also worked with Mattel's Uno and Vrbo. The trend going forward is that you need to tell stories of real people, even if not through real people. People can relate to Ken, like the fear of booking travel or going out: "If Ken can do it, I can do it."

What are you focused on at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity?

Obviously everyone will say AI, so AI. I really love many of the AI tools we use in our creative work. There are many great platforms. We work with Google a lot. There's more of an ethical debate around what people want to see you do with AI. How do people feel about AI creators? Does it affect brand trust?

These are all questions the marketing industry is figuring out. The benefit of being at an event like this is hearing what questions people from different industries are being asked. I think all perspectives are valuable and help you make more informed decisions.