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    Yahoo + Amplify reinvent what exploration feels like - built for the curious.

    Challenge

    Yahoo returned to Cannes Lions in 2026 riding the momentum of Motel Yahoo, its breakout 2025 activation that put the brand "back on the map." The bar was set and so was the next problem to solve. Yahoo needed Cannes to do double duty: keep the brand feeling culturally relevant to a notoriously over-scheduled, over-stimulated delegate audience, while also introducing Yahoo Scout, its new AI-powered answer engine, to a room full of advertisers who make big-budget bets in a single week. Yahoo's own team was direct about what winning looks like on the Croisette, where every beach has its own build and its own party: staying part of the constant buzz.

    Insight + Strategy

    The best way to introduce an "answer engine" isn't to explain it, it's to embody the feeling it's built on: curiosity.

    Amplify anchored the activation in the spirit of exploration itself, tapping into the same nostalgia and sense of discovery that defined the early internet Yahoo helped build, and pairing it with the pioneering, curious spirit of legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau. The idea: give delegates a destination built for the chronically curious, where every corner rewarded exploration and let Yahoo Scout live inside that spirit rather than on top of it.

    Solution

    Amplify developed the full creative concept, environmental design, and on-site programming for the Yahoo Explorers Society, transforming La Plage du Martinez into a nautical-inspired destination for discovery, connection, and hospitality.

    Porthole-inspired architecture, marine-themed artwork, archival exploration photography, vintage magazines, and quotes from history's great explorers set the scene. At the center of it all: a more than 20-foot purple submarine, serving as both landmark and functioning bar, dispensing smoothies and coffee by day, rosé by afternoon, before making its own journey down the Croisette to the Palais des Festivals, where it became a mobile moment for content capture, swag, and giveaways.

      • 625

        strategic meetings & engagements

      • 4.2K

        clients & delegates check-ins for programming and events

      • 130

        press mentions

      • 83K+

        social impressions

      • 1.3K+

        guests at Tiesto concert

    Programming brought Yahoo's brand portfolio to life through experience rather than pitch:

    • The Mindful Morning with Yahoo Mail- guided meditation and journaling, paired with iced coffee and smoothies.
    • The Power Pitch with Yahoo Finance- rapid-fire pitch coaching with Executive Editor Brian Sozzi, recorded for guests to take home.
    • La Fête du Foot with Yahoo Sports - a soccer-inspired evening of culture and connection.
    • The Engine Room with Yahoo DSP and Yahoo Ads - a bar built around Yahoo's three core data ingredients (Mail, Search, Content), serving coffee, juice shots, and grab-and-go bites, each crafted from three key ingredients as a direct, playful nod to how Yahoo's ecosystem works.
    • The Loading Bar and The Nav Bar -internet-nostalgia-themed rest stops for guests to recharge between meetings.

    Seven waterfront meeting pods, named after famous exploration vessels, anchored the business side of the week, giving Yahoo's sales and partnerships

    Brand Experience Agency of the Decade