What The Harris Poll, LLC. learned at Cannes Lions 2026. Article. The hottest June on record, 13,000 people from more than 90 countries, one Croisette, and five days that told The Harris Poll, LLC. what brands should focus on next. July 13, 2026 Key takeaways. * Saying "AI" can cost you the sale. 78% of consumers say AI makes ads feel less authentic, and 63% are less likely to buy from brands that lean on it. Lead with substance, not the buzzword. * Sport is infrastructure, not sponsorship. Fandom now runs from the stadium to the second screen to the checkout. The brands treating it as one continuous relationship will own the next cycle. * In-person still earns the trust digital can't buy. 71% of consumers say physical experiences deepen their connection to a brand. Showing up face to face is still where business moves. * A clear point of view is the scarce asset. When anyone can generate a campaign in minutes, conviction is the differentiator. Brands that knew who they were left Cannes with more ways to say it. Cannes Lions has become the place the marketing world goes to seek clarity. The 2026 edition drew record crowds, but the mix had shifted. Tech firms and C-suites filled the beaches. Creators arrived in force, over 500 of them, up sharply on last year. The Harris Poll was on the ground all week as part of Stagwell's SPORT BEACH, in meetings, on panels, and on stage. Here's what The Harris Poll, LLC. heard, and what it means for your brand. Consumers are tired of being told everything is AI. The loudest story at Cannes came from its own research. The Harris Poll, LLC. released "I Never Asked for This" with the 4As and Infillion, and the numbers landed hard. More than two-thirds of consumers see AI as a marketing ploy. 78% say it makes ads feel less authentic. The same share find brands cringey when they over-use it. 73% would be less likely to trust an ad they suspected was AI-made. 63% would be less likely to buy. Jennifer Musil presented the work alongside 4As CEO Justin Thomas-Copeland. The message for brands is simple. Stamping "AI-powered" on your marketing signals nothing, and it may cost you. The upside cuts the other way too. Consumers who feel skeptical of AI aren't a lost cause. They're a trust opportunity. The brands that earn their confidence, by being transparent about where AI ends and human judgment begins, stand to win a group everyone else is writing off. The industry moved past AI hype to AI discipline. A year ago, AI was the future tense at Cannes. This year it was operational. Agency leaders talked about workflows, not predictions. The harder conversation was about quality. "AI slop" circled every panel. Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook warned from the main stage about mediocrity at scale. Entries dropped 25% after tougher rules tied every submission to a named CEO and CMO. There's a gap worth naming here. Marketers have adopted AI fast. Redesigning how they work around it has lagged well behind. Most teams are using the tool more often without changing how the work gets done. That gap matches what The Harris Poll, LLC. see in its data. When anyone can generate a campaign in minutes, original thinking becomes the scarce asset. AI can amplify a clear point of view. It cannot manufacture one. Sport became the cultural center of gravity. With the World Cup underway, sport ran through everything. SPORT BEACH drew some of the heaviest foot traffic on the Croisette, with A-Rod, Russell Wilson, Shaquille O'Neal, Lindsey Vonn, and the NBA Championship trophy all on site. The appetite is real and measurable. Almost half of Americans (45%) say their interest in soccer is rising. 70% of soccer fans are excited about a World Cup on home soil. The conversation has outgrown sponsorship. Fans don't follow brands, they follow people. The fan journey now runs well past the final whistle, into streaming, second screens, commerce, and creator partnerships. Creators earned a seat at the strategy table. Creators dominated the attention at Cannes this year, not just the AI panels. Every major platform is now competing for them directly, offering support to help creators build businesses inside the channels they already own, rather than pulling them onto a network schedule. The shift that matters for brands is the role creators are being given, not just their volume. The winners are building the plan around the creator relationship from the start, treating them as partners rather than vendors. In-person became the new proof point. The Croisette made the case for tactility all week. Scent bars, diner builds, photo booths, and drone shows were everywhere. It wasn't nostalgia. This tracks with its Return of Touch research. 81% of Gen Z wish they could disconnect more easily. 71% of consumers say in-store experiences deepen their emotional connection to a brand. Physical presence still earns trust that digital alone struggles to buy. A clear point of view is the scarce asset. Pull these threads together and one theme sits underneath all of them. The brands that stood out at Cannes were the clearest about who they are, regardless of how loudly they talked about their technology. That showed up as a renewed focus on brand building over one-off stunts, on creator partnerships built for the long term, and on physical moments that said something a banner ad couldn't. Conviction, more than any single tactic, was what separated the work people remembered from the work that just filled a slot. About the research. This piece draws on two Harris Poll studies. "I Never Asked for This" was conducted in partnership with the 4As and Infillion, and explores how consumers respond to AI in advertising. Its Return of Touch research examines how in-person and physical experiences shape consumer trust and brand connection. For full methodology, contact its research team.

Syneos Health-Harris Poll: Emerging media taps into consumer trust. Syneos Health Communications survey finds new media channels to be among the most prevalent ways to tap consumer attention. June 22, 2026 Consumers of all ages, ethnicities and political affiliation are increasingly getting healthcare information from new media sources, according to data released Monday morning by Syneos Health Communications in partnership with The Harris Poll. The 2026 MM+M Agency 100 honoree has worked with its clients to create effective strategies to use emerging media, such as social media, podcasts, independent digital newsletters and discussion sites, in their marketing strategies. However, while they and their clients knew emerging media was reshaping how people get and interpret their health information, there was never concrete data to support their intuition. The poll surveyed 1,510 consumers and 200 PCPs and found media had a near universal impact across sectors. They found that 84% of consumers use emerging media for news weekly, 57% daily and 44% as their main source of news. The biggest difference was the way consumers interpret information online based on their psychographics - their values, identities and preconceived notions. People are not passively absorbing information, they are fitting it into what they already view as "common sense." The survey found that 61% of consumers prefer news that uses "common sense" over data and science. Marcie Doser, head of influencer marketing at Syneos, said that influencers are "interpreters" of complex information. Their credibility comes from how well they can translate information into something that aligns with their audience's "common sense" way of thinking without sacrificing accuracy. "It's such a fine balance for us that work with influential voices and influencer partners," Doser said. Cynthia Isaac, group managing director of corporate affairs at Syneos, added that brands can't only test messages for accuracy, they also have to test them for believability in context. The survey analyzed the differences between trust and influence. Even though most respondents admitted to getting healthcare news from influencers more than HCPs, the data showed 84% of consumers trusted HCPs and only 49% trusted influencers. "For the first time, to have data that backs up how nuanced trust is, how nuanced influence is, and that they're not the same," Doser said. Just because an influencer is popular does not mean they are trusted, the report underscored. Consumers know that every channel and source has some kind of bias or agenda. For healthcare and pharma marketers, that is the motivation to sell a drug or product. Because of these known agendas, consumers are now "news foraging." They are navigating to a vast array of doctors, websites, influencers and media outlets, to piece together a view of the truth. The survey found that people are still influenced by sources they do not trust. Most PCPs, 99%, said patients bring information from emerging media sources to the office. Seventy-one percent said they spend more time correcting misinformation, 69% spend more time explaining and 67% said emerging media decreases a patient's willingness to follow recommendations. This potential for the spread of misinformation but also means that trusted influencers can still reach consumers if they communicate effectively and in the right places. Rather than a one or the other approach, Syneos recommends blending new and traditional media channels for the most effective marketing strategies. The team talked about a health information ecosystem where everything is connected: earned media, social media, influencers, AI and local news. With this approach, traditional media upholds the brand's trust and credibility and also feeds AI responses. Influencers and social media platforms act as interpreters of information, making difficult healthcare topics approachable, digestible and understandable to their audiences. Local media and community spreads information by word of mouth. This is especially important for Black and Hispanic audiences, who, the data showed, are more influenced by emerging media. The survey showed 96% of Black respondents and 93% of Hispanic respondents use emerging media once a week or more compared to 78% of white respondents. "There's a kind of sense of identity in the communities that they built in the social media space," Isaac said. "Traditionally there's a little bit of bias against earned media in those communities." Syneos views these findings as a path forward for health and pharma marketers. Brands need to meet people where they are at and communicate honestly.

Survey: one in four on-site employees would rather do their taxes than work in A bad workspace. Thursday, April 16th, 2026 Today, 76% of on-site employees say they would rather do something unpleasant than work in a poorly designed workspace, according to new research conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of National Business Furniture (NBF). That includes 24% of on-site employees who say they would rather do their taxes; 25% who would rather sit in the middle seat on an airplane for a 6-hour flight; and 28% who would rather stay on hold with customer service for an hour than work in a poorly designed workspace. "Employees are telling us loud and clear: the quality of their office matters," said Yonca Heyse, President of NBF. "When people can't focus, feel physically uncomfortable, or lack space that supports the way they work, it affects everything, from their productivity to whether they feel valued." The survey also reveals that nearly three-quarters (73%) of on-site employees feel frustrated with their current workspace. More than half of workers ages 55+ and nearly 80% of employees ages 18-54 reported frustrations. These issues are taking a measurable toll on employee experience and could impact productivity and morale. More than half (57%) of on-site employees say they struggle to concentrate or focus on tasks at work at least sometimes. Over half (52%) experience frustration that meeting spaces don't meet their needs at least sometimes. If those issues were addressed, the employee experience could be improved: * 83% of on-site employees who experience workspace frustrations say they'd feel more valued by their employer. Nearly two in five expressed this sentiment strongly (39%). * 77% of hybrid employees who experience workspace frustration would work on-site more. "Frustration with the physical workspace crosses generations and has a tangible daily impact," said Heyse. "It's time employers across sectors and business sizes gave improvements strong consideration." Download the full report, including data on the most frustrating workspace challenges and the improvements employees would like prioritized at NBF.com/fix-my-office.