Ad tech was the most popular topic on social media during the Cannes Lions creative festival, according to stats released by location marketplace xAd, who were monitoring the #CannesLions hashtag during the week-long event.

Cannes Lion saw almost half a million mentions overall, with ad tech proving the hottest media and advertising topic, followed by storytelling, mobile advertising, programmatic and content marketing, which received a boost thanks to Snapchat and WPPs announcement of their new content marketing agency Truffle Pig.

WPP was also popular among agencies, receiving the second most mentions, but Ogilvy dominated with over 28,000 tweets, largely centred around the agency winning Network of the Year for the fourth year running, and walking away with 123 Lions awards. Havas, McCann and Saatchi & Saatchi were also frequent mentions on the #CannesLions hashtag.

Among brands, technology dominated, with Google, Facebook, Apple, Snapchat and Twitter taking the top five, and Unilever the only non-tech brand to crack the top 10, at eighth place.

“Ad tech firms have been growing their presence at the Cannes Lions advertising festival for the past few years, and this year they are making a mark on the event like never before,” said Theo Theodorou, head of EMEA at xAd. “New online ad firms offering everything from data-driven ad targeting to the latest in location-based mobile technology are becoming a larger part of the discussion.”