Advertising executives descending on the French Riviera this week for the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity will raise their glasses of rosé to toast the twilight of Madison Avenue’s glory days.
Tom Denford, CEO of the agency search consultancy ID Comms, told me this year’s Cannes Lions would be “like a requiem” for the traditional agency business.
But that doesn’t mean there won’t be action.
What began as an awards event in the 1950s to celebrate the best ads of the year — affectionately known as “The Work” — has morphed into a sprawling showcase of tech, entertainment, influencers, and every intermediary you can imagine. In recent years, Cannes has featured huge beach takeovers and custom-made event structures from the likes of Amazon, Google, and Meta.
The agencies and marketers in attendance are grappling with multiple tectonic shifts all happening at once — from the rise of artificial intelligence to the decline of linear TV, and seemingly never-ending economic uncertainty that makes marketers nervous about long-term budget planning. WPP Media recently cut its 2025 global ad spending growth forecast to 6% from 7.7%, citing “disruptions to global trade and continued deglobalization.”
While Agencyland’s creative class may be nostalgic for the era of showstopping Don Draper-esque pitches, and when cinematic ads won the biggest awards, the industry has shifted its offerings to service clients’ changing needs.
Retail media isn’t the sexy pursuit many executive creative directors dreamed about breaking into the industry for, but it’s having a moment. According to the World Advertising Research Center, spending on commerce websites, apps, and in-store displays is projected to overtake linear TV ad spending by 2026. Cannes Lions has introduced a dedicated subcategory for retail media in both its Media and Creative Commerce Lions awards this year.
Albertsons is among the companies making its festival debut this week. The supermarket chain is bringing a grocery store activation to the beach and a team of seven people from its Media Collection retail media division.
Jen Saenz, Albertsons’ EVP and chief commercial officer, said the aim is to showcase what’s unique about the grocer’s offering for advertisers: “Not just transactions, but brand stories.”
The traditional agency business is at a crossroads
There have been multiple changes of the guard at the largest ad agency holding companies. Omnicom and IPG are awaiting the closing of their gigantic merger that would create the world’s largest advertising agency company by revenue, usurping Publicis, which had only recently toppled WPP’s crown. Two of the industry’s most high-profile execs — Mark Read, CEO of WPP, and famed ad man David Droga, from Accenture Song — have announced their coming departures. Layoffs have been a sad constant for the rank and file as agencies consolidate.
When I asked one ad agency veteran how they envisaged the scene at Cannes this year, they responded: “Type into ChatGPT: Agency exec sitting on corner of the Croisette with cardboard sign around neck saying: Will do creative or plan media for food.'”
New independent agencies and big consulting firms are gaining on the traditional holding companies. Industry analyst Brian Wieser recently estimated that the “big six” agency holding companies now have a 30% share of the total US ad agency industry, down from a peak of around 40% in 2015.
Richard Bord/Getty Images for Stagwell
It’s a trend that will be on full display at Cannes Lions next week. Stagwell, the agency group led by former Microsoft strategist and advisor to the Clintons, Mark Penn, is back again with its huge “Sports Beach” activation. It will feature sessions from famed athletes like former world tennis No. 1 Billie Jean King and former NBA legend Carmelo Anthony, as well as activities like a swim club and pickleball tournaments. Accenture Song has a catamaran docked in the harbor to host meetings and has execs speaking onstage at the Palais, where the main conference takes place.
The agency world is adapting to its new data-driven, AI reality
Brian Morrissey, the former editor in chief of marketing and media trade publication Digiday, who now writes the media newsletter The Rebooting, has invented a new parlor game for Cannes. He’s going to ask everyone he meets to name their favorite ad campaign of the past 12 months. His guess is that most attendees will struggle to instantly conjure one up, despite the fact that advertising is their profession. Morrissey said it’s a reflection of the fading relevance in culture of mass media and the 30-second ad spot, as consumer media habits evolve and marketing budgets shift to precision-targeting and performance-marketing.
“All the action has moved to the data side of advertising,” Morrissey said. (Disclosure: I previously worked for Morrissey at Digiday.)
Cannes will remain a decadent affair in 2025, much to the chagrin of the many colleagues back at home who didn’t get a golden ticket. (The most expensive pass stretches to more than $12,000 this year — and that’s before factoring in travel and accommodation.)
Set on the iconic Croisette promenade with its opulent hotels and stunning sea views, some lucky VIPs will be treated to yacht excursions and performances from musical acts including Cardi B, Ludacris, Lola Young, and Diplo. The real A-Listers at Cannes Lions, though, are the chief marketing officers with budgets to spend. Cannes Lions CEO Simon Cook said that more than 350 brands attended last year, and that’s expected to rise this year.
David Jones, CEO of the Brandtech Group, has some handy advice for marketers who will undoubtedly receive numerous AI sales pitches this coming week.
“When someone shows you something great, ask for a login; ask if you can make content and produce it and publish it now to TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube,” Jones said. “If you can, they have a platform, and if you can’t, they have a demo.”
