The end of marketing as we know it

This is a delayed special edition following my time at Cannes Lions, with observations and thoughts on the implications for marketers and the wider industry.

The Carlton's revolving doors moved at their characteristic pace: painfully, deliberately slow, like French Riviera service that no amount of urgency can accelerate. But the conversations happening in those lobbies revealed an industry moving much faster than the infrastructure suggests.

This was my twelfth Cannes, and the landscape has fundamentally shifted. For marketers trying to navigate budget pressures whilst managing rising expectations, the changes happening across AI, creators, production, and discovery represent both opportunity and necessity. The question isn't whether to adapt, but how quickly you can rebuild your approach.

AI has become operational infrastructure

Traditional creative agencies are struggling with a fundamental reality: AI has become operational infrastructure. Several CMOs complained to me about working with shops that still operate like it's 2022 (which is not that long ago but things have shifted greatly since), unable to rapidly iterate campaigns based on performance signals or build creative systems designed for testing at scale.

The immediate opportunity: In-house AI-powered creative production represents the most accessible efficiency gain available today. The hackneyed statement that marketers need to do more with less is more true than ever before, and automation tools have finally matured enough to handle workflows that previously required agency partnerships. Software like Pencil and CreativeX have moved from experimental toys to legitimate production infrastructure.

This means recalibrating what you do internally versus what requires external expertise. The smartest organisations are rebuilding their entire creative stack around continuous content systems rather than one-off campaigns.

Creators have evolved into media companies

Bumping into Colin and Samir (the YouTube creators and podcasters who've built their creator economy expertise over a decade for 1.6 million subscribers) crystallised how much has changed. What impressed me wasn't their follower count but their business acumen. They approached meetings with the same preparation and strategic thinking you'd expect from any media executive.

This year felt like a watershed moment for creators at Cannes. The energy, the crowds, the strategic conversations—everything pointed to a fundamental shift in how value gets created and where the power lies.

YouTube becoming television is current reality. These creators represent media infrastructure that bypasses traditional buying entirely. They control their own distribution, production capabilities, and audience data. The influencer era has ended; we're now dealing with independent content studios that happen to have direct audience relationships.

Commerce platforms are evolving to match this shift. TikTok Shop, YouTube Shopping, and Snap's commerce features create environments where purchasing feels culturally integrated rather than commercially intrusive. For marketers, this opens partnership opportunities that bypass traditional media buying entirely.

Content discovery is being rewritten

The fundamental mechanics of how people find things are changing. Visual search, AI-powered recommendations, and platform-native storytelling are replacing traditional keyword-based discovery. YouTube and Snapchat are pushing these changes hardest, but the implications extend far beyond social media.

Google executives I dined with held disciplined talking points about AI: optimistic, generic, focused on getting users the right answer whether through ads, blue links, or AI overviews. But the real conversations were happening elsewhere, around how brands can position themselves for discovery in an AI-mediated world.

Brands optimising content for language models and conversational interfaces are positioning themselves for a world where search happens through dialogue rather than queries. Platforms are rolling out these capabilities now.

The most amusing moment came watching Jeff Green, CEO of Trade Desk (whose pipes Spotify's revenue flows through) being denied entry to Spotify's much sought-after party by overzealous French security who didn't recognise him. It perfectly captured how power dynamics have shifted whilst recognition lags behind. Infrastructure providers often matter more than the brand names on the guest list.

The marketing role is fragmenting

Even the Chief Marketing Officer role is evolving. The combination of brand stewardship, technology integration, user experience, and performance marketing is becoming too broad for one person to handle effectively. Forward-thinking companies are already splitting these responsibilities across multiple executives who can specialise in transformation and taste management.

This fragmentation is happening at the agency level too. Independent agencies claimed 24.0% of all Cannes Lions winners this year, up from 22.4% in 2023, according to data tracked by Indie Agency News. Bear Meets Eagle on Fire won Grand Prix for Telstra, Quality Meats for GoDaddy, Innocean for Hyundai, Serviceplan for German discounter Penny, Artplan for medical education institute IDOMED, and Motion Sickness / FINCH for New Zealand Herpes Foundation.

What made this year particularly significant was witnessing Fortune 500 companies conducting agency pitches right there in Cannes. Four separate pitch processes I learned about were happening during the festival week itself, and in every case, the agencies on the roster were independents. No holding company shops made the shortlists. The efficiency was remarkable, but the composition was telling.

The talent pipeline feeding this transformation tells its own story. Laid-off creatives and strategists are launching independent shops or going direct to brands rather than seeking new holding company positions. We're witnessing a major recalibration of the entire agency landscape, made more surreal by the fact that WPP—the worst performing holding company by most financial metrics—won most creative company of the year. The disconnect between market reality and industry recognition has rarely been so stark.

Most holding companies (Publicis being the notable exception) continue struggling with meaningful transformation whilst new agencies launch weekly. Not every independent will successfully navigate the transition to an AI-first world, but those that do will find themselves in a fundamentally different competitive position. The landscape will look entirely different within two years, with new players, new business models, and new definitions of what constitutes an agency.

Tech's stranglehold on prime real estate

This year's tech company dominance felt more visceral than ever. Adobe completely took over the entire facade and garden of the Majestic, turning one of Cannes' most prestigious hotels into a homepage takeover made manifest. Tech companies booked the prime locations and the air conditioning whilst everyone else sweated it out in the heat.

When platforms control both the distribution pipes and the premium meeting spaces, traditional players find themselves literally and figuratively pushed to the margins. This physical displacement mirrors the financial reality of where the power actually sits. Meanwhile, the greying creatives in black t-shirts continued their pilgrimage, espousing creativity whilst clinging to relevance in an ecosystem that's moved past them.

Your navigation strategy

Audit your current setup against new realities. If you're paying holding company rates for production work that could be automated or in-housed, you're subsidising infrastructure you don't need. The money saved can fund partnerships with specialists who understand that creative and performance must work in harmony.

Build hybrid models that combine in-house AI production capabilities with strategic partnerships. Focus on automation capabilities as baseline competency, but remember that editorial judgement remains the differentiator. AI amplifies good ideas and bad ones equally—the skill lies in knowing which messages deserve amplification.

Use events like Cannes for ecosystem mapping. A week of targeted meetings provides more insight into capabilities and cultural fit than months of traditional RFP processes. Independent agencies and creator studios are actively seeking partnerships, whilst marketers can rapidly evaluate the entire ecosystem.

Prepare for role evolution. Whether that means splitting responsibilities across multiple executives or developing hybrid skillsets, the marketing organisation chart is obsolete. We're now dealing with a marketing organism that needs to adapt and evolve continuously.

What wasn't being discussed was more telling than what was. Job losses across holding companies are accelerating, yet heads remain buried in the riviera sand about AI's immediate impact on headcount. The entire exercise feels antithetical: celebrating human creativity whilst simultaneously automating the creative process.

The revolving doors keep spinning at their maddeningly slow pace, but the people walking through them are navigating a fundamentally different landscape. For marketers willing to adapt quickly to these concurrent changes, the opportunities far outweigh the threats. The future, despite all the disruption and uncertainty, feels genuinely bright.

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Amar Chohan, is the founder and CEO of DCA, where he writes about the business of creativity and champions independent agencies. Previously, he spent over a decade as managing director at Contagious. You can follow him and DCA on LinkedIn.

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