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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.