Advertising is a special industry. It sits at the intersection of culture, commerce, technology, and human connection. This year at Cannes made clear just how quickly every one of those forces is changing.
Consumer discovery is evolving. Sports, music, entertainment, shopping, and social influence are converging. AI is transforming how people find information and make decisions. And, amid more fragmented media and tougher economic pressure, marketers are facing a higher bar for proving what advertising actually delivers.
At DISQO, we are especially interested in what these shifts mean for advertising outcomes. Here are three conversations from Cannes that stood out, and why they matter now.
For years, marketers could organize discovery around a relatively familiar playbook: search, social, publisher media, retail sites, and word of mouth. That model is now being disrupted from multiple directions.
AI is becoming part of how consumers ask questions, compare options, research products, and receive recommendations. At the same time, creators and communities increasingly shape what people encounter and trust, while platform feeds continue to determine what breaks through the noise. Cannes conversations reflected a growing recognition that brands now have to win with both people and the systems that increasingly mediate what people see.
This does not mean traditional brand building is less important. It means it must work harder and travel farther. Brand assets, product information, creator partnerships, customer experience, and media all need to reinforce one another across a less linear journey.
For marketers, the key question is no longer simply, “Where can we reach our audience?” It is: How does our brand show up when consumers are discovering, evaluating, and deciding?
That requires a measurement approach built for the full journey. Clicks and last-touch conversions can be useful signals, but they are not a complete account of discovery or influence. Brands need to understand whether advertising is building familiarity, consideration, preference, and future demand, not only harvesting demand that already exists.
Cannes made another point unmistakable: culture is not an adjacent consideration for advertisers. It is increasingly the environment in which attention is earned.
Sports, gaming, music, entertainment, creators, and fandom dominated the conversation because they offer something media alone cannot guarantee: relevance. Sports in particular have become a major cultural touchpoint, while creators are moving beyond an “influencer” label to become durable media, entertainment, and commerce partners.mckinsey+2
The opportunity is significant, but brands should resist treating cultural moments as interchangeable media inventory. A logo, sponsorship, or creator post does not automatically create impact. The work needs to feel credible in the context of the community and deliver value to the people participating in it.
The strongest programs connect three things:
The third, and perhaps most urgent, conversation was accountability.
Signal loss, fragmented consumption, rising media costs, and margin pressure have made the old methods less dependable. It is harder to know what is working, harder to optimize in real time, and more consequential to get the allocation wrong. Cannes discussions increasingly focused on the need for creative work to demonstrate business impact, not simply generate attention or platform-level engagement.
This is not an argument against creativity. It is an argument for treating creative quality and measurement quality as connected disciplines.
Great advertising has always had the ability to change what people think, feel, and do. But today, marketers must be able to identify that change with greater precision across audiences, channels, and time horizons. That means moving beyond a single metric or measurement method.
A stronger approach combines complementary evidence:
The objective is not perfect certainty. It is better decision-making: understanding which investments create incremental value, which audiences are responding to, and where the plan should evolve.
The advertising ecosystem is becoming more complex, but the mandate is becoming clearer.
Discovery must be designed for a world shaped by AI, creators, platforms, and communities. Cultural relevance must translate into real consumer value rather than surface-level participation. And every investment needs a credible path to demonstrating outcomes.
At DISQO, we believe the marketers best positioned for this next era will be those who pair ambitious ideas with a disciplined understanding of consumer response. Not just who saw the ad, but who paid attention, what changed, and what that change means for the business.