What Cannes Lions reveals about the next era of agency competition
Opinion – Cannes Lions preview
This Cannes will be a celebration of independent agencies, but let’s not forget we need independent technology too, writes MINT Square’s CEO.
Cannes has always been a showcase for creative work, but less so about the way agencies themselves operate. Agencies would send out spokespeople to share how a campaign was pitched, concepted, and executed. Perhaps, depending on the audience, they might even go into the technological nitty-gritty of media buying and audience targeting.
This year, Cannes will be different. A wave of major client wins for independent agencies has put the agency model itself and how teams are structured on the festival agenda.
Indies are no longer on the sidelines. The iconic Miramar beach, the long-held stomping ground of WPP, has been taken over by the independent PMG, which is declaring it doesn’t want to be called an agency at all anymore.
Agency or not, independents are at Cannes to prove they can go toe-to-toe with their holdco rivals and seize ground that was once uncontested holdco territory.
The bigger the ship, the slower it turns
Because of their sheer size, holdcos have traditionally been able to offer brands a level of service that is simply impossible for smaller peers to achieve. Their hub-and-spoke model allowed distinct specialised departments to operate as a centralised entity, rolling out across channels and regions with ease.
Along with their structural advantage, the development of owned-and-operated technical infrastructure, which has recently expanded through high-profile acquisitions, has enabled them to launch highly scalable, global campaigns with minimal reliance on third parties.
But we are also now seeing these giants strain under the weight of their operations. Where an independent agency can quickly pivot to new opportunities, it’s far harder for a holdco to change course.
Client tastes are changing too. Brands are investing heavily in their in-house marketing capabilities to gain greater ownership of their creative vision and want a closer relationship with their creative agencies to see this vision through.
A smaller, intimate team who are only ever a phone call away feels more collaborative than a series of presentations from managers who don’t necessarily do the legwork.
The pressure to prove ROI is also making leaner teams with their shorter balance sheets an easier investment to justify, especially when a client knows the names and faces behind everyone who worked on a project, rather than a department’s output reduced to a line item.
Meanwhile, AI tools are compressing production timelines, especially for the more laborious, time-consuming aspects of asset creation. Editing a storyboard to align with client feedback or repurposing creative for a new format or channel can now be achieved in a few clicks.
Of course, holding companies aren’t just taking it on the chin. The industry has been complaining about fragmentation for years and, in response, holdcos built their own one-stop shops for AI capabilities, data, activation, measurement, commerce infrastructure, and more through integrated service models that wrap everything together.
Tech for me, not for thee
Cannes Lions may be a festival of creativity, but technology has an equal, if not outsized, presence along the Croisette. Big Tech companies show up with big parties to match, and you’re as likely to end up sharing a drink with an ad tech vendor as you are a creative director.
Technology is the vital machinery that keeps digital advertising running, but access to it is unequal, and it’s where holdcos maintain their most substantial advantage. AI may have given indies a boost, but it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the proprietary data platforms and sophisticated, end-to-end, cross-channel activation suites that holdcos have assembled.
Programmatic infrastructure in particular remains too unwieldy for many indies to fully grasp. The simple act of slipping creative into an inventory slot requires negotiating with and integrating multiple vendors who all promise largely the same functionality. It doesn’t take long for the “tech tax”, both in terms of financial and operational costs, to become burdensome.
Digital advertising’s accessibility gap must be addressed for indies to maintain their growth momentum. Intermediaries in the supply chain need to simplify their offerings by bundling multiple functions into a single framework rather than seeking new ways to insert themselves into the process.
By their nature, indie agencies are not beholden to certain technologies or partners, and can instead build modular setups where pieces can be swapped in and out as needed. This makes them ideal clients for solutions that eliminate friction in multi-vendor setups. Indies don’t need to own the best tech; they just need access to it.
Ultimately, excessive consolidation leads to diminished competition and stagnant innovation. This Cannes will be a celebration of independent agencies, but let’s not forget we need independent technology too.
If we can match indie agencies with accessible, unified technology frameworks that fix ad tech’s fragmentation problem, then brands and consumers alike can reap the rewards of a diverse and competitive advertising industry.
Christoph Berg is the CEO of MINT Square