What are the forces shaping the future of marketing? At Cannes Lions, ADWEEK executive editor Alison Weissbrot sat down with executives from the marketing world to unfurl the aforementioned question, as well as other issues affecting the industry, during the Adweek Press Hour at the Omnicom Space.
First up was a conversation focused on how agencies can approach pitches more effectively and the deliverables associated with them. The discussion featured Victoria Fox, CEO of marketing consultancy AAR; Ryan Kangisser, chief strategy officer at MediaSense; and Deepthi Prakash, chief operating officer at Omnicom Advertising Group.
Fox pointed out that pitches are like an insurance policy, where it’s about the levels of assurance and insurance a business needs to make sure they are making the correct decision.
Kangisser said a pitch does not need to be perfect, but it needs to show vulnerability to be believable. He said that clients are looking for partners and, importantly, for compatibility with those they may be working alongside.
Pitches are artificial environments and don’t necessarily correspond to real-world situations, Prakash noted. Whatever the executives signed off on may not reflect what those at lower levels are experiencing, and there needs to be fluidity in correspondence, especially in an environment undergoing rapid technological change.
The next discussion centered on the use of agentic tools in the industry, featuring Jantzen Bridges, global president of Credera, Omnicom’s enterprise transformation consultancy; and Paolo Yuvienco, Omnicom’s chief technology officer. They agreed that while we are merely in the early stages of agentic use, conversations about its workflow applications are already underway.
Getting staffers to adopt agentic technology is the challenge. Still, at Omnicom, Yuvienco said they have been able to get staffers to embrace these new tools by creating an enablement environment, which has been made easier by an in-built culture of innovation. On the client side, Bridges said that adoption has required an organizational alignment. If the people at the top are on board, it is easier to implement across the board.
The final part of the session featured George Manas, Omnicom Media’s chief growth and solutions officer, on Omnicom’s new sphere of influence for its clients. He touched on three points, saying that influence is not only about scale but also intelligence, requiring enhanced experiences capable of breaking through today’s noisy environment.
Finally, Manas said that influence is also about integration and delivering seamless experiences for consumers across various touchpoints. He said that the company is better positioned to leverage its media scale to unlock value and partnerships for its clients.
Omnicom has a deeper bench for creativity and has significantly enhanced its sports offering, enabling it to achieve much more than it could have 18 months ago, he added. “We genuinely feel better positioned than ever to help clients navigate a few new realities.”
