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Publishers have spent years building trusted brands, loyal audiences and valuable environments. Today, they also need tools to ensure that the value of their premium inventory survives the journey into programmatic marketplaces.

Taken together, the conversations from Cannes Lions 2026 suggest the industry is entering a more mature chapter.

Platform dominance made media feel simpler. A more pluralised market will make it more interesting, more demanding and, for the best-prepared brands, more valuable.

The move toward agentic systems will not happen all at once, but many of its components are already in place.

By Sarah Potemkin, Canvas Worldwide, SVP- Managing Director-Performance Media In the mid-1970s, Kodak invented the first digital camera. Decades later, it had already invested in the future—acquiring Ofoto and launching […]

Martech buying needs to get back to the fundamentals of what a market is supposed to do: connect serious buyers with qualified vendors.

Programmatic has become more powerful, but also harder to manage. For many teams, the challenge isn’t access to tools. It’s understanding what’s working, where spend is going, and how to act on it quickly.

The organisations that will thrive in the next phase of data-driven marketing are not necessarily those with the biggest datasets, but those with the most collaborative and privacy-focused approach to using and connecting them.

We can build a web where creating genuine value for users is the most direct path to sustainable revenue. We know what that looks like.

By pairing a flexible mindset with thoughtful, incremental adoption of technology, marketers can move beyond rigid strategies and truly ride the waves of modern consumer behavior.