Insights on building unified brands in a fragmented world, the new rules of brand trust, and why humanity still trumps hype. Highlights from WARC, Edelman, and P&G's Marc Pritchard.
Day 2 of Cannes Lions Festival 2025—at least the way we saw it—was focused on reconciling the biggest tensions in our industry: how to build unified brands in a fragmented media world, how to balance data with humanity, and how to serve the individual without losing the power of community. Here are the sessions that defined the day.
WARC: Building Big from a Collection of Smalls
WARC delivered another data-packed session, this time examining the reality of extreme media fragmentation (a concern that has risen 30% over the last year). Their core thesis, "Big as a collection of smalls," provides a robust framework for thriving in this environment.
Key takeaways:
- The Attention Paradox: While 85% of ads don't get enough attention to impact brand memory, the cumulative effect of many small exposures—even those under two seconds—is powerful. These micro-moments don't just build awareness; they drive significant sales (generating 34% of offline and 46% of online sales).
- The Power of Synergy: The data is unequivocal. Using five media channels yields approximately 70% more sales per dollar and a staggering 234% greater brand impact compared to concentrating on a single channel.
- The Creative Solution: Imaginative Repetition. The historical model of singularity and repetition is evolving. To avoid "fragmented feels" and low emotional coherence, creative must be bespoke to the channel while integrated with a core idea. It’s a shift from thinking of a brand as a single system to a brand as a sequence of related ideas.
This session was particularly relevant because it reconciles two opposing marketing perspectives: the traditionalist view that anything less than a 30-second spot (and some 20-30 design resizes) dilutes the brand, and the newer belief that a brand platform is irrelevant in the face of fleeting trends. WARC proves you can—and must—do both: maintain high strategic consistency while executing with high velocity and variety tailored to each platform.
Edelman Trust Barometer: The Shift from "We" to "Me"
Richard Edelman’s special report highlighted a decisive shift in consumer motivation. The focus is no longer on what’s best for the community, but "what's in it for me?" Brand purpose, he argues, must now serve the individual in a one-to-one relationship.
While we believe there is still immense power in building community and belonging, Edelman’s point is sharp. Even seemingly altruistic actions are often rooted in individual virtue signaling—my contribution, my impact.
The panel that followed, however, took a surprisingly bleak turn. The speakers, including Dan Schulman and Nikki Haley, projected a future where humanity becomes irrelevant in 3-5 years—a hopeless catastrophe. Frankly, it felt less like a sober forecast and more like a projection (in the psychoanalytic sense) of personal anxieties onto the world as established certainties become unpredictable. The steady stream of people leaving the auditorium suggested we weren't alone in this assessment.
Marc Pritchard, P&G: In Defense of Brands and Humanity
The biggest queues of the day were for P&G’s Marc Pritchard, and he delivered three essential reminders.
- "Fruits are in the roots." A simple, elegant plea to always return to a brand's foundational principles and assets. Reinvention must be built around the original, enduring core.
- There is no "content." We strongly agree with his dismantling of this catch-all term. There is good advertising, bad advertising, and entertainment—but "content" as a marketing category is often a guise for product placement or well-disguised ads.
- AI is a tool, not the essence. He championed the importance of humanity in brand building. AI is helpful, but it is not the work. As we would put it: stop venerating the hammer and get back to the architecture.
While these points were welcome, the presentation itself felt torn between a showreel of agency work and a recruitment pitch for high-school graduates to join the marketing squad, which diluted the impact of his strategic insights.
Day 2 was a call for sophisticated, integrated thinking. The mandate is to build big, human-centric ideas, executed flawlessly through a thousand small, intelligent moments.
Explore our complete coverage from the Croisette. You can read the full debrief and our key takeaways from each day of the Cannes Lions 2025 festival below:
Explore our complete coverage from the Croisette. You can read the full debrief and our key takeaways from each day of the Cannes Lions 2025 festival below:
- Day 1 Debrief
- Day 2 Debrief
- Day 3 Debrief
- Day 4 Debrief
- Day 5 Debrief – soon
