Before heading to Cannes Lions, I shared five questions I’d be taking with me, questions about technology, brand purpose, design’s role in marketing, evolving design processes, and how identity systems are performing in today’s world. You can read it here.

Now, after some time to reflect and revisit the many talks, award-winning work, and conversations, here is what I found.

1. How is technology transforming the end-to-end process, and where does design fit?

AI is no longer a future concept. It is already embedded across the industry, agencies, and workflows, with more disruption ahead.

Sir Martin Sorrell’s session with Monks, Runway, and Minimax showcased Nvidia’s Luma AI and their fully AI-enabled production pipelines, highlighting the speed of change. They shared a Puma campaign that was produced in just two weeks for a fraction of the usual cost. It was not about creative craft; it was about speed and automation.

There was clear tension between those embracing AI’s possibilities and those concerned about the erosion of craft and human value, but as always, the solution probably lies somewhere in between.

Apple suggested: "The human touch is our superpower." AI can handle production, but it cannot replace taste, judgment, or emotional nuance.

Sir John Hegarty, co-founder of BBH, said: "Everyone is now a creative director." His point was that AI increasingly handles execution, leaving humans to direct and curate.

Nick Law from Accenture Song echoed this shift: "I was trained to kern type. Now, I just need to spot when it’s wrong and ask AI to fix it."

Both stressed that taste and judgment are more essential than ever.

For designers, this is not about competing with machines. It is about leading and collaborating with them, using AI to communicate our ideas and moving upstream to shape the ideas, systems, and assets that AI can scale. That is how we keep brands distinctive, human, and emotionally resonant.

(Side note: I believe human craft will be a superpower in the world of Ai. We are already seeing a renewed appreciation for handmade, human work as a counter to AI-generated content. It may become slightly more niche, but it will have its place.)

2. Has brand purpose peaked, or is it evolving?

Purpose has not disappeared. It has evolved for the better.

Cannes made it clear that brands are moving from lofty mission statements to purposeful action. This shift is driven by tighter budgets, fiercer competition, faster market dynamics, leaner teams, urgent environmental pressures, and backlash from people tired of brands not delivering on their statements.

People now expect more from brands. Some awards were even revoked after the festival when campaigns were criticised for lacking meaningful action.

Purpose today is closer to what it should be about, clear intent, measurable outcomes, and action.

Reckitt’s Catalyst programme with Serena Williams stood out. It is not a campaign. It is a long-term platform with clear investment and defined goals for lasting commercial and social impact.

Apple won gold in Design for the purposeful approach to their Apple AirPods becoming medical-grade hearing aids.

Plus, the Design Grand Prix winner, Closed Captions, was a strong example of purposeful design with lasting impact.

Brands also need to work differently. Testing, learning, and accepting failure are essential to finding purposeful solutions.

As Steven Bartlett advised: "Test and experiment at the speed of light. Get comfortable with failure."

The brands that are progressing are those turning purpose into action quickly and consistently.

This is where designers come in. We are the ones who make ideas tangible. It is not just about telling purpose-led stories, it is about designing solutions that deliver results.

3. Why is brand design still underrepresented in the marketing mix?

Design, and the even smaller subset of design - brand design - remains underrepresented at Cannes, which is still dominated by advertising, media, and tech. Yet this year, its role in brand growth was more visible than ever.

Talks from P&G, LVMH, Unilever, Diageo, and Kraft Heinz reinforced that distinctive brand assets and memory structures are still the foundation of long-term brand building, which are created and evolved in the brand design process.

Mark Pritchard of P&G showed how emotional connection, repeated exposure, and distinctive cues drive long-term preference. He played a Head & Shoulders campaign now in its third consecutive year to prove how repetition builds memory. He also noted that creatives often tire of work before audiences do.

Mark Ritson echoed this, stating that every brand needs at least four distinctive assets, used consistently and frequently to be effective.

The message was clear. Brand design is a growth driver, not just decoration. It is a continuous process that requires long-term commitment.

Marketers know this, but brand design is still too often relegated to short-term execution or one-off projects.

Our responsibility is to keep brand design at the heart of smart brand and business strategy to help brands grow. We must ensure its role stays recognised, protected, and applied with confidence.

4. Can design thinking evolve to meet today’s complexity?

Design thinking has always been about solving problems and today, there are more challenges than ever.

One of the most concerning for brands and their marketers is brand fragmentation. With more channels, touch-points, and AI-generated content, brands are becoming fragmented and they are finding it difficult to maintain coherence across experiences.

Cannes made it clear many companies are struggling with this, referencing it in several talks, especially due to the ongoing battle between where to place their budgets—into longer-term brand building or shorter-term performance marketing.

Sephora and R/GA also highlighted something different and often overlooked: "Brands break at their weakest touch-points." They did a whole talk about how poor consumer experience is actually eroding brand equity.

Every poor brand experience erodes trust and emotional connection.

They urged brands to move beyond campaign-led thinking and to stop focusing on isolated brand parts. Instead, they encouraged systems that link every part of the customer journey, from in-store service to digital content.

Siloed organisational structure was also blamed for a lot of this.

This signals a shift in design thinking. It is no longer about isolated creative sprints or creativity in pockets of businesses. It is about weaving design into everyday operations across entire organisations and ecosystems, shaping how brands behave as much as how they look to ensure coherence and quality everywhere.

5. How do identity systems perform in a constantly shifting world?

As covered in the previous two questions, identity systems are evolving to work across more platforms, more channels, and more senses than ever before. But in this question, let’s dive into the details.

Traditionally, brand identity focused on logos, colours, typography, and sometimes celebrity endorsements. But at Cannes, Mark Ritson reminded everyone that mascots, sonic branding, and distinctive product shapes often outperform these assets in brand recall.

Multi-sensory design is also on the rise. Brands are thinking about how they sound, feel, and behave—not just how they look. This enables them to show up in unexpected ways, through new experiences, media, and differentiating executions.

Cannes also highlighted how technology is reshaping what is required from identity systems. Platforms like Adobe, Canva, and WPP Open now rely on brand strategy and design data. These tools embed brand guidelines directly into workflows, making it easier to apply identities at scale. Identity systems are becoming data sets themselves, training AI tools to generate on-brand content automatically.

For brand designers, we are no longer designing only for just visual consistency and Brand Guidelines or Portals. We are building identity systems that flex across every sense, every platform, and every touchpoint, ensuring brands remain coherent and distinctive wherever they appear. Plus, these systems are also now a key data source for AI.

Final Reflection

If there is one consistent theme across all five questions, and the last four years that I have attended Cannes, it might be this—and it may not be what you expect after so much discussion of change, evolution, and technology.

Brand building still takes time.

Even as technology reshapes how we work, the brands making the greatest impact are the ones that remain consistent, build distinctive systems, and focus on emotional connection. The same fundamental principles still apply.

Culture and technology will continue to evolve, but many of the core ideas behind brand building and design thinking are proving to stand the test of time.