With Cannes Lions happening next week, all eyes turn to what’s next for creativity, technology, and marketing. While the festival is often seen as a celebration of big media, advertising, and emerging tech, I’ll be there with a different lens.

I’m attending on behalf of Design Bridge and Partners —a global brand design agency built on the idea: We design brands with the power to move people. And I’ll be there to explore how design weaves through it all—to help move people, and to help brands grow.

Because if we want to help brands grow in today’s landscape, design teams and agencies need to stay closely connected to the conversations shaping the future of marketing—not just the craft and creative output, but the strategies, technologies, and organisational and consumer behaviours driving how the marketing landscape is evolving.

Cannes is a rare moment to zoom out and ask:

· Where does brand design fit in this evolving marketing world?

· And how do we ensure it stays not just relevant—but essential?

Here are five questions I’ll be taking with me to the festival:

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

From identifying a business or consumer need, through to experiencing the final creative output—and crucially, how that output feeds back into iterative growth— technology is reshaping the entire chain. No doubt AI will dominate headlines again this year, but beyond the hype, how do we use emerging tech—AI, robotics, spatial computing, automation—not just to create faster content, and more content, but to build better brands and improve people’s lives? And how do designers get in the driver’s seat, shaping these tools rather than being shaped by them?

2. Has brand purpose peaked—or is it just evolving? And are brands using design to bring their promises to life?

In recent years, many brands have backed away from purpose-led messaging— pressured by shareholders or paralysed by the fear of backlash. But people still expect brands to stand for something— and to do something about it. Design has a crucial role to play in turning intent into action. So what’s next? How can brands act meaningfully without falling into the traps of virtue signalling or greenwashing? And are the ideas we see in the award winners real and scalable ideas, or just small scale stunts to win a Lion?

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

At Cannes, the spotlight tends to fall on business consultancies, ad agencies, media platforms, and tech giants. Brand design has a far smaller footprint. But why? And more importantly, what will it take for design to earn a bigger seat at the table—not just at Cannes, but across marketing as a whole?

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

Design has always been about solving problems. But today’s challenges are bigger—organisational, cultural, commercial. How must design thinking, or our design processes, evolve to stay relevant to the C-suite, and help people in the day-to-day life and culture?

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

Brands now exist across thousands of touch-points—physical and digital, static and dynamic, global and hyper-local, all to be amplified further with Ai. Consistency still matters, but adaptability is the new superpower. How do we design identity systems that flex without fragmenting—and build memory structures without becoming mechanical? And how are identity systems evolving from the obvious visual elements? The big sonic agencies will be there, but how else are brands using different senses to connect with people?

Whether you’re attending Cannes or following from afar, these are the questions I’ll be asking with the hope that what I learn can help brand design grow and be as relevant as possible in this evolving industry.

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