5 Takeaways From Cannes Lions 2025: Why Consumer Value Beats Industry Metrics

After dozens of meetings with commerce media executives at Cannes Lions 2025, one thing became crystal clear: companies that optimize for consumer value consistently outperform those focused purely on industry metrics. Here are five of my key takeaways from the event about what's shaping the future of commerce media:

1. AI is Moving from Hype to Practical Implementation — Agentic AI is Changing Everything

This year's Cannes Lions focused on measurable artificial intelligence business impact rather than theoretical potential. Adobe's Customer Experience Orchestration exemplifies this shift, delivering intelligent, connected customer experiences instead of just adding "AI" labels to existing tools.

However, the most significant development is agentic AI and what I call the "agentification" of buyers. We're rapidly approaching a world where AI agents regularly shop on behalf of consumers, making purchasing decisions based on value rather than traditional advertising influence. This represents a significant disruption to the commerce media space.

When AI agents handle shopping, banner ads, promotional emails and sophisticated retargeting become irrelevant because a brand can't influence an AI agent through emotional persuasion. The platforms that will thrive in the age of agentic AI are those building authentic consumer relationships based on genuine value delivery. AI agents will recommend brands that consistently create positive experiences, not those with the most sophisticated targeting.

2. Social Commerce Integration is Becoming Standard

CVS Media Exchange partnered with Reddit to combine health data with community engagement, and Instacart made Pinterest ads shoppable. These integrations solve the core challenge of connecting consumer interest with purchasing intent without creating additional noise in the consumer experience.

What's exciting about these approaches is that they recognize effective commerce media bridges the entire customer journey, not just checkout. Too many networks focus exclusively on bottom-of-funnel conversion without considering how their approach affects the broader consumer relationship. In an agentic future, AI agents will evaluate brands based on their complete consumer experience history, making holistic thinking essential.

3. Cross-Platform Intelligence is Driving Investment Decisions

The biggest conversation at Cannes wasn't about individual commerce media networks, it was about understanding the power of combined datasets to create greater intelligence for investment decisions. Cross-platform signals are driving where smart money is being allocated, as platforms demonstrate the value of unified customer insights across retail, social, CTV, and other touchpoints.

This addresses what I view as the fundamental limitation of siloed approaches: they optimize for individual ecosystems while missing the complete customer picture. The winning platforms are those proving that combined signals from Amazon.com shopping behavior, Pinterest discovery, connected TV engagement, and retail transactions create exponentially more valuable investment opportunities than any single data source.

The platforms generating the most investor excitement are those building comprehensive intelligence engines that inform strategic decisions across the entire commerce ecosystem. The lesson here is that cross-platform intelligence doesn't just create better consumer experiences; it drives smarter capital allocation and higher return investment strategies.

4. Tech Orchestration is Removing Fragmentation

The most successful platforms at Cannes were those focusing on tech orchestration rather than adding more fragmented solutions to an already complex ecosystem. Instead of building another standalone tool, winning companies are creating unified systems that simplify rather than complicate the commerce media landscape.

What struck me was how the smartest executives have moved beyond the "stack everything" mentality toward streamlined orchestration. They recognize that brands don't need more platforms to manage — they need fewer, better integrated solutions that create seamless experiences across touchpoints.

This orchestration approach directly serves consumers by reducing the technical complexity that often leads to fragmented, inconsistent experiences. When technology works together seamlessly behind the scenes, brands can focus on creating genuine consumer value rather than managing technical integration challenges. The platforms embracing this simplified orchestration model are seeing faster adoption and better long-term partnership success.

5. Consumer Perspective is Winning

Brand marketers consistently shared one frustration during the festival: that their companies are optimizing individual channels while ignoring the consumer journey that connects them all. This perfectly captures the industry's blind spot — we're solving for what's convenient for brands rather than what matters to consumers.

As EMARKETER Senior Analyst Sara Lebow noted, leading companies recognize consumers don't experience "retail media" as a separate category; they experience brands, moments and value. Companies like Ahold Delhaize have merged their marketing functions to think holistically about consumer relationships rather than individual transactions, and are seeing measurably better performance across all metrics as a result.

This shift from industry perspective to consumer perspective isn't just good practice, it's becoming a competitive necessity. Platforms creating genuine value in each consumer interaction consistently see improved conversion rates, enhanced advertiser ROI, and reduced advertising resistance.

The Future is Consumer-First

We're at an inflection point where consumer-first approaches become essential for survival. In an agentic AI future, AI agents making purchasing decisions will prioritize platforms that consistently deliver positive experiences over those with sophisticated targeting capabilities.

The question for every commerce media executive today is: Are you building the kind of consumer experience that AI agents will recommend? The platforms that answer this correctly will define the next era of commerce media, while those focused purely on reach and frequency will find themselves competing in an increasingly commoditized space.

Elery Pfeffer is CEO of Nift. Nift partners with commerce media platforms to deliver better ad formats that consumers truly appreciate while generating exceptional incremental ad revenue.