Brand and tech leaders share insights to guide marketers forward
Cannes Lions 2025 brought its usual charm, rosé, and lively discussions, but what stood out was a shift in tone: brand and tech leaders aren’t talking in theories anymore – they’re rebuilding how advertising works. From identity to outcomes, the consensus was clear: marketers need bold, structural changes to thrive.
At Experian, we spoke with leaders from Ampersand, Butler/Till, Comcast Advertising, Fox, OpenX, Optable, Snowflake, VideoAmp, and Yieldmo. Their message? Foundational change, not incremental tweaks, is the way forward.
Here are five moves marketers and CMOs should be making right now.
1. Make identity the foundation, not an add-on
Identity must be the core of your marketing strategy, not an afterthought. Building a strong identity framework from the outset ensures that your data and tech stack work seamlessly across channels. This means investing in first-party data assets and identity resolution tools that inform every campaign and tactic. Identity isn’t just a feature; it’s the base layer of everything successful marketers do today.
“There’s no AI strategy without a data and identity strategy. Marketers who want to stretch every media dollar and personalize each touchpoint need a unified, deeper view of the consumer – insight they can carry straight into downstream ad platforms.”
David Wells, Snowflake
Next step: Treat identity resolution as a prerequisite to every campaign, not a task to address later. Align your data management platform (DMP), customer data platform (CDP), and collaboration partners around a unified identity spine (Experian’s or your own) to ensure data flows uninterrupted from planning to reporting.
2. Curate, don’t automate. Programmatic is getting personal
Programmatic advertising remains relevant, but its purpose is evolving from mere automation to intelligent, data-driven curation. This shift requires moving beyond static site lists to dynamic, page-level contextual engines that determine, in real-time, which impressions to display. Today, it’s about carefully selecting and curating inventory to ensure transparency, quality, and relevance for your audience. Marketers are increasingly turning to private marketplaces (PMPs) that offer curated, brand safe inventory and clear supply paths to deliver meaningful results.
Expect continued growth in curated PMPs, AI-assisted forecasting, and supply-side innovations that combine premium connected TV (CTV) inventory with deterministic data. The goal is to reach the right viewer and understand exactly how and why they got there.
“What we’re talking about right now is almost like curation 2.0, which is bringing more of the capabilities that historically sat with the demand-side platform (DSP) into the hands of the supply-side platform (SSP) – that is, supply-side targeting, or what we call data-driven curation.“
Matt Sattel, OpenX
Next step: Audit your supply chain. If you can’t clearly explain every step from bid request to delivery, explore curated deals or direct SSP partnerships that align with your quality and transparency standards.
3. Connect teams like you connect data
Fragmented results often stem from fragmented teams. Persistent silos (like TV buys on one floor, digital on another, and data science somewhere else) slow down budgets and create inconsistent messaging.
Forward thinking organizations are restructuring teams around unified KPIs and shared data. When planners, buyers, and analysts work together (or at least share dashboards), campaigns move faster and creative stays consistent.
“We restructured our teams to focus on all forms of video – linear, streaming, and online. This allowed us to embrace partners who cross over these verticals and technical approaches.”
Gina Whelehan, Butler/Till
Next step: Map your current workflow end-to-end. Where does a brief stall or data stop flowing? Restructure teams or create shared success metrics to eliminate bottlenecks.
4. Turn disconnected data into unified insights
Marketers have spent years gathering massive amounts of data, but hoarding data isn’t a winning strategy. The future belongs to those who can collaborate with partners to connect and utilize data effectively, all while respecting privacy and security. Rather than chasing the next data source, leading marketers are finding ways to safely connect data already available in-house or via partners. This might involve data clean rooms, secure data sharing agreements, or joint analytics initiatives – but the common thread is working together on data, not operating in isolation.
“We’ve been encouraging marketers to tie in first-party data and to really utilize that data and to work with trusted sources and deterministic sources in order to overcome a lot of the challenges around signal loss with cookies, in particular. The other way is also clean rooms. Clean rooms really enable the opportunity to collaborate in a private, safe way, and connecting to those more deterministic sources in order to deliver the results that advertisers are looking for.”
Carmela Fournier, Comcast Advertising
Next step: Identify gaps in your first-party data. Then, collaborate with a provider like Experian to safely match data sets and unlock insights without exposing sensitive info.
5. Focus on outcomes, not clicks
Impressions, clicks, and other output metrics have been the currency of marketing for decades. But the consensus at Cannes is that those proxies aren’t enough – business outcomes are what matter now. Marketers must shift their focus to measuring real results, such as sales lift, new customer acquisition, lifetime value, or brand impact, rather than getting bogged down in intermediate metrics. This move to outcome-based measurement changes how campaigns are planned and judged: success is defined by the value created, not just the volume delivered.
Unified, identity-based analytics are finally making it possible to see who saw an ad and what they did next, across TV, CTV, and digital. That intel drives smarter budget shifts and tighter creative feedback loops.
“Outcome-based measurement is table stakes in today’s media ecosystem, and Ampersand has woven it into almost everything we do. Thanks to Experian’s strength in identity, audience insights, and outcome measurement, we can give advertisers the attribution they need at every stage of the funnel.”
Justin Rosen, Ampersand
Next step: Identify metrics that matter to your bottom line, then find a partner who can measure them accurately. If measurement stacks don’t talk to each other, they’re holding you back.
Preparing for the challenges ahead
The common thread across these five moves is connection – connecting data, teams, and outcomes. Marketers who act on these imperatives will be ready for whatever new screen, format, or privacy rule comes next.
Experian can help you:
- Establish an identity spine
- Enable secure data collaboration in or out of clean room environments
- Curate premium CTV inventory with deterministic audiences
- Measure business outcomes across every channel
Ready to make your next bold move?
Let’s start a conversation
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With Tapad, part of Experian, technology, AdsWizz AudioMatic is the first Audio buying platform to offer cross-device identity resolution across the U.S. and EMEA NEW YORK and LONDON, July 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a new joint capability with AdsWizz , the leading technology provider for digital audio advertising solutions. The partnership combines Tapad's digital cross-device technology with AdsWizz's AudioMatic buying platform, enabling the ability to connect audio ad experiences across screens. AudioMatic, AdsWizz's audio-centric buying platform, supports programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences for listeners. The integration of The Tapad Graph onto its platform enables new opportunities for marketers to reach, engage and measure each interaction with their desired consumers on digital radio and podcasts channels, and across devices. This partnership makes AdsWizz the first audio buying platform to offer this enhanced cross-device identity capability in the US and EMEA markets. "Marketers need privacy-safe digital identity resolution to reach their consumers," says Tom Rolph, VP of EMEA at Tapad. "With audio becoming an increasingly powerful medium for engagement, it's important that our technology extends to this channel, which is why we are excited to announce our integration with AdsWizz's AudioMatic platform." Digital audio is experiencing high growth, with 84% of advertisers and agencies saying it will play a bigger role in their media plans in the future. Today, 60% of digital audio is consumed via a mobile device.* The Tapad Graph is the largest digital identity resolution graph with differentiated global scale. The partnership enables audio advertisers to leverage The Tapad Graph for enhanced attribution, analytics, and targeting. Alexis van der Wyer, CEO at AdsWizz, added, "Digital audio is increasingly becoming ubiquitous in our media consumption and in our daily digital interactions, and because of that, audio advertising offers tremendous opportunity to personally interact with consumers in every moment of their daily lives. By integrating with Tapad, we enable our advertising partners to increase the effectiveness and the relevance of their marketing messages across audio channels." To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit our identity solutions page. *Digital Audio Exchange, "The Rise of Digital Audio Advertising," https://thisisdax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DAX-Whitepaper.pdf About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph, and its related solutions, provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Our one-of-a-kind Graph Select offering enables marketers the flexibility and freedom of choice to correlate devices to varied objectives, driving campaign effectiveness and business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity's 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo. About AdsWizz: AdsWizz has created the end-to-end technology platform that is powering the digital audio advertising ecosystem. AdsWizz powers well-known music platforms, podcasts and broadcasting groups worldwide with a comprehensive digital audio software suite of solutions that connect audio publishers to the advertising community. From dynamic ad insertion to advanced programmatic platforms to innovative new audio formats, AdsWizz efficiently connects buyers and sellers in digital audio. AdsWizz is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an IT Development hub in Bucharest, Romania, and presence in 39 markets around the world. About AudioMatic: AdsWizz Demand Side, audio-centric DSP and audio buying platform, AudioMatic, enables programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences that are proven to be more engaging and more effective, and have delivered measurable results for agencies and their brands all over the world. All the biggest ad agencies have used our programmatic trading platform, including Omnicom, GroupM, Havas, Publicis, Mobext, and more. Contact us today