by Jared Navarre, Founder – Keyni Consulting
Attendees refer to Cannes Lions as the epicenter of marketing creativity. They flock from around the world to the week-long conference to be inspired by the creative thinkers shaping modern marketing, hoping to glean something that will supercharge their sales and allow them to outpace the competition.
Those who genuinely benefit from Cannes, however, are those who understand that the creative inputs the conference celebrates can’t stand on their own. A brilliant, creative brief that leverages clever copywriting and stunning visuals is only effective when there is a solid marketing infrastructure to support it. It’s the infrastructure that determines whether creative work can survive volatility, scale efficiently, or adapt to what’s coming next.
Creating a framework for reactive marketing
Creative inputs can carry a campaign. They may even bring in business in the short term. But alone, they won’t keep up with the demands of marketing in the modern world with any staying power.
The biggest problem with relying solely on the type of creative ideas Cannes offers is that they are canned. They are someone else’s wins, played out in a particular moment and repackaged with the promise that they will work in any moment. The companies that adopt them are expecting a reaction, when today’s business landscape requires infrastructure that can respond to expectations.
Today’s markets are driven by connected consumers who provide real-time feedback on the ads they encounter. Consumer reactions are translated into data that impacts algorithms, which in turn heavily influence marketing reach and results. If what was considered creative yesterday doesn’t pass for creative today, companies will know it immediately.
For companies relying solely on creativity, a sudden shift in consumer sentiment is deadly. But for those who have an infrastructure that allows them to read and respond, shifts become an opportunity. Infrastructure empowers reactive marketing.
The old models cranked out five different versions of an ad, tested them on Facebook to see which one worked best, then launched the campaign with that ad as the keystone. The new model coming into play today adjusts marketing on the fly, reacting to consumer responses in real time. In the near future, marketing may leave reactivity behind for interactivity.
Building a marketing machine that can respond rapidly
To survive the passing of the old system, creative leaders need to start thinking like system designers. They need to develop new structures, mechanics, and rules for a system that can react when buyers pivot. They need to build the engine that keeps creative campaigns on track, complete with flexible content pipelines, real-time testing, and scalable insight loops.
The best systems will foster alignment across all departments. When creativity dominates without clear alignment across product, ops, and growth, teams end up solving different problems at different speeds or with different methods. Alignment empowers coordination, which is more powerful than raw creativity in today’s business world.
In a world where AI can generate dynamic content instantly, internal alignment sets the stage for consistent success. Systems win when they allow people, tools, and data to respond instantly to shifting demand, behavior, and context.
Finding the right blend of creativity and structure
The idea of blending creativity with infrastructure will seem contradictory to some who see requiring structure as putting boundaries around creativity. In practice, it’s harnessing a horse that is meant to run free.
But thinking like a system designer doesn’t mean abandoning creativity. Creative leaders should keep the art, but wire it into a machine that can respond at speed.
Cannes offers an inside look at culture-shifting creative trends, giving companies the insights they need to become future-ready. Infrastructure provides a way for companies to bring those trends into their context and convert them into a driver for long-term growth.
Jared Navarre, founder of Keyni Consulting, is a multidisciplinary entrepreneur and creative strategist with a proven track record of launching, scaling, and exiting ventures across IT, logistics, entertainment, and service industries. Navarre is also the creator of ZILLION, an immersive music project that fuses narrative, multimedia, and live performance into a cohesive storytelling experience.