← WPP Cannes Wrapped 2026 / Connect your ecosystem across owned, earned, shared and paid
04. Connect your ecosystem across owned, earned, shared and paid
To successfully establish brand influence, marketers must start by seeing the world through the audience's eyes, identifying the exact points in the consumer journey where a brand can step in to increase its relevance. Traditionally, brands leveraged a mix of paid, earned, shared and owned channels to engage audiences but in today’s landscape the power dynamic of these touchpoints have fundamentally shifted.
Research from WPP and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford showed us owned, earned and shared (OES) touchpoints possess 2.6 times the influence power of traditional paid media. This is precisely why the industry’s most impactful leaders are reallocating their focus. In this world, paid media’s primary job is no longer to be the hero but to act as the spark that fuels organic consumer participation and earned community discussion.
“We look at earned media as much bigger for us and more important than paid media.”
Cheryl Guerin, EVP of Global Brand Strategy and Innovation, Mastercard
This philosophy underpins the most celebrated work coming out of the festival, including standout campaigns from WPP agencies that prove the value of earned-first thinking. DoorDash executed this integration seamlessly by feeding real-time match data directly into digital out-of-home billboards to provide actual cultural utility to fans on the street. Similarly, IKEA utilised its 200-million-strong owned loyalty programme data to craft highly personalised retail experiences across owned, earned and paid media, ensuring their paid spend was guided by deep first-party insights rather than generic ad blasting.
As Burson's analysis of the festival’s winning work notes, the best work today doesn't interrupt culture – it contributes to it. Reputation isn’t built when people simply hear a brand’s story; it’s built when they decide to make it part of theirs. Ultimately, achieving this level of integration requires breaking down internal silos to align all teams – from technical product experts and customer support, to marketing and communications teams. By ensuring owned assets are designed to feed and support community discussions, brands create the high-quality organic signals that consumers choose to talk about and AI search engines love to cite.
The opportunity
Modern brand growth requires an operational shift away from paid ad disruption toward ecosystem orchestration. Marketers must build their programs owned, earned and shared-first, using paid media not to interrupt the consumer's world, but to scale the ideas and utilities they actively choose to participate in. Break down internal silos to align technical product experts, customer support and marketing teams, ensuring your database of truth directly fuels organic earned conversations.