As artificial intelligence reshapes media planning, commerce and content creation, agencies are increasingly searching for ways to balance automation with human judgment. For PHD, that balance is becoming central to its identity.
Speaking with Neeta Nair, Editor, IMPACT Magazine, at Cannes Lions 2026, Christian Flouch, Global Brand President of PHD, and Eileen Ooi, President APAC of PHD, argued that while data, technology and AI are transforming the industry, the real competitive advantage still lies in human intelligence.
“It’s a human sandwich: human first, technology in the middle and human at the end,” Flouch said, summing up what he believes will separate successful agencies from the rest in an increasingly automated world.
The philosophy reflects PHD’s broader effort to strengthen its challenger positioning within the Omnicom ecosystem. Founded four decades ago on the premise of challenging industry conventions, the network is now attempting to combine Omnicom’s expanding data and technology capabilities with what it describes as a distinctly human-led approach.
For Flouch, the challenge is not access to technology. The challenge is how agencies use it.
Following Omnicom’s acquisition of IPG, the group has gained access to an expanded suite of capabilities, including Acxiom’s identity infrastructure and commerce solutions such as Flywheel Digital. Yet he believes technology only creates value when it is interpreted through strategic thinking and human insight.
“We were founded on challenging the industry,” he said. “In a time when we’re seeing so much transformation, not just in our industry but in society, our differentiation comes from putting people at the centre of what we do.”
That emphasis on human intelligence also underpins PHD’s global positioning, Intelligence Connected. According to Ooi, the proposition is particularly relevant in APAC, where markets differ significantly in terms of culture, consumer behaviour and technological maturity. “The diversity in APAC is absolutely lovely,” she said. Pointing to China and India as examples, Ooi noted that innovation and creativity often emerge from the region’s complexity rather than despite it. While India is frequently viewed as a single market, she described it as a collection of distinct cultures and consumer ecosystems. “That cultural beat that we have within Asia is almost fuelling the ingredient for creativity,” she said. Bringing those differences together requires more than a common operating model. Ooi said the network has focused on embedding three shared behaviours across markets: outthink, outpace and outgrow. “That’s our red thread,” she said. “That’s the commonality in our behaviour.”
Watch the full interview here:
The conversation also highlighted how quickly the media itself is evolving. Connected commerce, connected TV and influencer marketing have emerged as major growth areas across APAC, but Ooi believes the next significant shift will come from the convergence of content and media. “The next big conversation clients are having is how content blends better with media,” she said.
While marketers have long discussed the relationship between content and distribution, the rise of creator economies, AI-powered discovery and platform-driven ecosystems is changing the nature of those conversations. Increasingly, brands are being forced to rethink not only what content they produce but how it is discovered.
Ooi pointed to Google’s AI-powered search experiences, including AI Overviews and Gemini, as examples of how content strategies will need to evolve. “Search is no longer just about text,” she said. “Brands need to think differently about how they show up in AI-generated results.”
Flouch expects AI-native platforms to have an equally profound impact on media consumption. As conversational interfaces become more sophisticated, he believes consumers will increasingly interact with technology through voice rather than screens. “The audio capabilities of these platforms are already at a very high level,” he said.
That shift could fundamentally alter how advertising is delivered and experienced. Instead of browsing, scrolling or searching, consumers may increasingly engage with AI assistants through conversation, creating entirely new opportunities and challenges for marketers.
Despite the excitement around emerging technologies, both leaders repeatedly returned to the importance of effectiveness over efficiency.
As algorithmic buying continues to commoditise large parts of media planning, agencies are under growing pressure to justify their value beyond cost savings and optimisation metrics.
For Flouch, the answer lies in revisiting a principle that has guided PHD since its founding. “It was always about smart media, not cheap media,” he said. The distinction is an important one. While efficiency remains important, he argued that brands often become overly focused on short-term metrics. He adds, “As the industry races towards efficiency, the real question is effectiveness. If clients focus on asking the right questions about effectiveness, efficiency will naturally follow.”
That philosophy is also reflected in the type of work PHD hopes will define its future.
Flouch cited the agency’s recent collaboration with Skoda and the University of Salford, which involved creating a bicycle bell capable of cutting through noise-cancelling headphones, as an example of media innovation extending beyond traditional advertising.
The project addressed a real-world safety issue while remaining rooted in the brand’s cycling heritage. For Flouch, those kinds of ideas demonstrate how creativity, technology and problem-solving can intersect in meaningful ways.
As Cannes Lions continues to debate the future of creativity in an AI-driven industry, PHD's leadership appears convinced that the winning formula will not come from technology alone. Instead, success will depend on agencies that can combine increasingly sophisticated tools with strategic thinking, cultural understanding and human judgement. Or, as Flouch put it, a human sandwich.
