Regarde où tu mets les pieds!*

So the week before the week that advertising spends the week preening in the mirror while humming “I'm So Pretty,” McKinsey decides to drop a few dog turd predictions that should have the pedestrians on la Croisette picking their steps carefully.

Very carefully.

The canine scat came as a post with a title that whiffs of either AI-slop or lazy writing: "The agentic advertising economy: From attention to action.” Even so, it starts off reasonably enough by observing that AI has ridden a disruptive rocket into just about every part of adland.

There’s a reason for that, and if you've ever wondered what Google and crack dealers have in common, it's this: both know that free samples are the best way to get new customers. 

That's why you'll now find "AI summaries" on about 50% of searches. 

That’s why they're not charging for it. 

Yet.

Be that as it may, McKinsey then focuses on AI and AI agents looming ever-larger in consumer decisions and, as a result, “Value (for advertisers) may be concentrating inside platforms (that) bundle data, measurement, and transaction."

I don’t know about you, but it all reminds me of the Mary Howitt poem that begins, "Will you walk into my parlor?" said a spider to a fly."

Especially when McKinsey extrapolates that, as a result, there are four potential pathways for the "advertising economy,” each revolving around trust, AI recommendations, and delegation.

Consumers trust some, and AI becomes the shopper’s little helper. 

Consumers trust more, and AI becomes the shopper’s big guru.  

Consumers trust to the degree they’re willing to delegate and it’s “hell with ‘em, AI is the real shopper.”

Trust not at all, et voila, “hell with AI, consumers tell it to go pound silicon sand.”

You’ll note that in three out of the above, a standalone advertising industry has a shrinking role and less value. And, by the way, if you think the door out is to become the client AI-whisperer, “The pitfall is solely relying on short-term AI-advisory revenue that masks long-term disintermediation. As one holding company president told us, agencies risk “consulting our way out of a business.”

First time I’ve agreed with a holding company executive in a long, long time.  

Although given the lemming march of the majors to the AI cliffside, that’s probably all we’d agree on. Especially since I part company with McKinsey on this critical point: there's more to the mix than trust and its consequences.

Like the fact that in a sea of AI sameness, creativity will be an urgent differentiator.

Like the fact that people, regardless of technology, will still want to touch the merch.

Like the fact that consumers will trust AI more in some contexts, less in others, and that one use case never describes all.

Take that approach, expand the thinking to embrace more than just the narrow tale of a fly sauntering into a spider’s parlor, and there’ll be more than a minor role for advertising.

Come to think of it, there'll still be a role for Cannes.

*Watch where you step!