Creative Excellence Starts with Understanding People

Today’s media landscape rewards those willing to rethink old assumptions. As marketers navigate rapid technological change, fragmented audiences and growing pressure to deliver measurable results, the bridge between media strategy and creativity has never been more important. We caught up with Joanna Lawrence, President of this year’s Creative Media Excellence Drum Jury and the Global Chief Strategy Officer at Havas Media Network, to discuss where the industry is headed and what kind of work deserves to stand out. 

You recently described today's media landscape as being in "full-on disruption mode." What do you see as the biggest challenge and opportunity for marketers today?

The challenge of a more compressed and fluid brand discovery journey is also the opportunity. Most marketers still structure teams, datasets and budgets around channels, not people’s evolving behaviours. There’s so much growth potential for those who really do stay customer focused in everything they do.

Creative Media Excellence sits at the intersection of strategy, creativity and execution. How do you define truly excellent media work?

Work that demonstrates both expert understanding of how people use different media, how that’s changing and how their brand can show up most powerfully in that context gets my vote.

Many brands still treat media as a distribution channel rather than a creative tool. Do you think that mindset is changing and how?

We work in a creative industry, and I am always inspired by experts in every discipline wanting to innovate. The dilemma is whether we are structuring for everyone to collaborate more easily and optimising investments for that type of creativity.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing both media planning and content creation. How do you think AI will reshape creative media over the next five years?

AI is changing the game for what media people experience and how the infrastructure behind the scenes works. We can go faster and create endlessly but we also have to pay more attention than ever to human insights and what really delivers meaningful business growth.

If you could challenge the industry to rethink one aspect of media today, what would it be?

Planning and structuring for business outcomes. We have been talking about it for ages but too often it still defaults to something that only works for lower funnel activity as there are so many variables at play to truly measure incremental growth. Either due to lack of comprehensive data, trading norms, siloed processes or even the client and agency operating model itself.

The Golden Drum Competition is open. Submit your eligible work today! The deadline is 26 August 2026. 

Come meet the minds shaping the future of creativity – get your delegate pass today!