
Every PR Agency Is Going To Cannes With An AI Story
Cannes Lions 2026 opens June 22. The Croisette is reshuffled, the PR Lions jury is stacked, the integrity rules are tighter — and every network is showing up with the same pitch.

Cannes Lions 2026 opens June 22. The Croisette is reshuffled, the PR Lions jury is stacked, the integrity rules are tighter — and every network is showing up with the same pitch.

Team Epiphany is a culture-first marketing agency founded 2004 by Coltrane Curtis and Lisa Chu (husband-and-wife, BIPOC-founded). Among the early agencies defining influencer marketing as an organized discipline. Acquired by Stagwell January 2024, joined Constellation network. ~100 employees NYC, LA, Miami.

Allison Worldwide — formerly Allison+Partners — is a global integrated marketing and communications agency founded September 2001, part of Stagwell. Co-founders Scott Allison and Andy Hardie-Brown stepped back in Dec 2024; Ray Day is Executive Chairman, Jonathan Heit is Global CEO.

The top-ranked public relations agencies in 2026 \u2014 the holding-company networks (Omnicom, WPP, Publicis, IPG, Stagwell), the largest independents (Real Chemistry, Edelman, FGS Global), the M&A specialists (Joele Frank, Brunswick, Kekst CNC), and the AI Communications challengers. The EPR reference.

From the April 2015 SEC disclosure and Miles Nadal's voluntary resignation through the 2017 settlement, the multi-year operational reset, and the 2021 Stagwell merger that produced today's NASDAQ-listed Stagwell Inc.

The 2015 shareholder class action against MDC Partners resolved without admission of liability, alongside no-admission SEC settlements by both the company ($1.5M) and Miles Nadal ($5.5M) and the voluntary repayment that preceded charges. How the litigation closed.

Stagwell Inc. (NASDAQ: STGW) is the fifth major advertising and communications holding company. Founded in 2015 by Mark Penn as a $250M private LLC, merged with MDC Partners in 2021, today 70+ agencies, 13,000+ employees, $2B+ revenue. The full arc.

The July 2015 MDC Partners and Hain Celestial governance scrutiny period became a reference case in holding-company governance crisis communications. The subsidiary-brand insulation problem, the Nadal and Simon disclosures, and what holding-company governance comms hardened into.

Miles Nadal built MDC Partners into one of the most influential advertising holding companies of the modern era — and after the 2015 disclosure episode resolved, built Peerage Capital, the Dare to Dream Foundation, and joined the Canadian Marketing Association Hall of Legends. The full arc.