Updated: 4 days ago
From the creator economy to the culture economy, all the way to the ADCI Awards: notes on the close of the third edition of Intersections.
Every festival has a hidden question. At Intersections 2026, at Allianz MiCo in Milan, it was written in the title: The Power of Influence. The second day did something more interesting than answer it: it moved the question.
In the morning, Evan Shapiro and Emma Harman of Whalar traced the shift from the creator economy to the culture economy. A small slip in words, an enormous one in consequences: what matters is no longer who produces content, but who produces meaning. The creator becomes an author, the brand a patron, the audience a community that decides what stays.
Then the numbers, which in cases like this draw a geography: more than 20,000 participants, over 450 speakers, five associations – IAB Italia, ADCI, UNA, UPA and ASSIRM – at the same table for two days. Google on search in the age of AI; Geppi Cucciari and Luca Poggi of Rai Pubblicità on entering the conversations that matter; EY Studio+ on artificial intelligence as lasting value rather than effect.
In the evening, the ADCI Awards. And here the festival found its most precise conclusion.
The Grand Prix went to “Dark Mode Ads” by LePub Milan for Plenitude: a title that, on its own, evokes the darkness of the screen rather than its light. The Non-Profit Grand Prix went to “L’ultima Cena” (The Last Supper) by Cookies Agency for the Fondazione Giulia Cecchettin, also Gold in the new Equal category. Ogilvy is Best Agency, AUGE Best Independent Agency, Plenitude Best Creative Brand, CoorDown Best Non-Profit Organization, Movie Magic – Skipless Best Production Company.
Two awards speak about time. The Hall of Fame, in memory, to Milka Pogliani: among the figures who built Italian advertising, and the first woman to lead the Art Directors Club Italiano. The Hall of Legends to Stefan Sagmeister, who the day before had brought “Finally, Something Good” to the stage: a designer who, with Now Is Better, has long invited us to read the present through data and a stubborn optimism. Less a celebration than a genealogy.
And then the students – IED Torino, NABA, IED Milano among the Golds. That is where talk of influence becomes concrete: the question is no longer who influences whom, but who will shape the gaze of those who come next.
We leave Intersections with a simple idea. As artificial intelligence multiplies images, value shifts to what is chosen: the brief, the meaning, what is left out. Perhaps this is the most lasting form of influence – knowing how to step back and leave room for an idea.
Photos: courtesy Intersections 2026 / IAB Italia and ADCI – Art Directors Club Italiano.
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