As campaign complexity surges, new research spotlights how project professionals are powering marketing creativity and business impact.

Creative leaders today face mounting pressure to deliver bold, fresh experiences that boost brand awareness and keep customers engaged in an increasingly saturated market.

A new survey from the Project Management Institute (PMI) highlights that 97% of respondents faced at least one major campaign challenge in the last year, including: going over budget (55%), overdue deadlines (54%), and constraints on creativity (47%).

The survey, conducted among 130 U.S. marketing and advertising agency professionals, also found that a third of campaigns (34%) don’t resonate with their target audience or generate new leads (35%).

In a tough marketing climate, with rising demands, tighter budgets, and shorter timelines, the execution side of creativity has never been more critical.

The survey reveals that 9 in 10 (90%) creative professionals agree: “Great creative campaigns do not happen without great project management.” Creative leaders also say that project management professionals:

Allow the organisation’s leaders to focus on driving growth (52%)
Ensure campaigns contribute positively to the brand over time (52%)
Get all the different parts of the campaign working together (50%)
Manage increasingly complex campaigns (45%)
Ensure campaigns are long-lasting (45%)

By keeping teams aligned, stakeholders engaged, timelines on track, and encouraging creative momentum, project management helps strong ideas grow into powerful brand activations.

“Today’s CMOs are juggling more platforms, priorities, and pressure than ever before—and it’s easy for even the strongest campaigns to lose focus and veer off-track,” said Menaka Gopinath, Chief Marketing Officer at PMI.

“Effective project management provides the structure and clarity creative teams need to drive momentum, work collaboratively, and deliver results that align with business goals. By bringing order to complexity, project management empowers marketing leaders to stay focused on strategy and turn complexity into opportunity.”

Project management professionals drive creative momentum

Project management professionals are no longer viewed as back-office schedulers—they’re emerging as team motivators and strategic leaders. While most agencies rely on them to keep projects on track (60%), more than half (52%) say their greatest impact lies in energising creative teams.

As creative work grows more complex, expectations for project managers are shifting. In-house marketing teams and agencies now prize strategic skills like innovative thinking (67%), growth strategy (60%), and adaptability (57%) over budget and resource management (49%). Project managers today aren’t just delivering campaigns—they’re helping teams evolve.

This is why, despite the rise of AI and automation, agencies are doubling down on people. Nearly all (98%) say they’re growing their project management capabilities—primarily through talent, not tools. 32% are training current staff, and 28% are hiring, reinforcing the belief that successful campaigns begin with skilled, empowered professionals.

Yet their contributions often go unnoticed. Nearly half (48%) of creative leaders say project managers are the unsung heroes of campaigns, delivering critical, behind-the-scenes value, from steering complex activations to aligning teams and keeping everything on track.

The survey also found that sharpening project management skills gives marketing teams the edge. Teams led by certified project managers outperform those without certification, delivering stronger results and audience-aligned campaigns.

“Marketing matters more than ever, but it also has to perform, in spite of its increasing complexity”, said Pierre Le Manh, President and CEO of PMI.

“Every dollar must drive measurable impact, and every great idea must scale. That’s where project professionals become a force multiplier. They don’t constrain creativity, they operationalise it. They fight waste, play an essential role in managing complex assets, teams, cultures, and tech stacks, and turn ideas into results. Ultimately, they drive more execution efficiency and speed, which translates into more profit for both agencies and clients.”

PMI will be on the ground at Cannes Lions to share how project professionals are reshaping creative outcomes, connecting campaign strategy to business impact. To see how you can connect with PMI at Cannes Lions, visit pmi.org/cannes-lions.

About the Survey: Commissioned by the Project Management Institute (PMI), an online survey was conducted by PSB Insights from April 28 to May 6, 2025, among creative campaign professionals in the United States working at an advertising, marketing, creative, PR agency, or in-house agency/department.