For those of us in marketing, there’s really nothing quite like Cannes. Beyond the great food, rosé and sheer beauty of the South of France, there is no other event that brings together as many of the world’s top marketers as Cannes Lions. This year, Brand Innovators along with Influential, took over the beach that Twitter had occupied for years. Additionally, Brand Innovators announced that they would be merging with what was formerly called the CMO Club. which only extends and elevates what was already a huge marketing community. With that as the backdrop, we heard from CMO’s from some of the top brands in the world, including Raja Rajamannar from Mastercard, Mark Pritchard from P&G, and of course my old peeps from IBM and Unilever.

As always, the festival provided an opportunity for industry talent to showcase their creativity, share insights, forge partnerships and hear about the emerging trends that will shape the future of this business. This year’s key themes were personalization, DE&I, CTV, Immersive technologies, Data & Purpose. But the talk of the town, up and down La Croisette this year, was Generative AI. It came up in about 90% of the sessions I attended. There were hundreds of sessions on these key topics, many of them great, but the following highlights a few of what I thought were the most interesting and unique, along with my take on the subjects: 

Generative Artificial Intelligence

It seemed as if everyone thought AI was a new thing. It is not. When I was at IBM several years ago, we worked on and created some incredible AI programs years before this, using Watson technology. For example, we created 1) sizzle reels for Wimbledon by having Watson create highlights by recognizing when players pumped their fists 2) a dress for the Met Gala by having Watson gauge fashion trends and 3) even here in Cannes, way back in 2016, we had Watson scrape people’s social media feeds to hand them their favorite drink as they walked in. And broadly, while people may not even realize it, Watson has been enhancing our experiences in the background for years. 

With that in mind, I went to an IBM session at BI’s Armani Café to listen to IBM chief creative officer, Billy Seabrook and IBM CMO Karen Feldman talk about what IBM is doing now in the AI space. Billy spoke of how they’ve advanced their use of AI by “using Watson for content generation. And then, once the content is created, using it to automate and personalize customer experiences.” He also spoke of using analytics platforms to monitor performance, and then turning the insights into creative briefs”.  

But now, with the hype cycle and fear around ChatGPT, it seems that everyone is trying to figure out how to work with OpenAI, or whatever new start-up in the field to get engaged in generative AI for marketing. But in my view, with all the experience Watson has and their long-held approach to data protection and security, IBM would be the place I’d go to first… and I’m saying this, even though I’ve long since left Big Blue!:-) 

DEI 

It’s clear marketers are now on the front lines of dealing with the politicization of seemingly everything. Grappling with tough questions around a slew of DE&I related cultural issues highlighted by the recent bud light/transgender campaign. Brands know that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives can drive success, but implementing those strategies can be tricky. We saw a number of solid campaigns, but I thought one stood out as particularly creative and unique.  

Denise Vitola, vice president of brand integration, social/influencer, Bayer, showcased a diversity program for the allergy brand Claritin. A program that won a Cannes Lion for what they called the Claritin “Diversitree.” The premise of this campaign was based on the insight that trees have genders (who knew??). There are far more male trees than female trees, and apparently male trees give off tons of pollen (female trees don’t give off any), which of course cause allergies. So Claritin proclaimed, “we have to stop this tree inequality” and started an influencer campaign where they had influencers plant female trees in different places, starting in Richmond Virginia, which is one of the worst US cities for allergies, with the goal being to reduce pollen levels. Their influencers talked about how more female trees make a better outside for all. 

This is a great combination of experiential, influencer marketing, gender equality, and of course has a direct link to the brand. Win, win!

Modern Marketing

There were a lot of conversations around today’s best practices in marketing, especially in lieu of the cookie deprecation and IDFA issues. Many discussions and questions related to the need for first party data, performance vs. brand, customer experiences, martech stacks, etc… There were far too many discussions on these subjects to summarize here, but I thought Ann Mukherjee, CEO Pernod Ricard and former marketing executive at PepsiCo, did a great job of simplifying their approach. Here is what she shared…

“We as brands are too worried about trying to do everything and developing “cool creative” on the newest channels and technologies.” She made the case that trying to do that makes it difficult to achieve the ROI you’ll need. She said, “you need to recognize that science should drive art. We have so much data today and predictive human behavior is how you do great marketing. So you need to understand the customer journey and path to purchase for your brand, and recognize that every brand has a different path. For us in the alcohol industry for example, 65% of all shopping decisions are pre planned. That fact alone starts the marketing journey earlier than some other categories.

Then when you create plans for each brand in the portfolio, you need to understand that they all address different occasions. For example, when you want to celebrate you look for  champagne, when you want to impress you get a high end whiskey, when you want to party you go for beer, etc.. Every brand has a purpose in people’s life and as a result purchase decisions are based on those specific paths. Then when you recognize the consumer journey, you start making choices on how best to interact with them. This way you are addressing your consumers’ needs through science to create that incredible art of receptivity.”

Essentially, my take on this is that you need to capture data to understand key insights about your brand, then carefully understand the consumer journey, and build a martech stack that harnesses the data in a way that allows you to intercept people with creative, personalized messages at key points on their path to purchase (or whatever the key proxy metrics are). 

On a more personal “cool Cannes story” note, Ann and I spoke together here at Cannes almost 20 years ago as we collected awards for the first ever consumer generated campaigns. She was working on Doritos at that time and I was on Dove. The industry has come so far in innovations since then, but it was almost surreal for me to see her on stage once again talking about another modern and innovative way to market. Just as all those years ago when we spoke on stage together, I couldn’t agree more with her approach. 

CTV

New media channels such as TikTok and retail media networks came up quite a bit, but the bulk of the discussions were around streaming video. There was lots of talk from and about Netflix, Roku, Hulu, etc..but there was one conversation I found fascinating. Kara Swisher interviewed Telly CEO Ilya Pozin at Brand Innovators beach. 

Telly is a free 4K television that’s “free” because of a secondary bottom display that will constantly rotate content such as news and sports scores, and advertising. Consumers answer some surveys and let Telly share your viewing habits with advertisers, and in exchange, you pay nothing for a 55-inch 4K TV that’s supposed to be the “smartest” tv on the market. 

Historically, most of these type businesses have failed, but Ilya was the founder and CEO of Pluto TV as well, so has been successful in launching free ad-supported new models in the past. His belief here is that TV’s have been commoditized and you can’t make money on the hardware anymore, but you can from highly targeted advertising on a high quality, big screen. The TV is worth more than $1,000 and allows consumers to do more than just watch. 

They can run a slew of apps, play music on Spotify, do Zoom calls and watch with friends and family who are elsewhere. While you’re watching TV, sports scores, news, weather, things that are really useful that people are typically distracted by on their phone, they’ll have right on their TV along with ads. You will be able to take action on the ads through voice activation. So for example, you can buy a pizza from Pizza Hut while watching a football game. 

Conceptually it seemed great. It’s a captive audience, with targeted ads, the ability to buy, the smartest tv, doesn’t disrupt the content, it’s free, and has apps like Zoom built in so you can watch with friends. They are currently in 250k homes and it’s probably a long shot, but at the very least, it seems like something to keep an eye on…Stay tuned…

Overall, while not all the way back from pre-Covid, Cannes Lions 2023 got close. It continues to embody the spirit of creativity and innovation that the industry is known for. The festival highlighted how the marketing industry continues to drive positive change, foster inclusivity, and embrace emerging technologies. As the industry continues to evolve, Cannes Lions serves as an essential event for showcasing the most creative ideas and inspiring the next generation of creative leaders.  Hope to see it come all the way back in 2024. Au revoir till next year…

At the invitation of Nese Erikli, Member of the Baden-Württemberg Parliament, the Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture of the Federal Republic of Germany, Cem Özdemir, visited Reichenau-Gemüse eG, Germany’s southernmost vegetable growing region. During a tour of the state-of-the-art marketing facility, the minister was first able to get an idea of the high quality and the current, very broad range of vegetables grown by the Reichenau market gardeners. Around 14,000 tons of fresh vegetables leave the marketing facility every year. 50 % of the turnover and 35 % of the quantity are already in organic quality according to the specifications of the associations Naturland and Bioland.

However, all those involved in vegetable production are concerned about the current market conditions. For 30 years, there has been a common economic area in the EU without tariffs and other residual regulations. However, vegetables are produced in the other member states at significantly lower costs than in Germany. Due to these distortions of competition, German fruit and vegetable production suffers greatly, said Johannes Bliestle, managing director of the cooperative, who is also chairman of the Federal Association of Producer Organizations. In this context, the topic of minimum wages was also raised. Here, Germany is the front-runner after Luxembourg. According to Bliestle, the farms will not be able to cope economically with another short-term increase.

Afterwards, the minister visited a typical family farm to get an idea of the organic production there. He was very impressed by the high professionalism of the young farm manager Manuel Uricher.

Minister Peter Hauk launches the ministry’s new regional campaign on the island of Reichenau
Together with the managing director of Reichenau-Gemüse eG, Johannes Bliestle, the Minister of Food, Rural Areas and Consumer Protection Baden-Württemberg, Peter Hauk, opened the new campaign of the state of Baden-Württemberg “Natürlich. VON DAHEIM.” The campaign’s motto, “We do it,” focuses on people, products, and other participants in the value chain. Transparency, trust, enjoyment – Baden-Württemberg offers all this with its many different producers and skilled workers in the food trade.

And so it is not surprising that at the campaign launch, a large number of Reichenau gardeners also listened intently to the words of the Minister of Agriculture. For it is precisely these growers who give the campaign a face. Directly from the field, or from the greenhouse, to the consumer’s plate. Producers, marketers, processors, they are the central cornerstones of our regional food, said the Minister. And that is exactly what Reichenau-Gemüse eG and its nearly 50 producers stand for regionality, transparency, enjoyment, trust, and sustainability.

For more information:
www.von-daheim.de
www.reichenaugemuese.de

The Gist

• Customer-centricity. Focus on customer needs before choosing marketing channels.
• Value statements. Develop a customer-centric value statement for guided decisions.
• Smart channels. Use tools like AR to personalize customer experiences.

In today’s current environment, marketing feels more about cost and efficiency than about creativity — the balance between art and science is askew. The relentless pressure to achieve more with fewer resources, amid stagnant budgets and the ongoing need to demonstrate their value to leadership, coupled with looming market challenges, has left marketing leaders besieged by both internal and external forces. 

One of the barriers, which is partially self-inflicted, is that marketers have been all about the customer, but not in the way that they should. They have been adding more to the experience, more channels acquiring more data, but to no avail. A mere 5% of customers recalled a memorable and valuable digital interaction with a brand.

Instead of focusing directly on customer needs, marketing leaders often focus on a channel-first customer experience (CX), which is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Marketers must build their CX by identifying the customer needs first before focusing on channels. While it may seem straightforward, it’s surprisingly common for marketing leaders not to adopt this approach, whether due to technological debt or other internal factors.

Ultimately, this approach fosters stronger, more sustainable customer relationships, resulting in customers who are more likely to make a purchase, demonstrate brand loyalty and be willing to pay a premium. 

With such positive outcomes, the question then becomes — how exactly do we achieve a customer-focused customer journey?

Focus on Customers’ Standards for Success

Many brands leapfrog to a channel as the solution, missing a critical step: to create a clear, customer-centric value statement that will serve as the compass for the project. This is otherwise known as the experience thesis statement. Doing this ensures that each decision regarding CX ties back to the thesis so as not to succumb to opinion (shiny-object syndrome) or common biases.

The thesis statement reflects the goal that target customers (the personas who are of strategic importance for the brand) expect the brand to deliver. It includes the indicators that signal whether those goals have been met.

Marketing leaders should look to achieve two goals when developing a thesis statement. First, ensure that the experience is helping customers accomplish something from which they’ll derive value. Second, it should help align all stakeholders on what specific business target this experience will help their companies achieve.

Related Article: Content for Every Stage: Maximizing Engagement in the Modern Customer Journey

Highlight Personal Benefits for Customer-Centricity

What should the customer-centric value statement focus on? While societal and functional benefits positively impact brand commitment, Gartner research has found that personal benefits have an outsized impact on brand commitment — more than societal and functional combined.

Personal benefits have three important characteristics:

1. Focus on the customer, not the company.
2. Emphasize the outcome the customer will receive.
3. Fulfill a psychological need for the customer.

In fact, the more customer-centric the brand promise is, the more impactful the potential brand experiences will be. Consumers are 1.73 times more likely to buy more when they realize something new about their own needs or goals.

Related Article: Augmented Reality, Experimentation, Ecommerce and Your Customer Base

Channels Are Stepping Stones to Better Customer Experience

Customers do not think or assign value based on channels; they do so based on the experiences a brand delivers. More specifically, they want to be clear on their next steps and feel confident in their decisions.

With this in mind, consider augmented reality (AR) tools. While they are often viewed as more of a luxury, they can be essential to CX if value is outlined first. AR tools are often used on product pages to aid shoppers’ decisions for product sizing. But leaders who recognize the importance of creating value statements first to highlight products in a new way through AR can be more purposeful in helping customers better understand and learn about their requirements through visualization. In this way, AR is less “fun” and more so furthers “self-learning.”

For example, clothing brands can ask customers to take a quiz to discover their personal style and ask questions focused on personal traits, preferred style and habits in order to recommend products that match their responses. Only then does a customer work with an AR tool to find clothing specifically tailored toward them.

If this is married with the ability to allow users to add products to their carts directly from guided selling pages, a brand can differentiate themselves from peers and meet consumer needs that they just outlined. This customer-first mindset not only helps to close a sale, but also leads to more loyal customers and less returns, ultimately impacting the bottom line in multiple ways.

If marketing leaders begin by identifying and aligning around the objectives of their target customers, they will be able to deliver results in line with the outcomes the brand is aiming to achieve. Remember, when a brand focuses on understanding how to help a customer feel good about themselves and their decisions, they are less likely to return products and more likely to return as loyal customers.

Learn how you can join our contributor community.