8 CMOs: “My big insight from Cannes”

For many the talk of Cannes was all about AI. But for senior marketers, there were other issues too, from the application of that technology, the changing media landscape, how to organise capabilities as well as the power of creativity to drive growth. WFA partnered with The Drum and talked to eight CMOs on what was top of mind for them.

Microsoft’s consumer chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi said the eternal challenge for creativity rolled on. “My big take away is that there is still so much unknown. What are the media channels? What are the effective tools to reach? What is the art of creativity now? I think in some ways so much has changed on how but not anything has changed on the what, which is great ideas, zigzagging when others are going in straight line, is the opportunity to stand out and I think that's the essence of doing great creativity.”

That thought was echoed by Leyal Eskin Yilmaz, CMO Europe, UKI, ANZ & Head of Global Brands at Unilever, who highlighted the power of great creativity to make life easier for marketers: “I think this week reminds all of us again that brand crafting is the essence of marketing. When you do it right, when you distinctively create beautiful brands, then everything is much easier.”

For others it was about using that power to drive growth across categories and brands. “I want us as an industry to really point creativity at our biggest challenges as a business, we can't waste it, and those challenges are category growth,” said Jane Wakely, EVP, chief consumer and marketing officer and chief growth officer international foods at PepsiCo. “Seventy percent of all growth for scale players comes from category growth. We need to point creativity at how we lead and shape our true consumer behaviour-led growth.”

The best way to succeed is to stay true to your values and your consumer, argued Taide Guajardo, Chief Brand Officer and SVP brand – Europe at Procter & Gamble. “It's so easy now to get dispersed and fragmented and talk about so many different aspects of your brand or maybe deviate from what you stand for. So anchoring whatever you do with all these beautiful capabilities that we have right now in A. your consumer and B. what your brand stands for, so that you can stay consistent so through the years through the time, you can really improve the ability of communications to drive your business,” she said.

Others were inspired by more specific insights around key issues starting with the future of search. “In terms of the conversations, what I would say and [find] both surprising and super fascinating is the conversations around search and the disintermediation of that with large language models. You know something like 60% of searches start on Amazon in the United States and so what's happening to that landscape and it's both intellectual and challenging and the conversation we really enjoyed engaging in,” said Emily Ketchen, SVP and CMO, Intelligent Devices Group and International Markets at Lenovo.

Over at Mutti, Global CMO Rafael Narvaez, was inspired by a case study on in-housing and how to deliver that. “The biggest aha moment for me was the session from WFA and Arla the dairy company presenting an in-housing business case for AI. For me, it was really impactful to see that coming through end to end with the investment needed, the stakeholder buy-in required and the specialties that transformed the training program.”

But for Rupen Desai, CMO and venture partner at Una Terra, the biggest lesson from Cannes was not to be cowed by geopolitics.

“Somewhere the geopolitical realities have taken over substantive issues like sustainability and DEI, and while there are a lot of conversations happening, they're not centre stage now. The reality is whether we do have conversations or not, the issue ain't going away, so my big take out is let's stand for what we believe in and continue to make marketing a force for good not just a force for promotion,” he said.

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