Babs Rangaiah’s Takeaways from Cannes

For these of us in promoting, there’s really nothing very like Cannes. Beyond the terrific food stuff, rosé and sheer beauty of the South of France, there is no other function that brings collectively as lots of of the world’s prime entrepreneurs as Cannes Lions. This year, Model Innovators alongside with Influential, took in excess of the beach that Twitter had occupied for several years. Additionally, Model Innovators announced that they would be merging with what was previously referred to as the CMO Club. which only extends and elevates what was now a big internet marketing neighborhood. With that as the backdrop, we read from CMO’s from some of the prime makes in the world, including Raja Rajamannar from Mastercard, Mark Pritchard from P&G, and of class my outdated peeps from IBM and Unilever.

As normally, the festival furnished an possibility for field talent to showcase their creativeness, share insights, forge partnerships and listen to about the emerging traits that will shape the upcoming of this business. This year’s crucial themes were being personalization, DE&I, CTV, Immersive technologies, Knowledge & Intent. But the speak of the town, up and down La Croisette this year, was Generative AI. It arrived up in about 90% of the classes I attended. There were being hundreds of classes on these important subject areas, numerous of them wonderful, but the next highlights a number of of what I assumed were being the most exciting and unique, together with my take on the subjects: 

Generative Artificial Intelligence

It seemed as if everyone assumed AI was a new thing. It is not. When I was at IBM many several years ago, we labored on and developed some incredible AI applications a long time before this, using Watson technological know-how. For case in point, we created 1) sizzle reels for Wimbledon by acquiring Watson generate highlights by recognizing when gamers pumped their fists 2) a costume for the Met Gala by acquiring Watson gauge fashion trends and 3) even listed here in Cannes, way back again in 2016, we had Watson scrape people’s social media feeds to hand them their preferred consume as they walked in. And broadly, though folks might not even know it, Watson has been improving our ordeals in the background for yrs. 

With that in mind, I went to an IBM session at BI’s Armani Café to listen to IBM main innovative officer, Billy Seabrook and IBM CMO Karen Feldman communicate about what IBM is undertaking now in the AI place. Billy spoke of how they’ve innovative their use of AI by “using Watson for written content generation. And then, after the written content is established, employing it to automate and personalize buyer encounters.” He also spoke of making use of analytics platforms to check efficiency, and then turning the insights into creative briefs”.  

But now, with the hype cycle and concern about ChatGPT, it would seem that anyone is seeking to determine out how to do the job with OpenAI, or whatsoever new start-up in the area to get engaged in generative AI for marketing and advertising. But in my watch, with all the knowledge Watson has and their lengthy-held strategy to data protection and protection, IBM would be the area I’d go to first… and I’m saying this, even however I’ve lengthy considering the fact that still left Huge Blue!:-) 

DEI 

It’s clear entrepreneurs are now on the entrance traces of working with the politicization of seemingly every little thing. Grappling with difficult issues around a slew of DE&I linked cultural challenges highlighted by the recent bud gentle/transgender campaign. Makes know that variety, fairness, and inclusion initiatives can generate results, but implementing those procedures can be challenging. We observed a variety of strong campaigns, but I assumed one stood out as notably resourceful and exceptional.  

Denise Vitola, vice president of model integration, social/influencer, Bayer, showcased a range program for the allergy model Claritin. A program that gained a Cannes Lion for what they named the Claritin “Diversitree.” The premise of this marketing campaign was centered on the perception that trees have genders (who realized??). There are considerably much more male trees than woman trees, and evidently male trees give off tons of pollen (female trees never give off any), which of class lead to allergies. So Claritin proclaimed, “we have to cease this tree inequality” and commenced an influencer campaign wherever they experienced influencers plant woman trees in unique places, starting in Richmond Virginia, which is one particular of the worst US metropolitan areas for allergies, with the goal being to cut down pollen stages. Their influencers talked about how far more woman trees make a improved outside for all. 

This is a good mix of experiential, influencer promoting, gender equality, and of course has a immediate backlink to the model. Get, acquire!

Modern Advertising

There have been a whole lot of discussions around modern ideal procedures in advertising and marketing, in particular in lieu of the cookie deprecation and IDFA challenges. A lot of discussions and concerns associated to the will need for 1st get together knowledge, performance vs. model, client experiences, martech stacks, etc… There had been considerably way too a lot of conversations on these topics to summarize right here, but I considered Ann Mukherjee, CEO Pernod Ricard and previous advertising and marketing government at PepsiCo, did a fantastic task of simplifying their solution. Here is what she shared…

“We as brand names are much too anxious about seeking to do every thing and producing “cool creative” on the newest channels and technologies.” She made the circumstance that trying to do that would make it difficult to realize the ROI you are going to need. She mentioned, “you will need to figure out that science ought to generate art. We have so a lot facts now and predictive human conduct is how you do good advertising. So you need to have to understand the customer journey and path to purchase for your brand name, and recognize that just about every brand name has a distinct route. For us in the alcohol industry for example, 65% of all procuring choices are pre planned. That point by itself starts off the advertising journey before than some other groups.

Then when you generate strategies for each and every brand name in the portfolio, you want to understand that they all handle distinctive instances. For illustration, when you want to celebrate you search for  champagne, when you want to impress you get a large finish whiskey, when you want to occasion you go for beer, and many others.. Each manufacturer has a intent in people’s lifetime and as a final result order decisions are based mostly on all those precise paths. Then when you realize the buyer journey, you commence creating choices on how very best to interact with them. This way you are addressing your consumers’ needs by way of science to create that unbelievable artwork of receptivity.”

Essentially, my take on this is that you want to capture info to understand crucial insights about your model, then carefully recognize the purchaser journey, and construct a martech stack that harnesses the info in a way that enables you to intercept men and women with creative, personalised messages at critical factors on their route to obtain (or no matter what the crucial proxy metrics are). 

On a a lot more personal “cool Cannes story” notice, Ann and I spoke together below at Cannes almost 20 several years ago as we gathered awards for the very first ever buyer generated strategies. She was functioning on Doritos at that time and I was on Dove. The business has arrive so significantly in improvements due to the fact then, but it was nearly surreal for me to see her on stage as soon as once more chatting about one more modern and innovative way to market place. Just as all individuals years back when we spoke on phase with each other, I could not agree extra with her strategy. 

CTV

New media channels these as TikTok and retail media networks came up really a bit, but the bulk of the conversations had been around streaming online video. There was heaps of communicate from and about Netflix, Roku, Hulu, and so forth..but there was 1 conversation I uncovered fascinating. Kara Swisher interviewed Telly CEO Ilya Pozin at Brand Innovators beach. 

Telly is a free of charge 4K television which is “free” for the reason that of a secondary bottom screen that will continually rotate information this kind of as information and sports activities scores, and promoting. Shoppers remedy some surveys and let Telly share your viewing habits with advertisers, and in exchange, you pay nothing at all for a 55-inch 4K Tv that is meant to be the “smartest” tv set on the industry. 

Historically, most of these type enterprises have failed, but Ilya was the founder and CEO of Pluto Television as perfectly, so has been productive in launching absolutely free advertisement-supported new styles in the past. His belief listed here is that TV’s have been commoditized and you simply cannot make revenue on the components any longer, but you can from hugely targeted promoting on a substantial good quality, huge display. The Television set is value much more than $1,000 and lets individuals to do more than just watch. 

They can operate a slew of apps, engage in tunes on Spotify, do Zoom calls and check out with close friends and relatives who are in other places. When you might be viewing Tv set, sporting activities scores, information, temperature, items that are actually valuable that people today are normally distracted by on their cellphone, they’ll have ideal on their Television together with ads. You will be able to take action on the adverts as a result of voice activation. So for case in point, you can get a pizza from Pizza Hut though seeing a soccer game. 

Conceptually it seemed excellent. It is a captive audience, with focused ads, the capability to purchase, the smartest television set, doesn’t disrupt the content, it can be cost-free, and has applications like Zoom developed in so you can watch with mates. They are at the moment in 250k residences and it can be possibly a extended shot, but at the really the very least, it would seem like a little something to preserve an eye on…Stay tuned…

Overall, whilst not all the way back from pre-Covid, Cannes Lions 2023 acquired shut. It carries on to embody the spirit of creativeness and innovation that the business is acknowledged for. The pageant highlighted how the advertising field continues to generate optimistic change, foster inclusivity, and embrace emerging technologies. As the business proceeds to evolve, Cannes Lions serves as an important function for showcasing the most imaginative thoughts and inspiring the next technology of innovative leaders.  Hope to see it appear all the way back in 2024. Au revoir till following year…