Tune in to Time for A Reset
Paul Frampton – 00:00:02:
Welcome to Time for a Reset, the podcast where we speak to senior marketers on the big issues of the day and what they would like to see reset in marketing. Today, we’re broadcasting from La Croisette amidst the buzz and the brilliance and excitement of the Cannes Festival of Marketing 2024. I’m your host, Paul Frampton Calero, the Global President of CvE’s marketing consultancy. And this week at CAM, we’ve engaged with senior marketers from across the globe. Join me as we navigate through the insights and trends and revelations that have emerged this week from the heart of the festival and discover what the most impactful resets that marketers think will come out of this week, shaping the future of marketing. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Time for a Reset. This one’s a rather special one because we are in Cannes and the sun is shining. The Olympic torch has just been by and I’m very happy to be joined by Lars Silberbauer, who has actually been a guest before, kindly. Lars is a CMO for Human Mobile Devices, HMD, which has the Nokia phone, the Barbie phone, and I’m sure he’ll touch on that in a second. And Lars and I were just talking about the fact that a lot of the Nokia strategy or HMD strategy has been reconnecting with what’s human about devices and allowing people to get back to what’s important and have a digital detox. I’m kind of interested in this conversation, given we’re in Cannes, where there is an invasion of marketing messages and technology and AI and everything else. So good to have you here, Lars.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:01:20:
Thank you for the invite. Good to be here.
Paul Frampton – 00:01:22:
What stood out for you so far? I know we’re only on Tuesday, but I know you did a couple of panels yesterday. What has stood out for you as kind of the key thematics for this week?
Lars Silberbauer – 00:01:30:
I think one of the things that really has resonated with me is the conversation about the fact that digital and digital overconsumption is a thing. Like we all know that more marketing isn’t necessarily like needed for the world. But also when it comes to digital, a lot of the tech players that are here, like Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, you name it, they’re all here. But there is a growing consensus that it’s not just good to be more in digital. So a lot of the conversations I’ve had is about like, how do we mitigate that? And how do we actually do things and create more balance? Because we don’t want to go back to the stone ages. We don’t believe that we can actually go back and be like without digital. But how do we create a more balanced experience? And how do we actually take more responsibility for deciding when we’re going to use it and not letting the apps and the smartphones decide when we should use it?
Paul Frampton – 00:02:11:
Right, right. And funny enough, I was on a responsibility panel yesterday talking about responsibility, about where media money goes and the fact that it can fund misinformation or it can fund climate issues because, obviously the number of hops in technology to get to an ad being delivered can actually get quite crazy these days with the carbon. And HMD seems to have really committed to building sustainable phones. But also you obviously relaunched the 3310 recently. Tell us why you did that.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:02:37:
Well, we thought it was needed. It’s the 25th year anniversary for the 3210. And one of the reasons why we launched it, besides it’s a brilliant phone, is really that we see this uptake and surge in mental health issues that are caused by smartphones and social media. It started in the US a couple of years ago. Then we’ve seen it in Europe. Like, to a third of the girls and young women have mental health issues. And you see the correlation is exactly correlated to the rise of smartphones and social media. That’s concerning. It’s not just the small issues about mental health. It’s suicide. It’s self-poisoning. It’s really, really traumatic things that are happening. And we believe that we are one of the few tech companies who can actually take that responsibility. And we don’t believe that we’re going to revolutionize the world within a year.
Paul Frampton – 00:03:19:
Right.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:03:20:
But we want to deliver an option, a choice that’s different. Because right now you only have smartphones with all the bells and whistles. We want to deliver choice and another way that connects you.
Paul Frampton – 00:03:28:
And it feels like too many tech companies just want to brush that under the carpet. I mean, let’s be honest, AI is going to create even more heat and kind of issues around consumption. Yet no one really wants to focus on that. And I remember in our last conversation, you were talking about the fact that if you think about the number of devices that literally are just thrown away, aren’t recycled, whether it’s digital overconsumption or because of our capitalist nature, we buy things and then we’re like, oh, we need the next phone and the next phone. We’re not being particularly responsible. So I think it’s really admirable that HMD is actually taking a stand as a brand. And it seems to be working for you.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:04:02:
It’s really working. And also, of course, we’re not doing this just because we want to be helping the world. Well, we are, but also we need to make a business on it. And I don’t believe that you can just help the world as being a charity.
Paul Frampton – 00:04:13:
Right.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:04:13:
Because at some point you’re going to run out of money if you want to scale it globally. We’re creating business models around creating tech that is good tech. As you mentioned, in sustainable devices, repairable devices that you can keep in your hands for longer, and then devices that will also enable you and help you to have a more balanced use of your digital assets.
Paul Frampton – 00:04:29:
Is there anything you’ve heard this week that you think is like, oh God, actually, if the whole industry changed that way or did that, that would make such a difference. I mean, we touched on the sustainability digital tech. Is there anything else you’ve heard that you think is kind of a key issue?
Lars Silberbauer – 00:04:43:
I was in a couple of discussions about culture and how to leverage culture and how to make sure that you understand culture the right way. What I see is the democratization of tools, like AI tools. Anyone can actually produce really high quality content right now and marketing campaigns. And I think that is putting smaller company or more agile company in a good position. So I think we’ll see a lot more competition from the smaller agencies, from the smaller companies that might have in-house resources, where the bigger agencies and bigger companies are acting quite slow.
Paul Frampton – 00:05:15:
Right. That’s interesting. We know that scale doesn’t always equal success, but yet you still see Meta and Google taking 80% of every dollar. So the industry kind of needs a little bit more democratization and giving the opportunity to the smaller guys because then that real change happens, I think, doesn’t it?
Lars Silberbauer – 00:05:35:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:05:35:
And is there something that you’ve picked up this week that you’re like, I must take this back to my team because I think we need to consider it?
Lars Silberbauer – 00:05:42:
We did a big project together with Heineken and Jager recently where we launched the Boring Phone. That software, like number of awards, hopefully we’ll win some. And I think that I see the campaign, the pure old school campaign is being challenged with projects like this, where you develop a product. We actually have a true product and it’s sometimes having something tangible that’s not just TikToks or Instagram reels, but it’s really a tangible product that actually is something that you can touch, you can use, it’s extremely powerful. So we’ve seen that and I’ve seen that a few cases that a lot of the marketing experiences are going that direction, not just trying to show up as eyeballs, but really putting something in hands of people.
Paul Frampton – 00:06:16:
Right. I think that’s really insightful. And I remember our last conversation where you talked, about the importance of products and marketing working really closely. I mean, you’ve got an advantage because you’re able to create new phones and devices at a pace that a lot of others aren’t. But I’ve even seen grocery companies and retailers and high street stores starting to develop products, whether it’s an app or it’s just some kind of utility experience that you give to someone rather than it all just being an ad pushing someone to do something. So I think that’s an interesting opportunity. And if you think about AI, potentially AI can help you code a lot of that product, stay in the past, you’re like, well, we don’t have in-house app people. We don’t have engineers. But to your point, you don’t necessarily need to have those people all on your staff anymore, do you?
Lars Silberbauer – 00:06:58:
No, definitely. It’s much quicker. Like from getting the idea to actually execution is a lot easier. And that’s how we actually implement AI, need a lot more high level people, but then you can actually save a lot of like more of the manual work that was previously done. So I think that’s going to accelerate and the companies that can do that fast enough and can make sure that they get the right high level people to actually use AI in the right way, that’s going to be.
Paul Frampton – 00:07:20:
They’re going to win, right? And as long as they keep the ethical side front of mind. But look, really enjoyable conversation. Thank you for making the time and enjoy the rest of the sunshine on the Croisette.
Lars Silberbauer – 00:07:29:
Thank you.
Paul Frampton – 00:07:30:
I’m delighted to be joined by Philippa Tilley, who Head of Brand for Unilever globally. And my first question, Philippa, is what are the trends that have stood out for you in the last few days?
Philippa Tilley – 00:07:39:
So I think what’s been really interesting about this, trend, is that unlike others, there’s actually not been a whole new hot trend or the hot topic of this year. If anything, it feels like a continuation of various things that we’ve been picking up over the last one, two years. Last year, obviously, every talk had to have AI, and that is still true this year.
Paul Frampton – 00:08:01:
Oh, the drinking game, yes.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:03:
I know. There we go. AI, I mentioned, let’s get it off the bat. And I think there’s just more intentionality behind it. Last year, it was the shiny new toy. This year, it’s go on then show me how we’re actually using it. And I would say actually very similar in the space of how do you really stand out in culture? How do you get into culture as a brand? How do you get very social first? All of these things are not new.
Paul Frampton – 00:08:26:
No, they’re not. But they’re a bit more evolved than they were a year ago.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:30:
I think a few things are less present than they have been before. I mean, it was almost a gag last year that no one’s talking about the metaverse anymore.
Paul Frampton – 00:08:39:
That’s very true.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:40:
I have not heard that word mentioned once this year.
Paul Frampton – 00:08:42:
It’s funny how you don’t even think about these things when they’re not around anymore.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:45:
No, exactly. And yeah, I do think topics like sustainability have gone down in terms of how much people are talking about them.
Jerry Daykin – 00:08:52:
Right. Right.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:53:
But I think there is on the flip side, and maybe we’ll get into this a little bit more.
Paul Frampton – 00:08:59:
Yeah.
Philippa Tilley – 00:08:59:
More focus on actually the discipline of marketing.
Paul Frampton – 00:09:04:
Right.
Philippa Tilley – 00:09:05:
And what we are meant to be doing as marketers and what our jobs actually should be about.
Paul Frampton – 00:09:10:
Yeah.
Philippa Tilley – 00:09:11:
So more focus around growth. More focused around creativity that drives you.
Paul Frampton – 00:09:16:
I mean, that sounds like a wonderfully positive outcome because that is why we all exist in these roles, isn’t it? Sometimes this festival can occasionally seem as a little self-serving and a little too focused on advertising because of all the people that are fun on the beach. But I love that you’ve seen that. How have you seen that manifest in some of the conversations?
Philippa Tilley – 00:09:36:
I think in a few different ways. So the kinds of work that is winning has more importance around the impact of growth that I’ve seen before. I’m not going to say exclusively so. Cannes has not turned into the efforts. But there is more onus on creativity that actually translates to an impact if you want to pick up some metal here in a way that I’ve not really seen before.
Paul Frampton – 00:09:57:
That’s wonderful. That’s really positive and good to hear. And your first thing was around AI and it’s a little bit more. Have you seen any intersection of AI and creativity in the palette this year?
Philippa Tilley – 00:10:06:
Yeah. And certainly in the palette talks off about it. And I think last year it was effectively, um, angst on, oh my God, is this going to end our industry or amplify our industry? What is this going to do to us all? I think now we’re having more intentional conversations about what is it that this unlocks? Is it speed? Is it money? Is it creativity? Or is it actually the antithesis of this which we then need to balance?
Paul Frampton – 00:10:30:
That feels like a really positive step. I don’t know if you are in the palette for that. Elon Musk told that apparently rather provocatively and maybe slightly foolishly given the audience said that all of us would be out of a job in five years.
Philippa Tilley – 00:10:41:
I didn’t catch that one actually, I’ll be honest.
Paul Frampton – 00:10:43:
I think it might be the headline for a lot of the trade press today.
Philippa Tilley – 00:10:47:
Elon knows his brand though, doesn’t he?
Paul Frampton – 00:10:49:
He knows his brand and he knows how to be provocative, right? I think what I’m hearing you say is AI is now being integrated into the way and the practices of how we think about that very early days, but fast forward a year, hopefully it actually becomes that true augmentation of the great things that humans do to communicate with humans.
Philippa Tilley – 00:11:06:
It actually becomes intelligent.
Paul Frampton – 00:11:07:
Is there something that you’ve heard either this year or multiple years that you’ve always thought, yeah, okay, why is this just not happening? That you think is like a reset in the show.
Philippa Tilley – 00:11:16:
So I think this is the point where I feel sometimes like we’re waking up from a collective industry hallucination, but there’s been just a long time when we seem to just forget what it was that we’re here to do.
Paul Frampton – 00:11:27:
Right.
Philippa Tilley – 00:11:28:
In marketing should be the growth-center for businesses. Marketing should be about creating real value for people and real value for business and unlocking that in a way that is creative and brilliant and magical and cuts through all of those things. But if you’re not doing it to drive the value, then it is just fluff. So yeah, it’s the point of reset. I think that’s the point that I’m focusing on. And that’s certainly the point that I’ll be taking over to my team and within new labels as a wider organization as well. I think it’s creativity. Yes, absolutely. But creativity, that drives growth.
Paul Frampton – 00:12:03:
With the very clear purpose of creating value. Absolutely. It’s recognised in the boardroom. I was at a room dinner on Monday night and we talked about the room of marketers, about the love language between the finance team or the CFO, CMO, which was a really interesting conversation. The love language choice of words was kind of interesting given the nature of the conversations. But one of the things I think we alighted on is the fact that there are lots of metrics in marketing. And that’s okay. But be very selective about the ones you take to the boardroom that are actually going to build credibility and be appreciated and understood. Like platform metrics or favourability of metrics like that. They’re important, but really they want to see proof of growth.
Philippa Tilley – 00:12:45:
Yeah, because that is your job. Otherwise you are cost. And we don’t live in a world that can tolerate cost.
Paul Frampton – 00:12:53:
No.
Philippa Tilley – 00:12:53:
Anymore.
Paul Frampton – 00:12:54:
We don’t. No, you’re right.
Philippa Tilley – 00:12:55:
Need and cost.
Paul Frampton – 00:12:56:
No, no, you’re right. And I think the other interesting thing, and I haven’t heard that much about this, but I think the Isbar guys and the WFA and ANA guys are now playing around with the whole kind of open source cross-media measurement, whether it’s Origin here, and I forget the name, that’s just launched in the US. It feels like that’s really important to get right, because if we’re not measuring things particularly accurately, it therefore means that we don’t really know what’s working. And then how can you go and convince a bunch of investors or shareholders that actually you’re doing the right things?
Philippa Tilley – 00:13:24:
Yeah. To your point about metrics, sometimes we can get obsessed about building concern around specific metrics, and that has massive unwarranted side effects that we obviously don’t realize at their inception, and then we pivot, we give away, we adapt.
Paul Frampton – 00:13:39:
So true.
Philippa Tilley – 00:13:40:
But at the end of the day, what the people who employ us, who we are accountable to, want from us, are quite simple metrics.
Paul Frampton – 00:13:48:
Absolutely.
Philippa Tilley – 00:13:48:
Around brand performance and business performance. And the two things have to come together.
Paul Frampton – 00:13:53:
Yes.
Philippa Tilley – 00:13:53:
And if you are delivering that, it is undeniable that you’re doing a good job.
Paul Frampton – 00:13:57:
Right.
Philippa Tilley – 00:13:58:
If you are not…
Paul Frampton – 00:13:59:
Questions are going to be asked.
Philippa Tilley – 00:14:00:
They are going to be asked.
Paul Frampton – 00:14:01:
They are going to be asked. I think it’s a really good rally in Cannes to remind us all that, yes, there’s lots of new shiny things, and there are good examples of creativity. Sometimes it’s a bit narrow, but really, whether it’s creativity or technology, the only purpose of those things is to better connect with humans, to get them to do something different, which means that ultimately you get them to spend more or engage more, and then ultimately you win market share or category grades, I feel like the more this conferences, become about the technology partners, the more kind of oxbow lakes or back alleys we often go around, have a little conversation. So none of them are uninteresting. It’s just making sure that the narrative that goes back up to the boardroom from even a conference like this is one of confidence in the industry, whereas often I think we’re either moaning about the fact, that we don’t trust certain supply chains like programmatic or we’re focusing on some great new idea or innovation when actually really you want those in the C-level to look at a conference like this and think, actually, they’re having the right conversations. Marketing is becoming more important, connecting with sales, and then taking a more cross-functional view of the organization and leading strategically. And then we wouldn’t have the problem that marketing needs to market the value of marketing all the time.
Philippa Tilley – 00:15:17:
Yeah, I mean, arguably it should never have been easier, because the distance between connecting your brand to a moment of commerce has never been shorter than it is today.
Paul Frampton – 00:15:29:
That’s a very good point.
Philippa Tilley – 00:15:31:
So I’m not trying to say there’s no excuse. I think I would actually try and flip it a little bit and say, what a great time to be in Morrison.
Paul Frampton – 00:15:36:
Absolutely.
Philippa Tilley – 00:15:37:
Look at all of the things that we have to work with. And yes, it can be overwhelming, but just if we are laser sharp on what it is we’re here to do, then the question becomes not what do I need to do about AI, but how can AI help me to do this better?
Paul Frampton – 00:15:52:
I think that’s a lovely place to leave it. So all that remains, Philippa, is for us to thank you for making the talk.
Philippa Tilley – 00:15:56:
Thank you very much.
Paul Frampton – 00:15:58:
Delighted to be here with Jerry Daykin on the beautiful Croisette. Today the sun isn’t shining quite as much as it was yesterday, but still an absolute pleasure to be here, isn’t it, Jerry?
Jerry Daykin – 00:16:08:
Not a dash of rain even, but absolutely lovely to be here. Especially in your company.
Paul Frampton – 00:16:12:
Yeah, can’t really complain given the weather we’re used to back in blighty. Jerry will be known to most of you. Spent a lot of time at GSK, a lot of time at Beam Suntory, always done global media roles, and I think always been someone that’s kind of talked out about the need for responsibility and sustainability in what we do. So really good to have him here. So the first question, Jerry, is what have you taken out of this week? Like different people seem to have different views about what’s been hot. So what is it?
Jerry Daykin – 00:16:37:
I’ll stick on brand. I think you curate your own can, don’t you? But I have been pleased to see quite a lot of conversations about responsibility and advertising, quite a lot about accessibility and advertising, some great stuff by P&G and Meta and others talking about subtitles and how you make sure your content’s more accessible to others. And obviously AI has been a buzzword, but I have liked that there is a sense around that, like we need to know how we, get that right. We need to work out how we approach AI responsibly. Microsoft had some good sessions around how you prompt AI appropriately. And I’m just fresh out of seeing Mr. Elon Musk.
Paul Frampton – 00:17:09:
Wow. Did he mention AI by any chance?
Jerry Daykin – 00:17:11:
He did. He’s not a man I would necessarily personally admire in many ways, but he’s a very interesting speaker. I guess his hot take today was within five years from now, everyone in that room, all marketing will be out of a job. He feels AI is going to replace us all. He says he’s an AI optimist who thinks that we get replaced, because we get led to a world where we have abundance of goods and services and food. And our biggest challenge as a society is that we don’t know what to do with our time.
Paul Frampton – 00:17:36:
Wow.
Jerry Daykin – 00:17:37:
He was also, it was like a one in five chance that the AI kills us.
Paul Frampton – 00:17:40:
He put a number of years on that.
Jerry Daykin – 00:17:41:
I don’t think he gave us years for that. He’s an interesting person. He’s very outspoken. I have someone who’s been a DEI ambassador. I’m very passionate about that. And he’s someone who’s very actively pushed back on inclusion, challenged a lot of LGBT people, challenged other minorities.
Paul Frampton – 00:17:54:
Well, he certainly contributed to the challenges around DEI, not really getting in places.
Jerry Daykin – 00:17:59:
I was disappointed that he perhaps wasn’t given a slight more grilling on that. There was a slight question about, does he ever regret anything he tweets? But that was more about whether he does unfunny jokes. But no, responsibility has been a good theme. I was at a session with the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking this morning, talking about how they’re pushing the big tech platforms to get better at age gating and better at some of that stuff. So yeah, in what I’ve curated for myself, it’s been a big theme.
Paul Frampton – 00:18:21:
And is that an area that you think we really still need to resound as an industry? The responsibility piece has been around for a while, but is there anything else that you feel is a real time to just get on and do the right thing?
Jerry Daykin – 00:18:35:
Well, I think it’s really telling this year that although responsibility and accessibility is top of the line, you struggle to find the word diversity and inclusion anywhere. So that has kind of been kicked off the agenda, partly because of US and other places’ political scenes.
Paul Frampton – 00:18:47:
Quite frightening, really, when you actually consider that.
Jerry Daykin – 00:18:49:
Yeah, it’s disappointing because our industry has a long way to go. But hopefully, if you try and put a positive spin in it, it’s because we’re embedding it in everything we do rather than just talking about it. But I’m not sure I quite believe that.
Paul Frampton – 00:18:59:
No, me either.
Jerry Daykin – 00:18:59:
In terms of step changes, differences, the other thing I spent a bit of time with the ANA talking about programmatic transparency. They issued a report a year ago, which actually was sort of a sequel to a report ISBA and the UK team had done a few years before, all of which highlight that when we put money into programmatic, a lot of it goes to places we don’t quite know where.
Paul Frampton – 00:19:19:
Right.
Jerry Daykin – 00:19:20:
Made for advertising websites, thousands of long-time websites.
Paul Frampton – 00:19:23:
Misinformation.
Jerry Daykin – 00:19:24:
Misinformation, fraud and things. And so that was something for me that we’ve known as an industry for maybe five plus years. We’ve definitely known since last year because they’re basically still talking about some of the same data, though they are now launching a rolling benchmark. And for me, that’s something that hasn’t quite landed hard enough. Like programmatic is not evil. It’s not the end of the world. You can do it well, but not too much programmatic being done where people just-
Paul Frampton – 00:19:47:
Irresponsible.
Jerry Daykin – 00:19:47:
Irresponsible. They don’t have the right tech. They don’t have the right settings. They don’t take enough governance over that. And it’s bad for your brand because you’re buying cheap rubbish. It doesn’t actually deliver it. It’s bad for society because you’re funding misinformation and not funding quality news and things.
Paul Frampton – 00:20:02:
Right. And interesting. Last night I was at dinner up in the hills of Microsoft talking about AI. We were talking about all the things that AI could improve. And one of them was that given we’re all in the marketing and advertising industry, that it should be able to do a job of allowing us at scale to remove the bad actors.
Jerry Daykin – 00:20:18:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:20:18:
And actually kind of just make that a standard across the world that we don’t allow things like MFA’s and we don’t allow uncredible sources to be out there because technology by definition can actually do that in way humans can’t.
Jerry Daykin – 00:20:31:
Yeah. It’s an area I think where there’s a lot of hope around AI that like initial attempts at brand safety, such as could be quite blunt. You create like these block lists of words. I remember working in drinks industry and we blocked the word frozen because Disney Frozen was a big movie at the time, but unfortunately it also blocks frozen drinks.
Paul Frampton – 00:20:46:
Frozen cocktails. Yeah.
Jerry Daykin – 00:20:47:
Actually, it doesn’t take much AI to start being able to tell the difference between, is this an article about a kid’s movie that we should be absolutely no way near? Or is this an article about frozen cocktails and summer and things where we absolutely want to be? So I hope that actually starts to allow more news and things that have perhaps been demonetized by brand safety to start having a punchy role.
Paul Frampton – 00:21:06:
And I think some of the funding.
Jerry Daykin – 00:21:07:
I think AI can have a big impact there in a positive way.
Paul Frampton – 00:21:10:
Yeah. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope so. And I guess the last question is, is there something that you haven’t already mentioned that you’ll take back to the clients that you’re consulting with at the moment?
Jerry Daykin – 00:21:19:
Yeah, I think so. I mean, the thing that always gets me when I come to Cannes, it’s a tale of two cities. There’s like the creative people who come here, they’re in the Palais, they’re seeing a lot of great work, and there’s sort of the media, ad tech, digital side of things. And I think the best Cannes you can have and the best experience you can take back is bringing those two things together. So my day job, I’m a media man. I think a lot about effectiveness and performance and partnerships. But ultimately, everything we do in media hinges on how good our creative is. So using this as an opportunity to look at some great creative work, to understand how companies have got to that great creative work, and to challenge us that even though it’s not necessarily our responsibility as a media team to come up with a creative, it’s absolutely our responsibility.
Paul Frampton – 00:21:56:
You can’t ignore it.
Jerry Daykin – 00:21:57:
You can’t ignore it. And it’s our responsibility to work with those creative teams, to give them insights, to give them ideas of where the content is going to run. And I think although a lot of companies have started to do it, sometimes, again, you start in a slightly blunt way where, it’s like, I need five seconds, I need my logo here, I need this here. And actually, a lot of the best stuff you see here is when there’s been a clear idea of the media, but actually the creative idea has also impacted it. And that’s made some of the challenge choice.
Paul Frampton – 00:22:20:
And it works in harmony.
Jerry Daykin – 00:22:20:
Yeah. But sometimes you do need a logo in the first few seconds. That’s all people are seeing. So, you know.
Paul Frampton – 00:22:24:
Yeah. And the old adage of right message, right place, right time.
Jerry Daykin – 00:22:27:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:22:27:
It’s kind of all of those things together, isn’t it? Yet, quite often in a siloed industry, we have an entire ad tech industry that just focuses on one of those and doing a slither of one of those particularly well. But it’s a good rally cry to go, do you always get the right people in the room to think about coalescing for the right audience, the right message, at the right moment, and even deciding whether it is even the right moment to serve an ad at all.
Jerry Daykin – 00:22:51:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:22:51:
Which I think is often not talked about.
Jerry Daykin – 00:22:52:
That’s a brilliant point. I think almost you can cut the first few minutes of this and just land on that, which is the right place, right moment, right time, right person. It’s kind of the mantra of the programmatic industry, the mantra of a lot of what we do in digital. It’s a great mantra. I think sometimes what we really mean is the right person, wherever they are, with whatever the hell we can reach them with. And actually, it matters where they are. It matters what you reach them with. It matters what the content is. It matters when that is. You know, programmatic shouldn’t just be, about reaching anyone, wherever you possibly can. It should be really about the right place, the right context, the right creative. And that’s when it works.
Paul Frampton – 00:23:24:
Yeah, and I think the hope we’ve got to have is, as we said, AI could well improve many things in the industry. I think it will change the creative side of the industry so much. But we’re still going to need humans to make sure that they do bring those things together because, I mean, programmatic technology has almost exclusively been leaned into by the media and digital kind of community. And almost never by the creative community. We need actually the possibilities, science and the art, to come together. But that’s, I think, where the human orchestration, conduct level has to come in.
Jerry Daykin – 00:23:55:
Yeah. And ignoring the fact that Elon Musk told us none of us will have a job in five years. When Mark Reed did ask him a question, if you were a young creative coming out of the industry now, what do you do to stand out and be different? I think his message is a positive one, I guess, is that the companies, the people that succeed will be the people who manage to use AI to augment them, who like manage to do it, you know, the stuff that brings extra inspiration, that lets you move faster, that lets you do the tasks you don’t want to do. All of us, you know, whether we are in our careers and how old we are, needing to learn how to prompt to use AI.
Paul Frampton – 00:24:22:
Everyone needs to lean into AI.
Jerry Daykin – 00:24:23:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:24:23:
And I know we talked about yesterday that actually marketers sometimes can be guilty of not leaning into technology and outsourcing it to their agency or the performance marketing team. But I think I’m going to take from the two things Musk said, rather than four or five of us about a job, I’m going to take the one which is we all will be augmented by AI and be able to be more creative and more strategic.
Jerry Daykin – 00:24:43:
Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of hope, definitely for the next while, that that’s the journey we’re going to go on and we’re going to come back next year and there’ll be stuff that we can do better in our jobs thanks to…
Paul Frampton – 00:24:50:
A year in AI is going to be a long time.
Jerry Daykin – 00:24:52:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:24:53:
Well, Jerry, look, all that remains is to me, thank you for your time.
Jerry Daykin – 00:24:55:
Thanks for having me.
Paul Frampton – 00:24:56:
Thank you so much. I’m joined by Fiona, my colleague, who runs our growth across the world, CvE . And I’m going to ask Fi some of the same questions that I’ve asked some of the brands this week. So, Fi, what are the themes that have stood out for you so far on the closet on Wednesday afternoon?
Fiona Davis – 00:25:13:
I think what’s been interesting is watching several people give real world examples of how they’re using AI, GenAI in marketing now, like actionable things they’re doing right now and not things out in the future. You hear a lot of panels, there’s a lot of platitudes about how GenAI is going to change the world, but no one actually telling you about how they’re using it. And you had two examples. We had Mario on stage with us yesterday at the Nectar conference at Retail Media Summit.
Paul Frampton – 00:25:35:
From 7-Eleven.
Fiona Davis – 00:25:36:
From 7-Eleven. And he talked about specifically how they’re using GenAI to make it easier for brands to create audio assets using AI so that it’s not a massive lift. It’s easy for them to get into that space. And then you also had Microsoft talking about the tools that they’ve developed for people to be able to create assets as well in a faster way, make it quicker for the brands, make it easier for them to adopt. So yeah, it’s kind of a bit of a departure from last year where there was a lot of chat.
Paul Frampton – 00:26:03:
Yeah, almost like the drinking game of just hearing AI with no substance whatsoever.
Fiona Davis – 00:26:07:
To actionable stuff. All the way through to Elon Musk saying that we’re all going to be out of a job in five years. So not entirely sure that prediction is going to come true, but I look forward to being proved wrong.
Paul Frampton – 00:26:17:
Also not entirely sure he could have picked a slightly better statement for this audience, right?
Fiona Davis – 00:26:22:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:26:23:
Everybody here works in advertising and marketing. There’s nothing like encouraging and inspiring people. The other question, which is kind of linked, is there’s often lots of things talked about at Cannes that don’t go back to the real world, or are talked about many years, year after year. Is there something that you’ve heard this year that you think needs resetting?
Fiona Davis – 00:26:41:
Yeah, so actually the other one that was really interesting is P&G have been out in market talking about accessibility for a long time. Tahiti has been a big champion of that, of making that a reality. And there’s been a lot of chat and it’s taken a long time for them to get the momentum around that. So they’ve got the Accessibility Alliance going now, but they’re also literally in market talking about how they are actually building accessibility into their plans and all the things it takes to be able to do that, like creating the right assets, making sure that you’ve got the right tests running. But they’re actually doing it. And there’s like big, very large brands like your dad jokes s of the world that have leaned into that. So it’s no longer, again, no longer talk. There’s action happening behind it. And really smart, like they’re actually very kindly sharing the success metrics with the whole industry.
Paul Frampton – 00:27:25:
Right.
Fiona Davis – 00:27:25:
Because she’s up on stage going, I don’t want you to just talk about it. I want you to show me.
Paul Frampton – 00:27:29:
I want you to take what I’m doing and do it in your business.
Fiona Davis – 00:27:30:
Yeah, and also showing very clear business results of like, you’re missing 15% of incremental reach. It doesn’t make any sense for you not to be leaning into this concept.
Paul Frampton – 00:27:38:
Right.
Fiona Davis – 00:27:38:
And yes, there’s challenges to getting, up and running, especially around the creative asset management side of the house. But definitely worth doing if it gives you 15% incremental reach.
Paul Frampton – 00:27:48:
And I think that’s super interesting, isn’t it? Because everyone fights for percentage points of growth. But if there’s 15% of people globally that can’t see your ads.
Fiona Davis – 00:27:56:
Yeah, globally. Not just in one company, there’s everywhere.
Paul Frampton – 00:27:58:
Globally. And then there’s also another percentage of people that are underrepresented through Asian, black audiences that don’t get the same kind of distribution of funding that other audiences do. Then there you go. There’s your growth.
Fiona Davis – 00:28:10:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:28:10:
There’s your incremental reach.
Fiona Davis – 00:28:11:
The incremental reach that you’re looking for. There we go.
Paul Frampton – 00:28:14:
Really interesting. Well, look, thank you, Fiona. Thanks for spending some time with us. And hopefully we’ll avoid the rain. This afternoon, I am in La Croisette again, and the sun is trying to break through. So in a bit of an iffy day here in Cannes, but delighted to be joined by Stephani Estes, who is Chief Media Officer for Goodway Group, which is the business that CvE is part of. So really happy to be here with you, Steph, because I know you’ve been at some really interesting sessions all week. So we’d love to hear what you have taken out the last few days, what stood out for you in terms of trends.
Stephani Estes – 00:28:43:
Well, I’m delighted to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I will say, I think the thing I’ve heard the most is about GenAI. And I’m going to actually say I’ve heard the most and the least. About it because I think I’ve heard a lot of chatter about it and everyone is talking about how they’re thinking about it they’re using it but I didn’t really get a good sense that everyone has really figured out how to harness it effectively.
Paul Frampton – 00:29:09:
Right.
Stephani Estes – 00:29:09:
Either that or they’re just not sharing, so it could be little column A little column B, but everyone has been talking about GenAI. Even a panel I did earlier today was asking me about GenAI, we were talking about the deprecation of cookies. So like they’re really putting it in.
Paul Frampton – 00:29:22:
You can apply it to everything.
Stephani Estes – 00:29:24:
Anywhere, exactly.
Paul Frampton – 00:29:25:
I mean, that is a use case, I suppose. Have you heard any talk of use cases that are newer to you than the kind of… Because everyone last year was talking about copying and creative production is going to be where it’s going to go.
Stephani Estes – 00:29:37:
I’m not. I mean, I am hearing about how people are using AI and modeling to replace the cookie and to help fill the gaps left with addressability. But, you know, I’m not hearing a lot of like, really, wow, that’s very interesting new applications of GenAI.
Paul Frampton – 00:29:54:
So still a little superficial.
Stephani Estes – 00:29:56:
I think it is, yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:29:57:
Although I did hear, I don’t know if you heard this, but I heard that Musk was talking earlier, and he apparently very outlandishly claims that AI was going to put everybody at this conference out of a jogging about it.
Stephani Estes – 00:30:07:
Neat.
Paul Frampton – 00:30:08:
How do you feel about that? Good way to motivate the advertising industry to come back to X.
Stephani Estes – 00:30:14:
I mean, I don’t give a whole lot of thought to what Elon Musk says in general.
Paul Frampton – 00:30:18:
I think we’ll leave it there. That’s a very good politician’s answer.
Stephani Estes – 00:30:21:
Yeah, yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:30:22:
And slightly different question. At Cannes, there’s lots of conversation about lots of things that don’t always come back into the real world. And there’s often things that really should have been done a long time ago, but aren’t and need to be reset, as I talk about. What is one of those for you?
Stephani Estes – 00:30:36:
I think even though I was on a panel today talking about it, and I do think it’s an important topic, I think it’s time to stop just pontificating about the seed deprecation and it’s time to start making it actionable and practical. But we’ve actually had some really interesting meetings, not in sort of these really big, very expensive cabanas or a lot of these conversations we’ve had on the street or in a hotel lobby, where we’re hearing more about opportunities to be able to do addressable marketing without cookies. But I think that a lot of what gets talked about on the main stages still is very theoretical, very philosophical, and not a lot of practicality to that. So if I were to hit the reset button, I would say hopefully that by this time next year, we are talking about, actually the change of conversation even further. It shouldn’t just be about cookie deprecation, it should be how do we target and measure better. And if we can just hit the reset button and start there, that would make me happy.
Paul Frampton – 00:31:30:
I love that. I love that. Because the cookie bar… Yes, it’s important.
Stephani Estes – 00:31:34:
The cookies.
Paul Frampton – 00:31:34:
And the AdTech alley, as I like to call it here, are obsessed with it. But let’s face it, I don’t think many marketers start from that.
Stephani Estes – 00:31:41:
No.
Paul Frampton – 00:31:41:
They start from how do I reach my audiences?
Stephani Estes – 00:31:44:
Correct.
Paul Frampton – 00:31:44:
How do I measure that my investments at different channels work and how do they work together?
Stephani Estes – 00:31:48:
Right.
Paul Frampton – 00:31:48:
I think you make a really good point. And do you think the solve for cookie lips is getting easier? You said you’ve had some interesting conversations. And can you see a line of sight to getting to a place where you can solve it more easily than a year ago?
Stephani Estes – 00:32:01:
Yes, I do. I think that if you think about what we’re trying to solve for, it’s targeting and measurement. And I think that targeting is getting better. And I think we’re starting to get more data as it relates to how well that’s working. Measurement is a different story. But I mentioned this earlier, we’re trying to solve two problems with measurement right now. We’re trying to solve how do you measure without signals from cookies? And importantly, how do you measure against an actual business result or business outcome? And we hadn’t cracked that even when we were using cookies because cookies were never great at that. So we’re trying to tackle two very big existential problems for the industry. So I think it’s just taking longer, but I have a lot of hope based on conversations like that.
Paul Frampton – 00:32:45:
So you’re more confident than you were this time last year?
Stephani Estes – 00:32:47:
I am more confident, yes. That’s fair.
Paul Frampton – 00:32:50:
And lastly, is there one nugget or insight or trend or company or something that you’ve seen this week that you’re like, I must get back and tell my media team all about this?
Stephani Estes – 00:33:00:
So there have been many. I have been pinging my team on the side of like, hey, I just talked to so-and-so and I’m going to hook them up with you later. And I feel like I’ve done that a lot. But I’m actually going to pivot a bit and talk about a panel that I was at yesterday about psychological safety.
Paul Frampton – 00:33:17:
Why are we talking about this?
Stephani Estes – 00:33:18:
I know. That’s why I brought it up just for you. Psychological safety. But it was actually leading with empathy was the name of the title, which also made me think of you, of course. And then there was another one around how are we helping people be their authentic selves in the office and in the corporate world?
Paul Frampton – 00:33:31:
Right.
Stephani Estes – 00:33:32:
And there were a couple of nuggets that I heard that I want to bring back to my team because I think that they can help make an impact culturally tomorrow. Potentially, one thing I heard was you want psychological safety on your team because if you make uncomfortable conversations comfortable or you make those normal? When things go south on your business and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, something goes south at one point or another.
Paul Frampton – 00:33:55:
Right.
Stephani Estes – 00:33:55:
They are more likely to come to you and tell you and hide it. Like what a light bulb. How important that is.
Paul Frampton – 00:34:01:
Which leader wouldn’t want that?
Stephani Estes – 00:34:03:
Of course. I’m going to attribute that to Lauren Walker, who’s with Annalect. She shared that. It was really great.
Paul Frampton – 00:34:08:
That’s nice. I love it.
Stephani Estes – 00:34:09:
The other nugget that I heard was from Rachel and I forget her last name, but she was also on the panel and I believe she can’t remember where she’s at. But I put it on LinkedIn tracker. She was talking about that, like saying that you accommodate talent with disabilities is one thing. But if you aren’t able to change the way that you work to provide for the meaningful needs of talent with disabilities, then you’re really not helping at all. And that was a really big one for me, too, because I think there’s a difference between saying that you do it. But then when you hear the requests or when you hear the needs, are we actually creating an environment where someone with a special accommodation can succeed?
Paul Frampton – 00:34:48:
And are you holding managers and leaders in the business accountable?
Stephani Estes – 00:34:51:
Yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:34:51:
Following through. I often call that story telling and story living.
Stephani Estes – 00:34:55:
Yeah. I love that.
Paul Frampton – 00:34:56:
Everyone in this industry is very good at telling a story.
Stephani Estes – 00:34:59:
Oh, yes.
Paul Frampton – 00:35:00:
But how often is it actually followed through? I think the interesting thing with some of the other conversations is that a lot of people are quite nervous about the lack of diversity and equality conversations. It’s almost like the D&E bit has been dropped. There’s still a bit of I, but there’s an uncomfortableness about talking about it, which just is a frightening place for the world to be in.
Stephani Estes – 00:35:18:
It is. It is. It really is.
Paul Frampton – 00:35:20:
So I like the fact that you bring back to the fore because ultimately, Musk is humans, right? I mean, it’s people. Yes, AIs can augment us and make us better, but really, it’s all about understanding people, and that requires empathy, and it requires psychological safety. So I think it’s nice when you get some of those conversations in Cannes that come alongside things like, how are we going to solve the measurement, and how are we going to solve technology and creative? Because it all matters, doesn’t it? I think that’s the great thing about Cannes. It’s like a meshing of lots of different thematics. Like you say, you don’t necessarily take back a particular company. You take back, I should maybe do this a bit more with my people.
Stephani Estes – 00:35:56:
Idea, yeah. Yes, and? Are you ready for this? I’m going to stitch those together-
Paul Frampton – 00:36:00:
You know I love it when you do.
Stephani Estes – 00:36:00:
I do. I know you do. When you think about GenAI and you think about who is training GenAI, humans are training GenAI. And I mean, if they are truly going to replace us, if we don’t think about the blind spots that we bring as humans into that, and we don’t think about our biases and we don’t think about all of that, then what we will get from GenAI will never be its full potential. Because it will continue to perpetuate what we as humans already struggle with.
Paul Frampton – 00:36:33:
Right, and that’s a pretty dangerous place.
Stephani Estes – 00:36:35:
Isn’t it?
Paul Frampton – 00:36:36:
But I would say that I think one of the positives, and you’re definitely someone that has a lot of hope for things, I think, for the future as well, right? But I have taken out more positivity this year around AI for good and AI to solve some of the industry’s problems faster than it all being fear that it is going to destroy the industry. I mean, let’s put Elon to one side.
Stephani Estes – 00:36:55:
Sure, yeah.
Paul Frampton – 00:36:55:
But it feels like even if where we go right back to where you started, there aren’t enough physical applications or people building into their process right now, there are more people leaning in and being curious about how it could solve what have been problems for many years in the industry.
Stephani Estes – 00:37:10:
I love the leaning in and being curious. I think that’s where it starts. And I think the more we can bring women to the table and the more we can bring people of color to the table on this Juneteenth, the more we can bring them to the table for AI conversations in the development of GenAI, in the application of GenAI, the better off we will be able to have success with that.
Paul Frampton – 00:37:32:
Well said. And this will make you happy. I was at a Microsoft event last night up in Hills and it was 70% women in the room and it was a very different conversation, I think, than it would have been if it was the other way around. There was a lot more openness and breadth to the conversation and everything through from… Bias and inclusivity through to application. So I think you’re right. We have to get the right people in the room and make sure that the technology isn’t all trained by one man.
Stephani Estes – 00:37:59:
That’s right. And what a great place to get the right people in the room like Cannes. Like, I mean, this is the place where we can have those conversations and hopefully take it back to our teams, like you said.
Paul Frampton – 00:38:07:
Sure, it’s well. Steph, all that remains is to thank you for your time. I always love talking to you, but thank you for making time on the closet.
Stephani Estes – 00:38:14:
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Paul Frampton – 00:38:18:
And that is a wrap for this episode of Time for a Reset: The Marketing Podcast with Global Leaders, brought to you by CvE Consultancy. I’ve been your host, Paul Frampton, and I hope the insights from this episode will help you reset and refine how you implement successful change for strategic transformation for your brand. Look forward to seeing you next week as I chat with another senior marketing leader. And please don’t forget to follow us on your favorite listening platform, Apple, Spotify, or wherever else. Look forward to catching you soon.
