AI is not the marketer. YOU are the marketer.

HUGE shout out to Holy Slides and my buddy Antonio who has been helping me prep my keynote for DMWF next week! Holy Slides are on a mission to transform your presentation from “Oh, not again” to “Holy wow, that’s amazing”. Well… that’s exactly what they did for me! I promise you, this is the first time I am looking forward to being on a big stage (gasp). If you have a big presentation coming up and need help, go check them out.

👋 Hey everyone,

The theme of my trip to Cannes this week was “how can marketers absorb, distill and use data to make better decisions for their brands”.

As it turns out, 78% of data gathered by companies doesn’t lead to ANY decision. It was mind-boggling to learn this stat, at the Insights Lighthouse event I was invited to as a speaker. In a room full of consumer insights professionals (and me as one of the few outsiders in the room), the main topic of conversation was how to deal with data overload and make sense of it all, reaching better decisions within our organizations and most importantly, reaching consumers effectively.

This data to decision-making disconnect is costing companies over 100B$ worldwide and it is a huge opportunity for business leaders to address and close the gap.

Getting consumers to buy better, not more.

While attending several Adweek panels, I got the opportunity to listen to Raja Rajamannar, CMO at Mastercard, who not only was one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve watched recently, but he also spoke so openly about the challenge that managing large amounts of data is.

He said that a company that doesn’t know how to manage and protect consumers’ data has no business gathering it in the first place. And that the objective for organizations should be to gather as little data as possible and make the best use of it for the sake of consumers.

I thought that was profound and that, as business leaders, we have an obligation towards our consumers to be mindful of how and what we do with their information, especially in the highly volatile world we live in.

You’re using AI for that, right?

And of course, when you think of data, you immediately think gen AI, which was on everyone’s agenda this year.

Probably the best panel I watched was Adweek’s AI group chat with amazing leaders like Dara Treseder (Chief Marketing Officer Autodesk), Kelly Mahoney (Senior Vice President, Customer and Growth Marketing Ulta Beauty), and Alex Collmer (Chief Executive Officer and Founder VidMob).

The best insight for me, came from Dara Treseder who shared the 3 core ways Autodesk is using AI right now:

1. How to make employees more strategic? (focus on creativity)

2. Getting customers comfortable with AI (focus on educating)

3. Automate, augment, analyze (focus on productivity)

When most companies still think that using AI means using ChatGPT, Autodesk shows us that they look at all the important verticals in their business (internally and externally) to drive the best results through the power of AI.

If you’re not on the shelf, you’re not in the game.

The explosive growth and versatility of commerce media channels has transformed how brands can target and engage customers throughout their shopping journey. It is a case of commerce everywhere, at all times, and attention is what will get your consumers to be reminded of you, not just loyalty.

In the words of Eric Schwartz (Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer The Clorox Company), the consumer funnel is collapsing, and we all know it. What he really meant, as he would explain later on to me, was that the funnel is becoming much more linear than before and it becomes increasingly harder to connect with consumers. For Clorox, the goal of getting to know 100 million domestic users through first-party data would help combat this and get the company more useful insights on what their consumers need and want.

Connecting through culture

On Monday, as I had just arrived in Cannes, I attended the Amazon House panel around “Advertising that sparks emotion” with two incredible marketing leaders: Rankin Carrol (Chief Brand Officer Mars Wrigley) and Tariq Hassan (Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer McDonald's).

It was Tariq who reflected on how big brands today need to not just participate but also create culture - for a company as big as McDonald’s this is a huge priority, considering that 12% of Americans have worked at some point at a McDonald’s hence the brand is very embedded in the US culture.

For Rankin, the goal was to use tech to invite co-creation and to find more ways for people to belong through comedy, entertainment, and arts. A concept that I call “brandertainment” and that I wrote about at length not too long ago.

But how do you find insight at the speed of technology to really connect? In the words of Tariq, it is all about giving up control and co-creating with consumers. Not an easy task, that’s for sure, but one that Tariq feels is the only way to drive culture nowadays.

Intuition and creativity first, data second

There was a ton more happening at Cannes and honestly, it felt a little overwhelming at times. So did not want to share a huge amount of random bits with you all today, but to go deep on one insight that you (and I) can learn and improve on for the next 12 months.

So if there is one thing that I want you to take away from this email, is this: developing your intuition, identity, and voice has never been as important as right now.

In the words of Google’s Vidhya Srinivasan, who held a brilliant keynote on the Cannes Lions main stage, “no matter how much AI improves, it is not a marketer. It does not have taste, it does not have ingenuity, and that is really what sets you apart today.”

YOU are the marketer. YOU get to speak up. YOU have empathy. YOU have creativity.

Please don‘t give them up too quickly, learn to use AI to supercharge all these amazing gifts we have as marketers, and make sure you don’t forget that the reason we do what we do, is because we love the craft of marketing and the people who receive our message on the other end of the channels we use.

Until next time, keep your 👀 on the future.

Oana xx

PS. On the latest The Unmtchd. Podcast episode I had a really good conversation with founder of KLOWT, Amelia Sordell, on the incredible ROI that building a personal brand has on people’s lives and careers.