Day three: Cannes Lions 2022

With day three now complete, I am over the halfway mark of my time in Cannes for the International Festival of Creativity. This morning the day kicked off with a sell-out session on story-telling with Ryan Reynolds.

Next generation storytelling

Ryan talked about his approach to story-telling and social media and the need to move fast to keep up with the speed of what people are talking about and culture. Ryan spoke about his approach to storytelling and not harm. We are all, like it or not, social media companies. We have an image of ourselves and an image that we project to the world. He said that advertising should be fun and lighten people's load, not add to it. Finally, Ryan mentioned how diversity and inclusion make the stories we tell better. The day three kick-off was the most popular session I've seen this week and was full of great ideas around storytelling.

The first secret speaker session of today was Lisa Merrick-Lawless from Purpose Disruptors, who spoke about our approach to the climate crisis as a "crisis of imagination". Lisa said that we are thinking small and tinkering around the edges, and this tied in with the second secret speaker session with Txai Surui, who points out that "it's not just climate change, it's the everything change". How can we change our approach to global heating and the climate crisis to drive successful change for all of us? This remains an important problem to be solved for the future of the planet.

Marketing experimentation as a superpower

Romain Mallard, a Senior Marketing leader from Coca-Cola, spoke about it being time for a quantum leap in testing and learning at scale. With marketing being a critical driver of organisational growth, we need to be nimble in our approach to marketing and campaign execution.

Romain spoke through the process Coca-Cola took with Bain & Co to change beliefs and internal culture and drive growth using marketing experimentation. Key challenges in implementing this change included the need for it to be at the core of the business strategy, not as a bolt-on or 'skunk-works' programme. They also faced cultural differences in how different cultures affected how some national teams reacted to outcomes that could be perceived as a failure, with many not wanting to report on these tests. Romain pointed out that if you only test safe bets, you're only confirming what you already know, which has minimal value to the business and positive change.

Finally, he argued that you could not teach change. Instead, it would help if you gave people the tools they need to support and deliver the change. Narrow down the field and then let the players on the field execute. Please don't give them change: provide them with a tool. This session was positive, with lots of ideas to test and measure in our approaches to our work.

Emotional intelligence at the heart of brand growth

My highlight session of day three was the 'Emotional intelligence at the heart of brand growth'. This was also the first holocast session of the day, with bestselling author Daniel Goleman Ph. D. joining on stage from New York as a hologram. This session was my first experience of a holocast and hologram in person, and it was faultless.

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The presenters discussed the importance of emotional intelligence to businesses and brands. In their 2022 update to their first Brand EQ report in the weeks leading up to the Covid pandemic in 2020, they have shown that emotionally intelligent brands grow more quickly.

"Previously, we calculated the gain in value to be +682% from 2010 to 2020, and extending this to late 2021 increased the gain to +910%, boosted by stellar performances by brands like Google, Netflix and McDonalds. Our original observation has actually been amplified between the two waves."

These measures are linked directly to growth, and the emotional intelligence people attach to a brand. The team also outline in their report that Brand EQ is most strongly related to young people. The young, who is an audience that is often targetted, tend to be early adopters and advocates for the brands and essential businesses of tomorrow. This power goes beyond their current spending power and will continue to strengthen and deepen the brand relationship over time. This was a great session from the team at Craft, and both their 2020 and 2022 brand EQ reports are available online.

While I was comfortable with a speaker appearing virtually, and I think I'd have been fine if all of the presenters were present via holocast, it does raise the question if more of the event could be digital and online?

Highlight of the day

One of the highlights today was a reinforcement of the Nike presenters on day one. A presenter from Craft echoed back to the audience the power of Nike obsessively listening to one audience - athletes. There is such power in this focus that it resonated with others and was presented back in a separate session. Day three was another brilliant day full of knowledge, opportunity and insight. I am well over halfway already and know that days four and five will pass very quickly.