Cannes was heaving with influencers striking deals, but the message from top marketers, academics and consulting firms was consistent: Go back to fundamentals on brand, embed brand at the heart of business, then execute with consistent creative excellence to drive outsized financial returns.
Mark Ritson landed that message most emphatically via 10 years worth of Effie data analysed by System1. In short: Do really good work, put enough money behind it, don’t change it; grow more.
CEOs like Gap Inc’s Richard Dickson are codifying brand to drive business decision-making – and it’s working. Other business leaders remain unconvinced. Hence EY Parthenon’s Karen Crum putting brand and creative investment on the corporate risk register, just like plant, equipment and supply chains. She’s mapped 20 years worth of Fortune 500 filings that show brands looking beyond negative brand risk and investing to maintain brand relevance and value are “more profitable and stayed in the Fortune 500 longer”. Crum’s new paper unpacks how marketers can help articulate that risk in language that will land with the C-suite.
Tassal Chief Commercial Officer Matt Vince – also the firm’s Chief Risk Officer –said it maintains corporate risk registers for both brand and marketing after 20-years as an ASX-listed business prior to acquisition by Canada’s Cooke Inc. Crum’s paper, he says, resonates deeply, while Tassal’s rigour in building brand –doubling marketing ROI on a flat budget – has seen Cooke’s global CEO fly into town: “The opportunity for us is to start leading [marketing] from a global perspective.” Next, he’s mulling how to embed a creative measurement system, as cited at Cannes by the likes of Nestlé as key to enabling creative growth gains and Grand Prix wins. But Vince is also thinking about influencers after meeting Seal at a TikTok event – and says TikTok “has some amazing things coming in their pipeline”.
Amid divergence on whether marketing’s fundamentals still apply within a platform-dominated world, Suncorp’s Mim Haysom backed the call to return to basics on distinctive assets – because they resonate in all channels. “We can get obsessed about single channels. But nobody builds brand and marketing plans like that. You look at the whole ecosystem of your brand.”
But Haysom acknowledged influencers are having a “profound impact” within that ecosystem. “If brands are thinking that it's a flash in the pan they're greatly mistaken.” Which means working through another set of risk management: relinquishing full control of content.
Here’s their take-outs and take-homes from Cannes 2025.
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