2 February 2022
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Key insights:
‘Agency of the future’ is a more bespoke model
Listen to data but it’s still about human experience
New data regulations are changing customer expectations
(Cannes) – The Economist Group held its fourth ‘Wake Up with The Economist’ panel session at the Cannes Lions festival today. Moderated by Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief at The Economist, today’s session featured insightful discussion from Alison Lewis, CMO at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Diana O’Brien, Global CMO at Deloitte and Dario Gargiulo, CMO at Diesel.
The impact of data and analytics on the marketing ecosystem and the changing nature of client-agency relationships emerged as key themes from the panel.
When asked about marrying brand purpose and data, Alison Lewis said it was about having one singular idea to guide the brand, but you still had to listen to the data. While ‘gentle’ was used to guide Johnson & Johnson’s baby care brand, the company recently relaunched its 124-year-old baby shampoo brand with fewer, simpler, more naturally derived ingredients, because data was telling them what new Mums wanted.
“That doesn’t come from on high, it comes from reading the data but then linking that back to ‘are we being gentle’. No we’re not and how do we address that?”
Dario Gargiulo cautioned there was a risk that marketers are driven by data instead of driving growth and change data. “Too many times we over-estimate data. Of course we can create growth thanks to data but on the other hand it shouldn’t be only about that.”
Diana O’Brien agreed – “data can provide understanding but it’s still a human experience”.
“We run the risk of disenfranchising lots of people, putting them to the side and not engaging with them if we rely too much on data. We have to bring that empathetic ear and creativity.”
Lewis discussed the ‘agency of the future’ model, with both Omnicom and WPP creating bespoke agencies to service the Johnson & Johnson account.
“We’re really trying to act more like we have everything in-house and we can move quickly and we can get to greater cultural leadership moments in terms of taking advantage of immediate opportunities, but also inspiring more creativity by allowing us to have multiple disciplines sitting together and not in silos as we had in the past.”
Lewis admitted that the process had been hard and “a big change” for both the company and the agencies involved.
Diana O’Brien said Deloitte’s relationship with external agencies is stronger as a result of building an in-house agency. “Our agencies are part of the fabric as opposed to a vendor which is what they were previously.”
When asked if they saw big tech platforms as a threat or an opportunity, Lewis said she saw them as an opportunity.
“You have the biggest focus group in the world sitting out there under your fingertips.” She said tech had given Johnson & Johnson more creative ways to surround their products, for example the Neutrogena SkinScanner.
Gargiulo agreed that tech platforms had a positive impact but for Diesel, which changes it products every six months, there was a temptation to include similar products in each collection based on positive data. “So you need to balance the data and make bold decisions about changing your approach.”
For Lewis, her biggest concern was around growth. “At the heart of that is remembering that we’re serving humans every day and as long as we stay consumer-centric and really understand how to serve the consumer better and surprise and delight them every day we will drive growth, we will grow share.”
Diana O’Brien agreed that growth was the focus for Deloitte, “but growth in a new world”.
“We particularly worry about industry 4.0, the digital disruption that’s connecting everything, the regulation changes around the world and the changing expectations of our workforce and our customer around data and experience –they expect a highly personalised, customer experience but they expect you to protect their data at all times.”
Tomorrow’s final ‘Wake Up with The Economist’ panel, which will be moderated by Andrew Palmer, Business Affairs Editor at The Economist, includes the following world-class line-up:
Aline Santos, Executive Vice President for Global Marketing and Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion, Unilever
Nick Drake, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Experience, T-Mobile
For details on this press release or for further comment from The Economist Group, please contact rebeccapartridge@economist.com
