Cannes Lions CMO on Community, Advocacy & What Actually Moves Revenue

Welcome back to Building Brand Advocacy. This week I'm joined by Ilaria Pasquinelli here who is the chief marketing officer of Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. We're recording this in a run up to the Cannes 2026 Cannes Lion Festival. And Cannes deliberately reshaped the festival around the modern cmo, a new global CMO forum. They've got CEO forum and also brand new creative brand line categories. So we're going to get into what's actually new at Cannes this year. We're going to talk about what CMOs need to talk about, boards. We're going to cover some of the great like the kind of unraveling of where brand performance and merging together and really the case for creativity is a growth engine. Is it still to be made in 2026? And then what does brand advocacy, what does the world of advocacy mean as it plays into this? Let's get into it. This is Ilaria Pasquino. Great. Hi, Paul. Hi everyone. Good to be here. Like you say. I'm Ilaria, I'm the CMO of alliance, the organizers of Cannes Lions and I'm incredibly privileged to really do my job at can alliance because really it is the leading meeting platform for everyone in the business of creative marketing. We award the best work in the world, the best ideas that really have an impact on not just business, but also society and people. And then it's become increasingly more a place for business growth, really debating, you know, how you can sort of like drive your business growth, particularly through creativity. So yeah, and it's upcoming, really, it's coming next week. Exciting times. Yeah, you are crazy busy, so appreciate you making the time for this. So you've been there now for six years, right? First initially as like VP of Marketing, now as the cmo. Like how has it changed on that watch? And particularly really interesting to understand like what changes didn't you see coming? It's changed incredibly fast and substantially. Right. So Cannes Lions has always been recognized and known for the place where you go to celebrate great creativity and the benchmark really for creative excellence when it comes to marketing and business. Obviously it is still there, but more and more it's become a platform to discuss, debate, learn how you can use creativity and creative excellence and creative effectiveness as a lever for business growth. So as a result of that, the sort of like the festival expanding as to what it does, what the job is for the festival to do in the industry. What's changed also has been who creativity is relevant for. So it used to be mainly creatives, media people Agencies, media, platforms, again, still is for those players in the industry, but increasingly more it is for CMOs, CEOs, founders, creators, people from all sorts of verticals. Sports is a big thing this year at the festival. B2B marketers that frankly weren't bothered by Cruz CVC in the past and now it is really important, high up on the B2B marketing agenda, tech companies, etc. So that has been a massive change. Right. So we see we're seeing a lot more CEOs, business leaders on site. We're seeing investors looking for new startups, new unicorns. Right. Emerging in the industry. And this wasn't the case right before the pandemic, I have to say. And the biggest change I didn't see coming, I'd say the fast rise of creators as a big part of the marketing ecosystem. Right. We all know they're incredibly powerful. The creator economy is growing super fast. But really how important they are in all of the conversations at the festival, airing the industry, there's a big change and a big shift I've seen. And we have Alliance Creators, which is a dedicated program just for them. And this year is bigger and better, I'd say. Yeah. I read a stat the other day. It's almost 3/4 of agency creative briefs include a creator element to it over the past six months, which is, which is like wild, which is so fascinating. And you know, from my vantage point, sometimes done fantastically well, mostly done badly and by the kind of like the way that that should be leverag how they can, they can work with this sort of decentralized creativity that creators bring to the party. So fascinated to see how that's going to be on the agenda this week because. Well, this year, because it certainly has shifted from the macro alexels of the world to this more micro community led approach. And how does that tie into the agency landscape? How does that tie into the creativity landscape of the briefs in there? So I think it will be a hot topic from your perspective as someone who's been, I mean you were brand side first, right. And then sort of on the, on the supplier side as well. Like from your vantage point, like what is it that you're learning about how marketing is going? So we're sort of talking about where we are today. You know, creators are emerging into this. Like where do you actually see it changing over the next couple of years? A couple of things, if you talk about the role of the CMO has been changing dramatically. CMOs are incredibly under pressure. They need to show short term, they need to be driving short term commercial revenue, they need to build the brand. In the long term, they need to be able to speak the language of the cfo, the CEO, boardroom, et cetera. So that is a massive shift and it's been for quite a few years and increasingly more, like I said, CMOs come on site, come to the festival to be better equipped, right, to have those conversations. Especially when it comes to pitching creativity and creative investment in the boardroom. If you think about the influence of creators on the industry, of course they're having a massive importance and input and influence on how marketers go to market, right? It's a lot less about using creators as an amplifier or brand messages. It's a lot more using creators as culture curators, right. And really like those partners that you can really leverage to get into culture, possibly and ambitiously, you know, change culture if you are the type of brand that has got that power or want to have that power. So, so the advocacy lens of how the industry is changing because of craters and, and their importance in the industry is incredibly fascinating and something that I'm looking at, we are looking at closely. Yeah, be fascinating because it shifted so much in kind of the old school glory days of ads with monoculture where you can have some horses and surfers and waves and drums and sell Guinness through it. You now have these tiny subcultures that actually it's impossible for a brand to penetrate. They don't have the resources and the ability to be across everywhere. But however their community does, their community are in this niche gaming thread on Reddit or they are in this kind of cooking vibe for, you know, Pakistani recipes or whatever. The sort of like the niche that they have found where they work to. And like, how can brands still balance brand safety and awareness whilst actually getting into these little micro niches and have the. Give the creators the freedom to actually be who they're going to be and represent them in a way that is authentic but also powerful in terms of the way that the brand wants to go. Do you see that? That's something which is something that brands have to struggle with or is that an opportunity? It's a massive opportunity. It's a massive untapped opportunity. Lots of brands, as you know, you know, come from fashion particularly and fashion has traditionally and historically used a lot of influence, what we called before influencers, right, Creators and all that. But partnering with creators effectively is where it's challenging because it completely shifts the, you know, the, the it needs, you know, you need to have a different mindset to be able to work with them effectively, essentially. You know, it's not like briefing them, it's having them being part of the briefing process, letting go of control and making sure that they are enablers for the community that you're trying to reach right through them. You know, having them to enable you as your brand, to really make sure that your community wants to participate in, you know, be part of your brand, belong to your brand. Right. So it's a different and you know, as you know, businesses, team teams, marketing teams, CMOs. Letting go of control is quite difficult, I'd say, right. You feel perceived risk and it's where you're working. But the best examples we've also seen awarded at Colonials in the past, shown how really the creators were active, part of the process. Love that. Are you gauging the reaction from audiences through social. Does that kind of contribute to the way things are scored or are we looking or is the judging process more purist about the judges opinions on the quality of the creativity it is there? And also depending on what the lion is, right, we've got 30 lions, different lions, they are judged based on different criteria, right. A lot more. And all of the lions now really are judged based on the impact the work has had. There are some lions that are still mainly focused on the craft and the creativity. Right. The film lion is a very good example of that. It's one of our legacy lines, one of the first lines we've ever created. But for the most it has to be like all looked at and judged based on what the submission has been. And so, yeah, we're using really the submissions and the data and the evidence that we are given and the jurors, actually, not us as lions, but jurors, the industry jurors that we have to judge the work, they use what, what's in the submission really, and the evidence and the work, et cetera. And they are, they. They lock themselves in, in rooms for days, you know, because, you know, some debates, fears and some of the, you know, we. We're talking about more than 20,000 entries, you know, like. And you get to, you know, we've got a shortlist in jury, you know, whether work is shortlisted in the first pass and then you've got the award injury that come on site and then really look at the, the shortlist at work. Yeah, it's not easy, it's very complex. Right. And the jury presidents or ultimate moderates, all of that. But there's a lot of criteria that we look at. Yeah, it's Amazing. And it's also just such incredible people at the spot. The judges that you've got are like the who's who. And from your perspective of getting the right people in the room, it's quite deliberate this year, isn't it? Because you've got the inaugural global CMO Forum and the launch of the CEO Forum as well as like new kind of creative brand line category. Like why are you doing this, what's shifted, what are you trying to do with it and why all at once. There's quite a lot to launch simultaneously. Yeah. It goes back to the shift that we are seeing and we've seen right. In the role of the cmo, you know, recapping, right. You know, the CMO is now asked to look at like drive short term revenue but also build a lot, you know, the brand in the long term and making sure that the business is sustainable right in the long term. And also the CMO needs to translate the impact that the marketing has on the business in very CFO friendly way and needs to be able to speak the boardroom language. It's an incredibly difficult job. Right. What we wanted to create with the CMO Forum is a safe space where all of these challenges and ambitions of CMOs are debated under Chatham House rules. And importantly alongside the CMO Forum which happens on the Wednesday of the festival, on the Monday at the festival. The this year is the second year of the CEO Forum where we have like around 50 CEOs of really important global organizations and businesses and brands that debate creativity as a business wide capability and again as a source of competitive advantage as a lever for business growth. So the two forums are quite connected. So what the CEOs again, you know, closed door meeting and you know, CEOs can debate their challenges and can share learnings with each other in a safe space. Key learnings are then brought to the CMOs to debate how do you then meet the expectations of CEOs. Right. Are these the expectations you expected to have on you and how can we sort of work together or pick each other's brains to do something different and to get to really marketing influencing the boardroom growth agenda, particularly with creativity in mind, obviously. So a lot of other CMO events are very much like the CMOs are the audience, but in this case the CMOs are participating and learning and helping each other. We're hoping to create this community that can lean on each other essentially. Yeah, I like that. I mean the CMO quite famously the shortest tenure of any of the C suite within it. But now like the remit isn't just like ads, isn't just creativity and brand, it's also E commerce in a lot of cases. It's got so many different, like the whole digital stack often sits under the CMO's budget and remit, which makes it very tricky, right? It's difficult. And if you take your, you mentioned the Creative Run lion, which is, you know, the inaugural year of this new lion that is a really, it's very connected with all this, right, with what we're trying to do and really support the CMO to build the case for creativity in the boardroom. The creative Brand lion really recognizes brands that build systems, cultures and capabilities that makes award winning creativity inevitable. So it's more about the input, it's not about the output, right? So it tries to sort of like recognize and then award those systems that makes replicating great creativity that then has a business impact almost inevitable and repeatable and sustainable. So it's a super fascinating line and I can't wait to see who the first winners will be next week. But it connects with the same sort of like with, with the CMO CEO relationship and how creativity really becomes your secret weapon as a business if it transcends the, the creative department or the marketing department. And so what, what kind of, what kind of data do you have that creativity is the driver for growth? Because that's what everyone's trying to do, right? So CEOs, CMS, everyone's trying to grow. Why do you think creativity is the answer? We've got so much evidence. It's no longer, thank God, a question of creativity being this elusive concept, right? One of the challenges I see today still when it comes to creativity in the commercial world, in business, there's still a problem around establishing this shared language in the boardroom. If you talk about creativity in a board, the CMO might have a definition, the CEO might have a definition, the CFO might have another one. So that is still a problem. And you know, and depending on the business you talk to, depending on their level of maturity in terms of using creativity as a, as a business lever, they might have, that might be the first thing they need to sort of like tackle, you know, what do we mean by creativity? Let's create a shared language around it. Let's create a shared language around the, the measurement framework, right, that we use in this business. But when it comes to the impact that it has, there's so many studies out there, I can think about two. One is the study that interbrand, the global brand strategy Agency they did last year with using Carl Lyons data. So basically what they did, they analyzed five years of data from 50 publicly publicly traded can alliance winning companies. And they integrated that with 25 years of best global brands, which is their ranking of the most valuable in financial terms, the most valuable brands in the world. They analyzed something like 40,000 pieces of data, regression analysis, a lot of that work and basically saw that companies that were recognized for creative excellence, so they basically had won creative awards on average. They saw an increase in EBIT and market capitalization in the five years following the win. Right. So that sort of like connects really creativity with business performance. Because you might talk about like market capitalization, ebitda, you know, really important metrics that are crucial right in the boardroom. Another one more recent walk, which is one of our, one of the lions brands has published a study, really important one called the Multiplier Playbook. And basically that study shows that when you combine brand building with performance marketing together then you can see a revenue ROI increase which is massive, between 25% and 100%. I think the median was around 90, 90%. But essentially those brands and marketing teams that don't treat performance marketing and brand building as two separate budget lines, they get just amazing better results. Which is kind of also intuitive, right? Well, you say it's intuitive. If it was intuitive, everyone would do it. So it's, you know, do you see this as like they are the same team? If we could like, like dive into that in a bit more detail because it's something which I see a huge amount, but I also see a huge amount of confusion in the market. You know, people are particularly the larger the organization, the further the two performance teams and the brands team are. They're in different buildings, they're in different countries. You know, they never speak, they never communicate. But you're saying if they see them as the same budget, are you saying that just from a budget within a campaign's perspective or are you seeing that broadly the organization has changed so that they are the same team? I'd love to know where you think the best practice is. And you know, it doesn't have to be a data layer. Let's know your opinion as well. I think my opinion also based on my personal experience, the moment you separate the teams, the budget lines, the moment you give budget ownership which is completely separate to one team versus another and you frame brand building as this is just long term demand generation and you separate the objectives and the metrics rather than connecting them, I think that that's what the problem sit. The problem could be a mix of structural divisions, but also cultural. Right. Because you know, at the end of the day, oftentimes teams and people that have a performance marketing background. Yeah. Don't feel comfortable in necessarily talking about brand building. It feels soft and feels a little bit like wishy washy and the other way around. And the best organizations, the best teams that have delivered this. Right. Sort of like brand building and performance marketing in tandem. It's never happened by accident. Right. It's always by design. Right. Making sure the processes behind the, I don't know, campaign development were hand in hand from the beginning. The measurement frameworks were clear. Oftentimes objectives are so siloed. Campaign measurements are so siloed. They never talk to each other. It requires a lot of design and a lot of intentionality behind it. I'd say. Yeah, I totally like, I see that. And particularly the measurement side of things, which I think is one of the simplest ways that any organization can merge these together. Be like, are we speaking the same language? Is a dollar invested here the same as a dollar invested there? And a dollar of value created the same as a dollar value there? Like, one thing that I've experienced quite a lot of times is, is there's a lot of black box measurements. You know, earned media value, I think is done. The press that the PR team in countless brands, a whole world of damage because it's a black box. And so they'll go to the CFO and say, hey, look, we've done this much value. And then the cfo, how's it managed? Like, oh, it's a combination. We use this service, they do it and it's very good. And then instantly the CFO ignore that, move on, just PR team doing nothing. And they've done some amazing work. They have genuinely created genuine value. It's been seen by millions of people, but it's instantly just like strike through and the budgets aren't available. It's like, oh well, let's just go and and re reinvest all that fluffy stuff in buying more ads from Mark Zuckerberg. And it's just like, no, no, no, we, we have to like you, you. One of the things is just like the simple piece is that if you're going to use a measurement, you have to make sure that the CFO buys into it as a, as a very basic and you make sure that everyone buys into the same thing. Either is a dollar, a dollar, a dollar. If that doesn't really matter, how you get to that piece. As long as everyone's like, yeah, we're all in agreement here, then it means you're speaking the same language. Then the teams can work together. But. But that often is like the biggest barrier that I see between teams because they just can't speak the same language. So if you can't speak the same language, how on earth are you supposed to work together? Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Again, going back to shared language. Right. Building that from the start. I agree. What do you think that sort of like the evolution is from, like, how CMOs can point to the value of creativity in the board meetings? Like when they talked about the CEOs there and the CMOs have to be doing what the CEOs are requiring from where do you actually see there's the opportunities for CMOs to be talking? Are we talking about measurement? Are we talking about talking about campaigns and the value of creativity? I'd love to know how you actually tactically think that there's an opportunity here to sort of really elevate the great work that the people at the Alliance Festival and everyone associated are doing. The first thing, in my view, is that there is clear and total alignment between the business objectives and the marketing objectives. And that requires incredible alignment between the CMO and the CEO. Right. It's not a given, quite frankly. Sometimes CMOs don't even sit in boards or are not very influential. Right. So I think it all starts with is the marketing strategy, Are the marketing objectives aligned with the business objectives? And has that conversation happened? Has the alignment happened? Or are there a lot of like, things that are given for granted, if you know what I mean? And that is the ultimate starting point for any marketing to be effective. If you're not even clear or aligned with the business. Right. What then the CEO and cfo, when it comes to measuring. Right. When it comes to that point, that, okay, what's the return being on this particular marketing initiative, if there are different expectations or different ideas as to what the right KPIs are, that's going to be a problem. Right? And then obviously, again, so number one, being aligned on the objectives and number two, having this shared language around what effectiveness is in this business, what marketing effectiveness is and what creativity is. Alliance, we increasingly talk about marketing effectiveness being the system for growth. Right? So you are clear as to what marketing needs to do. What's the role of marketing in this organization? You are align with the CEO, the cfo. These are the objectives. This is the forward measurement framework that we use for marketing. It starts from those basics. I'D say, and then we use creativity and we talk about creativity as the multiplier of growth. Once all of the basics are done and it's clear what marketing's job is in this business, everybody's aligned and creativity can play a massive role in terms of accelerating the growth and multiplying it, et cetera. Especially if, like I said, transcends the marketing department and it becomes a proper culture, really. See where businesses, of course, you know, all is sponsored by the CEO. I mean the CEO needs to be shown leadership and you know, investing in creating the right environment for it. But then it becomes a really powerful, fascinating capability that businesses can develop and can then go and be used in any departments. Yeah, everything in your business is better when you've got a lot of demand and your brand is your reputation. And if you've got a great reputation, you will have a lot of demand. Therefore everything that happens afterwards is easier. The pricing, understanding, the positioning, everything the CEO is trying to do. But it starts with creating that demand. And a huge part of that is creativity. Yep. So yeah, the other, so the other component close to my heart is the advocacy that creates that demand in the first place. You know, people telling other people, whether that's them talking to their friends or whether that's a creator with millions of followers posting about it to their audience. Like you mentioned earlier that brands have to give up control to empower creators, customers and employees. Massive trend is that employee advocacy actually how do they do that? With some great stories coming out there. Like is the work you're seeing at Cannes going to like 2026 and some of the things you're, you're, you're expecting to be happening over the next week, showing brands are actually doing that they're taking their hands off the control. Or do you still think that there is an over controlling story here? That is going to be something which we have to very, very, we have to work very hard to unlearn. I mean there are some winners from the past. You know, I can think of Dove's Real Beauty. You know, they've created that, you know, DAV has created that. Brencom's platform has been going on for a long time. They obviously renew it as culture moves forward. There are some brands, for example, then they've shown how really a brand like that can release control and get the community to help them then solve the challenge they want to solve. But I think you need again going back to the basics. You really need to be clear as to what is your purpose as a business. As a brand, you know, and really what are your values? And once that's clear, it's a lot easier for this control, right, because you know, those that the purpose that then creates the brand platform, the values become the framework for anyone, all right? To work with you in this case, creators, influencers, to work with you in a meaningful way. If that's not clear, that's how, when, when you don't have the framework, you know, it's really difficult to release control. Right? You don't have the tools to give to everyone. So, you know, that is a very good example. Elf Beauty has been another brand that has been very prominent in culture, has been very present on what culture showed up. TikTok and other platforms. Again, another, you know, brand that knows what stands for. Right, so. So there are very good examples. For the most part, I think it's difficult to release control, right? It's really, really difficult. But we are seeing more brands understanding how to create the frameworks and they have the right mindset to do it, essentially. Yeah, it starts with that framework work, if you will. So I'm fascinated about the role of technology in this because I actually see that if a brand has a really good framework as to what their values are, like who they would work with, why they would work with them or who they wouldn't work with and why, and that's very clearly defined, then I actually think AI becomes a far better curator of the people that you work with, the advocates and the creators, than a human does, because it doesn't have bias if you've done the work. And that's the thing, is that if you've got the clarity in there and you've well documented it, AI is going to do a better job, it's going to do a better scale, and it's going to be far more impartial and fair in terms of what you want to do to unlock those pieces there. But a lot of it is actually kind of a fear. Do you actually back your work that you've done? Because if you've got it written up, is that actually it? Are you willing to take your hands off the control? Not many brands are getting to that piece there, but I do anticipate that's going to be a major part, particularly as the trends for massive scale of advocacy becomes. And building out ecosystems and empowering employees becomes a very, very tricky element there, and technology becomes one of the major unlocks for that, because you just wouldn't have been able to do it previously if you had you not been there. Do you sort of. So if you away from the kind of the control, do you see that the. And you know I mentioned earlier that kind of the media valley. But a lot of the thing about creativity is the buzz and the value that has been seen in the software. We know the hard ways, we know the performance measurements and those things there. But do you actually see the way that the brands are trying to control the measurement? That is like jumping in, you know, do you think it's even possible to measure community and the own distribution, the eyeballs that you're getting of culture input when you mentioned ELF there? Or actually do you think that's like another part of taking your hands off the wheel? It's like you also can't, you've got to know that you can't measure a lot of the good stuff and that's going to be okay. Or actually do you think that it is massively important that you're able to measure it otherwise you won't get the budget next year because you can't talk to the board about it. You have to be able to measure it. I mean there's no way out of it, frankly. It's the first question any CFO would ask. You know, yes, you know, this is the budget you want but you know what, what, you know, what's the expected return? You might not be able to measure everything but you know, for the most part it is expected. And I think that's where right now when you, when we talk about advocacy and particularly work with creators, what that's, that is where the gap is. As in we don't have proven or established, very established measurement frameworks. There are some examples. And you know, also on walk I was looking at earlier, right. Preparing for this chart, there are so many like case studies or really good like initiatives, creator led initiatives that you know, been measured in a, in a good way. But there is an A, an established industry way of measuring why the work with crazy. We always go back to what we know, right? You know, brand, brand health metrics, share search, you know, community growth and all those things that we're all very familiar with in marketing. But that's probably an opportunity, I'd say when we talk about advocacy, how do you actually measure it and does it need a separate, different way of measuring it compared to what we know? I mean a lot of the CMOs came up from a performance background. You know, this sort of era that we are finally sort of leaving, which is you must measure absolutely everything. Every single thing must have a dollar sign associated Therefore, we don't do it. It didn't happen to this new place where we're, you know, starting to really see the value of community. We can measure it in some different ways, but do you actually think that the CMOs that have come this way, are they capable of leading a shift or actually, do we need a new leadership change? Do we need to start seeing the Gen Z CMOs emerging, running these companies? Where do you see that going? The best CMOs know how to do it and it goes back to the combining brand and performance marketing. Right. Depending on where you come. For example, I come from a brand background. Right. But I've seen other CMOs coming from performance marketing background. The moment you're able to understand both languages and both worlds and combine them together, it's not an either or situation. It's more, how do you combine paid media in this case and Media Buy. Right. With more brand LED initiatives? And how do you do that in the most effective way? But I'd be interested to see like the new CMOs and the future CMOs, you know, how they see Gen Z as particularly. Right. Yeah. There's not many of them around. They're curious about how those brands have been built. You've got sort of those Gen Z founders and they've built their brands in particular ways and we can certainly see the benefit there. I do agree with you, by the way. Like, my observation of working with a lot of marketers is that the differentiator that happens early on in a career when someone who is often within a bucket, because often you end up, I'm in performance or I'm in brand or whatever your role is, is that if that person has spent the time to learn the different parts and learn the measurement, learn the language of the performance, learn the language of retail and commerce, they shoot through the ranks very, very quickly because of that ability to have that. And a lot of people sort of cap their ability to do it by very much pigeonholing in an area. The number of conversations we've had with people who were just saying, okay, well what are your cost of goods for your products? Like, what's your customer acquisition cost? And they're like, well, look, we're in the brand team, so we don't know any of that stuff. It's like, no, you need to know that. Like this is basics like this. You will stay exactly where you are there unless you figure this stuff out. And I think that you then start to track that. Exactly. As you said, the ones who've got up to the Position of being a seam are the people who had to join the dots that they've spent the time to learn all the different parts of the commercials of the business, not just the marketing parts of the business. And that is what makes them so powerful at their job. Yeah, my brain. Okay, so let's zoom out a little bit then. So if we're sort of thinking about, let's look about the future, let's talk a little bit about like where marketing is going. So from, from, from where you are, like, you're seeing a lot of content coming through, you've seen a lot of campaigns and submissions. What does the CMO of 2030 look like? And what do you think the role of the Cannes Festival is going to play in getting those CMOs there? Because those will be the Gen Z CMOs in many cases, I'm sure, 100%. So 2030 is not that far away. So we're already seeing the signs of what the future CMO will need to be. And really it is a combination of growth architect, cultural curator, translator and community builder. But also tech translator. Right. All these things combined, they are already. Right. Expected or increasingly more expected of the cmo. So again, it's a very difficult job if you are someone like me. I come from a brand background. I come from, I've studied on only marketing, so I've done two degrees marketing all the way through. Studied on the old, like Kotler books. So the traditional marketing, fmcg, png, kind of, if you come from my background, it's not a new thing. So really if you look at how PNG has created marketing marketers, they've always been P and L owners, right? Category owners. So the fact that CMO today and the future, it's almost like going back to what it should have always been, right? Marketing. Marketing has never been a communications function only. It had become right for some reason, losing a little power in the boardroom. But marketing has never been. If the whole point of building a branded business is to fulfill a customer need, right, then it has to be marketing, owning the classic strategy decisions. Where do we play as a business? How do we win? But over time, we lost that control. To me, it's always been natural because that's what I studied, that's what the best marketers, how they were educated and how they were trained. So to me, it's going back to that with the added complications of obviously today's landscape, media fragmentation, the communities having more power, having this sort of like need to be close to culture potentially. And I hope the brands have the ambition to shift culture for the better. So it's just going back to what Sol is supposed to be. But then it lost its way for some reason. Where did that go? Who took that on the board? Who is now in control of that? Which should have been the CMOs? Who has that now? I mean a mix of depending on how the C suite is organized in any given business, anywhere but marketing, product owners, you know, MDs, commercial leaders. Sometimes depending on if a company is more tech led, there will be technology calling all the shots and products, oftentimes with not a lot of input from the market. Or is there a demand for this product, for example? Frankly, quite happy that this shift is happening because to me, like being the growth archetype of the business has always been something that marketing should have owned from the beginning. But marketing needs to be then empowered, given the confidence of like making sure that they've got all the tools and insights and the evidence to be able to then operators there in the boardroom. And that's kind of what can lions and lions, which is the, you know, the bigger group. That's what we're here to do to really give marketers the CMOs the ammunition really to do that confidently, to drive those decisions confidently in the boardroom, particularly when it comes to creativity and marketing effectiveness. And so what do you think is this thing that the industry talks about a lot that is actually more of a distraction from the real shift that's happening there? A lot of things you're kind of pointing at there. Like any marketers out there, I mean, we're all very excited about new things, new technologies, new platforms, new formats. Right. Long form, short form, people don't have any attention. So you need to create whatever three second things. But anyway, I think anything but crucially, like how do we then reframe the role of marketing in businesses? Which is what I believe is important right now for CMOs and marketers to think about. But also if you look at outside of businesses, then if you look at the communities and consumers and audiences, clearly it's no longer that time where you can buy attention. You need to earn participants. And that is the key dilemma or key challenge to actually be focused on. How do you do that? Right. If you're used to buying media at their full attention, how do you shift that to actually earning participation? And going back to what we were saying before, like how do you then work with communities, the audience, the culture, creators, right, to be able to do that? Well, I have the contrarian views. I think that you never were able to buy attention. I think that demand has always, always been created for anything that's meaningful. Like any kind of considered purchase. Like I'm walking past something in the supermarket aisle that's there, I'll grab it. That's like a different thing. But like, I think anything which is considered a little bit more. It's always come because of word of mouth. It's always become because of a recommendation from a friend or a family member or a journalist as well. That was when we read magazines for recommendations and things like that. That's now shifted towards creators, a similar sort of role in the advocacy landscape. But it's still that. That is why we buy things. It's why I buy things. I'm sure it's the case. Same for you and same for everybody. Listening to this. We buy because of people. And then the thing is that we then spend all of our money and our time trying to capture that demand. And then I think we've also gone through a process of killing ourselves and sort of like the evolution of performance sort of jumping in. If they thinking, well, this ad, I clicked through that. Someone clicked on this ad, then they went to purchase. Therefore that ad drove that sale. It's like, no, that ad caught the last moment before the sale. What actually happened is they spoke to their mom and they said this and they saw this creator do this and they all the different touch points that did it. Like, maybe, maybe there's a bit of marketing in there. Maybe they saw a billboard. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Maybe they saw an ad. As I do need to get that thing. I keep meaning to go and buy that thing right then they clicked it, they made a purchase. But I think so many people got caught up thinking, that's the thing. It's like, well, if we want to do more of those things, you know, let's just put more money into that and we can buy attention. I just don't think we never, I don't think it was ever on the cards. I think it's always being the things that you're referring to there. The community, the participation, the showing up, the culture. That's still what brands were, is still what brands have been, will always be, are today and will always be. And so it's kind of. I'm so excited about that coming back again. Again, people are going back to the first principles, being like, if we want to grow this company, how do we get people to tell other people about it? Because that's really what we're trying to do, and then all the amazing work with social and the performance, different ways of engaging with these communities so that they can drive a behavior where someone wants to talk about it. So for me, I'm pumped about where that is. And I think kind of creativity is a crucial part of that landscape because it's about how you tell your story so that person can tell it to another person. Yeah, 100% super fascinating. So the final one you mentioned, then, new technologies that you're excited about, and I can't believe we've managed to get this far through without even mentioning it. But what do you actually see how AI is emerging into this landscape? What's genuinely new and exciting versus what's all the hype? I think that the conversation is shifting a little bit around AI in the industry. Yes. There's still that debate, will AI replace creativity, for example? Right. I think it's shifting towards being a little bit more precise. And AI is moving from being discussed just as a production tool to be discussed as how do you use AI as a way to expand creative possibility, essentially, which is super exciting. So what are the things that you are able to do now if you combine human ingenuity with AI that you wouldn't have been able to do in a separate way without these two things combined? So, for example, this year, for the first time, as part of our alliance, as part of the awards, we have introduced new AI crafts, craft subcategories as part of our alliance. The award categories and these AI, perhaps subcategories basically are there to basically define and identify when human creativity and artificial intelligence come together to create something bigger and better that wouldn't have been possible if they were not there working together. So in a way, AI, at least the clients, is going to be discussed a lot more around the art of the possible. What can we do that we couldn't do before because of technology? Rather than is it going to replace creativity or rather than more volume of work I can do or content I can create because of the AI. Right. It's not there, which is super refreshing. Super refreshing. Finally, people are realizing that actually AI, AI content, AI creativity is the sum of the whole Internet's creativity. By definition, it's very average. It is mid. And so therefore it's like we can't rely on that. This is why we have the greatest minds in the industry at events such as alliance and to try and identify that. So I'm really excited about this. Ilaria. This has been great. I mean, we're recording this Thursday. The event kicks off on Monday. We're going to be roving around there with the building brand advocacy crew, capturing content on the, on the, on the quaset, and also, like, interviewing some amazing, amazing guests on the show as well in the studio there and just like, soaking it all in and trying to report back on some of the, some of the findings we're in every single day. So there's going to be a lot of things going to be released as part of this. This has just been an amazing way to kick it off. I know you're super busy. You've got loads to do for it, so I just want to thank you massively for making the time and see you next week. Thank you so much. See you next week.