Cannes Lions Edition 2026: Part 2 - Marketing in the Age of Disruption

Speaker A: Welcome to the second part of Time for a Reset, hosted by Overline, recorded live from Cannes Lion 2026, where we sit down with senior marketers from global brands and retail leaders to discuss the biggest question shaping modern marketing and the retail media landscape. In this episode, we're chatting to Jake Finch, VP, Global Consumer Experience for SharkNinja. Kristen DiColletto, the head of marketing for CVS Media Exchange. Jessica Serrano, the cmo, uh, of Bagel Brands. Edwin Padilla, the VP of Marketing for Mars Pet Nutrition and I, Aimed global. And finally, Dr. Charlene Thomas, the SVP global strategy for Def Jam Recordings. As in part one, we'll explore what they learned from can and look at their views on the shifts transforming our industry from changing consumer expectation and emerging technologies to new approaches to creativity, culture and growth. We'll also discuss what's driving change in their business, the opportunities they see ahead, and what marketers should be recessing as they prepare for the future. Trey Finch, welcome to Time for a Reset.

Speaker B: Great, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: We always start with, what would you reset in the marketing and I guess VCX industry?

Speaker B: For me, the reset would be along the lines of looking into how you engage one on one with the consumer. I think AI is going everywhere, but I think it's still the humanity in it. And looking at how those moments build trust in the brand. Right. It's all well and good. You got them in the funnel, but now they're there. How are you keeping them there? How are you engaging with them? And how are you building that loyalty and trust?

Speaker A: Yeah. And you talked a bit about one to one. I know that you come from a CX background, not a marketing background. How did you get into this wider side and what's your view of can as maybe a. I hesitate to say outsider. Uh, but, uh, maybe somebody that's adjacent.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is adjacent, but I think it's starting to blend in more and more into what marketing could and probably should be as things evolve. You know, I've done many roundtables as Kens. You gotta meet people, you go around and you listen to different opinions. And one thing that I found very interesting, coming from my background that's not in marketing, is around some of the metrics that you hear, impressions and all these sorts of things. We've seen billions of impressions, but really what we think about at Shark Ninja is great. Someone saw it or someone engaged with us, but did they then become a fan? Did they then become a creator? So impressions, I find is an interesting one versus, say, did it actually Drive to an action. And that's what I see more in my world, being the outsider is that there's a direct. You have the conversation, there's an action, there's an outcome, you can measure it and look at it in a very direct and specific way. That is we did something and therefore the consumer reacted. And ideally all those reactions are positive.

Speaker A: And how does that manifest at Shark Ninja? You know, obviously a huge brand.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Talking about that earlier, but how do you see that sort of maybe not a unique brand, but something that, that one to one relationship is important.

Speaker B: I think it all comes down from a cultural mindset. We look at things from a lens of putting the consumer in the middle. And many brands talk about we built for the consumer.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: But you know what's interesting about Shark Ninja is that myself being from the call center, I don't know how many brands are like this where I have a seat at the product table. So if we're running into a scenario where it's not passing what we would call mom test, like would you let your mom buy this product that we're about to launch? I have. You know, and our CX team has enough influence in the business that we're able to say no, this isn't good enough for mom and no, this isn't the type of product that we would like to put in the market or it's not quite finished yet. We just got to fix this one last or these last two things and then we've got this great product that drives to this. You know, our CEO Mark always talks about building our brand. This huge brand that's become from I've been there 16, 17, 18 years from where it was growing. 20% every year is one five star review at a time. You have to earn it. You don't just get it because you had a cool marketing slogan. You get it because you have an amazing product at the end of that slogan and that's where we spend all of our time putting that energy back into the product and for the consumer.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so you lead that to CX side where people in so many different places, so many different opportunities to engage. How are you thinking about that on a day to day basis?

Speaker B: That's a great question. So that's been probably the single most interesting journey we've been on over the last five to six months. And I've been going back and forth with. So funnily enough at shark ninja, uh, CX's inside of brand and marketing and been going back and forth with our CEO of how do we start engaging better in all the places like we sell on TikTok, we see reviews on Reddit, we see people engaging on meta. You name a social channel, we're engaging with the consumer. So we are not just selling where the consumer is, we're also responding and engaging with the consumer everywhere they want to be in. That's sort of like a bit of a mantra. If the consumer wants to buy on TikTok shop, we're going to be on TikTok shop. If you want to engage with us on Reddit and do an ask me anything, we're going to support the ask me anything. Right. So it's definitely moving past the realm of having Those one on one conversations on the phone to having those one on one conversations in a substack conversation on a TikTok thread. You name that area. We're going to do our absolute best to find and engage with you there. And certainly on my side of the coin is if you do run into an issue or a problem, we're going to fix it and make that right.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you have a new CX platform. How did that come about?

Speaker B: We did some interesting research with consumers. A couple of fun facts that we found out is certainly with our consumers at Shark Ninja, you'd be surprised how personal some of our products become in the sense that we found that. You know, I think it's somewhere around 50 to 60% of people actually start naming the products they have. And when it comes to our robot products, we can actually see some of the fun names that people give them. Personal favorite is Clean Latifah as someone named the robot.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: That was fantastic.

Speaker E: Right?

Speaker B: But because we know it's personal, we want to engage with these consumers at a more personal level. And so we came up with this good call concept. And the good call is really the principle that no one really wants to call customer service. So there's an element of like, how do we stop you from doing this? How do we remove those friction points? But if you do happen to call, we want you to leave going, hey, you know what, that was pretty good. And how do you do that? We do our utmost to be there on time. We know consumers hate waiting. Who wants to call and be like, oh, good, I'm on hold for 20 minutes? Right. So we aim to answer the phone in under a minute. Right. It's one of our aims. Are we successful every time? No, but it is absolutely the goal. But more importantly is like, if you run into problems with a product or you run into a service failure, how quickly we make that. Right, Right. Like your time shouldn't be at our expense. So we look at you're in warranty, how do we send you a replacement right away? Like if we don't have it in stock, let's say your magic blender goes on the fritz.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: We will make sure that you get one. And certainly if you're in the UK next day, we'll either send you the replacement part or we'll even upgr upgrade you if we don't have it. Right. So those are the types of things where we try to remove those friction moments because we want you to walk away from that going, not only was that a good call, right. And now as we enter into this social commerce age, that you start to become a bit of a brand fan. And if you become a bit of a fan, maybe you'll create something. Maybe you'll create something about that moment that then you decide to go and post on one of the socials. And that's how we're starting to engage from this platform and sort of that weird melding into marketing and engaging with consumers in that way. And if people choose to go and post about it, more than happy to support those who are.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think that's really interesting. Rory Sutherland talks about it sort of turning those negative engagements into something that actually people walk away. A lot of brands talk about it.

Speaker B: We try to build it into how we do and we don't often celebrate and talk about it. I think we're starting to come out of our shells. Like Ashley, we've been doing this for a long time. And this platform of calling it the good call and sort of branding it a little bit is really just more of an homage to what we've been doing for years. Because I was saying before we build it one five star review at a time, but you also build those moments when, oh my God, it went horribly, horribly wrong, but we stepped in and fixed. Right. Like you mentioned, you have an air fryer.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker B: And let's say I've had this happen to me where unfortunately my wife was out of town. We don't have to go down that road. But I couldn't get the nuggets to work in the air fryer. Right. But we try to help out a consumer. Like, you know what? We messed that up. We know you're struggling, dad. Here's an Uber gift card for Uber Eats.

Speaker G: Yeah, right.

Speaker B: Go order yourself dinner and then we'll fix it all up afterwards. Right? So it's creating Those little moments of delight, removing those little moments of friction. And we realize now that those are maybe some things that we were just doing that we weren't talking enough out in the universe to talk about how we build it as a five star service on top of the product.

Speaker A: Yeah, you mentioned that this is one of your first times in Cannes.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker A: What's really stood out to you from that learning perspective, the conversations that you're finding interesting?

Speaker B: Well, one, as we've all talked about routinely, it is hot. Two, from a conversation perspective, it's been interesting to be, as you mentioned, a bit of the outsider talking a bit about different things and how engaging with the consumers and more personal level versus at the macro level of. We created this really cool campaign. It's got 17 billion views. It drove this and the this and all those metrics. And I was at one of the insider roundtables and we started talking about, well, we look at the product right at the end of the rainbow. The product is what you engage with as the consumer if you don't have a great product. And that seemed to be a bit of an aha for a lot of people. Like, yeah, we focus a lot on these metrics. What about the star rating of the product? What is the actual consumer saying at the end of the rainbow of all of this marketing that empowers them and gives you that real feedback of all those metrics? That is. Well, the product actually did what you said it was going to do in all of your great advertising.

Speaker A: Yeah, you've talked quite a bit about some of the data points that you're constantly getting. I think it's a legal requirement. I ask about AI, how are you starting to think about, yeah, you're clearly collecting and using this.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, how are you using AI within that world?

Speaker B: Well, one fun thing about a call center is absolutely everything is measured. Most of us that are in the call center in the CX universe, we all answered the phone at one point. Every minute is tracked. One of the powerful things we've gotten this actually empowered the good call platform is leveraging AI to look at moments in the call. If you're having a tricky call and the agent isn't delivering up to our standard, AI will now flag that for us. Right. And dive standard. Now from a reporting and the data and all that perspective, it's been interesting at Shark Ninja, we did this thing and if you follow us at all on LinkedIn, called jailbreak and we took four days off for the whole business mark, our CEO was like, we're just going to get in. Like some of you are using AI, not all of you are using AI. We're taking four days and we're learning. They brought in consultants and we did 20 big company wide projects. And one of those projects I was lucky enough to be a part of was to look at all the insights of this data that's coming in and how do we feed that back into the product development and to spur the innovation that the company of getting into all this AI is, he has to put up a million dollars in prizes.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, wow.

Speaker B: Yeah. So go embrace it and learn how to do it. Not to replace what we do, but to augment all the stuff and remove some of those. You know, everyone here at AI says, you know, remove the menial tasks and we are finding that we can look into the data just so much faster and find more problems to solve.

Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And then you said they've been at Shot Ninja, sort of, I think it was 17, 18 years. How do you advise people coming into, I guess, the world of work, but the CX world, the marketing world, what's your view of challenges they face and would you advise?

Speaker B: The best advice I ever got, and I continue to hammer, uh, it home to myself, is two things. One, say yes to the opportunity. Right amount of times, people like, I don't know, maybe just say yes and see where it takes you. And the second piece is all the things you don't like doing. Put more effort into those than the things you do like doing and it'll pay off immensely if you focus on the things that might not be of keen interest to you as much as the ones that do interest you.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Drake, thank you for your time. It's been great having you. Time for Reset.

Speaker B: Yeah, great. Thank you.

Speaker D: Welcome back to Time for a Reset Podcast. I'm Fiona Davis, your host on GM of Overline, and with me I have the lovely Kristen from CVS Media Exchange today. Welcome. How are you doing?

Speaker H: Thank you.

Speaker D: Are you enjoying Cannes?

Speaker G: It's a hot show. That's the theme of the week.

Speaker D: Absolutely. Very happy to be inside in the air this week. So I'm going to dive right in, Kristen, with a, uh, question about value creation. Retail Media Network, you obviously run the marketing for your network. What do you think the biggest opportunity is for retail media to create more value for brands and the audiences that they have?

Speaker G: Yeah, that's a great question. So at CVS Media Exchange, I think our biggest value is our loyalty program data. So in the trust that we've built with that program over the past 25 plus years of its existence. So everything we do is focused on our extracare customer and ensuring that we deliver the best possible experience for the extra care member and the CVS customer each and every day. And so for us, it's really about making those personalized connections between our brand partners and our customers. And when we originally launched almost six years ago, that really started off of our CVS platform first, which was much opposite of how other retail media networks were getting started. And that was really just because of our customer behavior and where they were consuming media, consuming brand messages. So we started that originally off site, then we started to bring those messages on site to cvs.com in our app. And now we're really excited to really have a fully integrated in store offering as well. And that's really where we're creating that huge value for our brand, is to be able to help them create complete omnichannel messages and campaigns off site, on site and in store. And so as we really think about what is that complete end to end experience, it's not just taking a programmatic ad and throwing it up right on the new front store screens that we have in store, but creating those really dynamic moments for the consumer and really bringing those brands to life. And at the end of the day, it's all about measurability and how do we really show and drive performance and insights and delivering those really robust insights during the campaign, as well as wrapping that campaign up with a bow at the end and not just delivering the performance, but delivering again the insights that our brands can use to continue running campaigns with us, but also take those insights and improve their performance in other places as well.

Speaker D: You guys operate in quite an interesting space as well because it's not like direct comparable to like a, uh, supermarket chain or something because you've got all the regular store products where you can buy food, beverages, all that kind of stuff in store, as well as the medications and stuff. So it's quite a different experience than what you get like at a Walmart or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah. How do you see the retail media space evolving over the next 18 months?

Speaker G: Yeah, I think that really the biggest evolution, as we think about how retail media will continue to evolve, it's going to be continuing to build those brand experiences and those brand moments. And for us it's really been some of our partners really pushing us. Our partner Opela is a great example where they came to us with their brand Zyzol, uh, and really wanting to be able to create more experiential moments with our customers. And so how do we actually then start to take the store out of the store to the sidewalk, to the parking lot? Creating these experiential moments enables the brand to have a deeper connection with the customer. Right now, research shows that only about 30% of brands are activating experientially, but the performance when they do is huge. Uh, and we know that obviously brands are investing in sponsorships, whether that's sports or other. But what they can't really prove is always what is it driving in terms of unit sales? What is it driving in terms of new buyer metrics and conversion to brand? And we have over 7200 standalone stores across the US so when you think about just our overall footprint, our localized community assortment and messaging in each of those stores, we can help those brands bring their brand message to life, whether they're, uh, activating in that local community through a sponsorship or through a sporting event. And how can we really show that they can really test into experiential as well? So they can start small with a small sidewalk event, or they can go really big and really follow a sponsorship that they might have through multiple sporting outlets and activate that through sampling, through couponing, through having a, uh, small sporting activation. We have brand partners who are sponsors of different sporting events. And how can they actually give our customers the opportunity to participate in that sporting event in our parking lot and then take away some really cool free gifts? But we're also showing that we're actually not only driving same day sales, but when you actually look at the next 60 days of performance for those brands in the stores in which the events took place, we're seeing a really huge incremental sales lift, which the brands have been really happy with.

Speaker D: That's interesting, isn't it? We've seen so many great examples of experiential marketing this week and had some great stats that we were talking about. Actually, last time I was in New York, they had Netflix and mastercard experiential thing where they literally had people come to the red carpet. It was like a fake red carpet and did a full activation and people were buying all of merch there.

Speaker G: It's what the consumer remembers, right? It's creating that really special, magical brand moment what not only helps to continue to increase the value of the CVS brand, but also the value of the CPG brand that we're partnering with as well. So it's a really special moment that we can bring to our customers and to our stores and the local communities in which we serve every day.

Speaker D: So that was my follow up question to you is around. Obviously you're starting to see retailers who started out in a performance space because it works in a performance space. You can measure closed loop, but now there's more demand or uh, are you seeing that same demand from the brands to go more into the upper funnel and more into that not just at the consideration stage and the brand awareness level. Is that something you've seen the shift towards in the last 12 months as well?

Speaker G: Absolutely. I think we're all aligned that the typical marketing funnel that we all learned in business school is really no longer fully relevant because the journey to discovery and purchase is not linear at all. Right. We're all doing research in multiple different ways. We're hearing, we just were chatting about creators previous to jumping on. So we're learning about different products and services in all different ways. And what we know is that our customers who are going to our website to do research are typically making a purchase this in store, not online. Right. Within 48 hours. So there's over 50% of customers who are doing the online research and then going in store to actually make that purchase in store. And that's where it's a lot harder to measure. So we have, as we mentioned before, in store screens. Right when you walk in the store, we have a front entrance screen, we have our trend cap screens within our drive aisles, we have our waiting area screens, we have screens at the point of sale. It's a lot harder to measure those in store placements. And so we are working together with partners like the IAB to make sure that we are utilizing measurement, standardization, measurement best practices and really working towards that attribution layer to be able to correlate between what somebody saw off site when they come in store, what was that message that they might have seen on the screen or through our audio channel and then what did they purchase not only that day, but within the next 30 days attribution window as well. And so we are working really hard together to continue to strive for performance and performance standardization, but also transparency. Like we're all in this together, really working on getting to what does good look like. And the more that we can push each other, our brand partners, our ad tech partners in the industry is really just gonna improve everything that we do together.

Speaker D: Yeah, that Meshman one is, is the one that the constant referring about. We've got to have standardization. And the reality is that's much harder to do than to say out Loud, isn't it? As, uh, people measure categories different the way people think about what's net new to brand, what's net new category is different depending on the type of retailer it is as well.

Speaker G: So that's right, but we have to be transparent in how we're measuring. Right? Because it's not fair to the brands that are investing in us to not be able to compare their performance across their entire spend either. And so media networks can't grade their own homework. They need to be really transparent and follow those standards in order to be transparent in how they measure what they measure and then ultimately the performance that they saw so that the brands can make those informed decisions about where to put their next ad dollar. And we're really confident in our performance in our platform that we've built something with those brand partners that push us to be better every day.

Speaker D: Interesting. So you've just almost answered my next question about how you're partnering with brands. But what would you say the biggest misconceptions about retail media from brands that you've come across so far?

Speaker G: I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that we're fragmented, right. And that we're difficult to work with. And I think that definitely can be true with the number of retail media networks or even media networks, commerce networks that are in play today. But I think each of us holds a really important, important place in that brand's media portfolio. And so the brands need to have really clear objectives. And the more that we can work together around the table with the shopper, marketing teams, the brand teams, the media teams, the agencies, the better that we can all be to really create and make it easier for them to work with us. And so if we're really clear up upfront and they're clear with us about what they're trying to achieve, then we can make it seamless for them to work with us in terms of making the right recommendations for audiences, media channels, ensuring that those media channels don't feel fragmented, that they're all working together in orchestration for the customer and ultimately to drive brand performance.

Speaker D: Okay, last question. It's all about AI this week. It is the Creativity Festival. Uh, what are the other things other than AI that you're excited for in Cannes this year? And think things that you've heard on the closet that piqued your interest.

Speaker G: Yeah, great question. I think one of the biggest things it is experiential and how each of the brands that are here are bringing their brand to life in really memorable moments, whether it be with some really cool branded item that you're walking away from the meeting with or whether it's something that you're interacting with in their space. And I think the other thing that's been really interesting is just, just the conversations that are around the table and the challenges that we're all having and facing. And how can we overcome those together? Some of them around just speed to market. Right. Like how can we better utilize our tooling and the technology to get our campaigns into market faster? And how can we continue to optimize those campaigns real time with the data that we have to make really informed decisions, which is an exciting place to be in. It's all about performance and we're going to continue to optimize that performance for our brand partners.

Speaker D: Fantastic. Most memorable swag you've seen so far in the Croisset. You're a marketer, I have to ask you.

Speaker G: And we are here on the Croisset looking at the beautiful sea. There's been some amazing beach bags out

Speaker A: there

Speaker G: and someone that lives on the south shore of Massachusetts and enjoys the beach. Myself, the beach bags have been really eye catching here. Really bright colors, really cool fabric. So excited to take mine.

Speaker D: We've got really good swag, but I have to say my favorite so far has been the homemade ice creams at, uh, the Expedia activation. We're the bomb. Shout out to the Expedia crowd.

Speaker G: And anything that you can consume is a lot easier to get home.

Speaker D: Exactly. Don't have to carry it on the plate.

Speaker G: I'm going to eat them before I leave.

Speaker D: Thanks so much for coming in today, Chrissy.

Speaker A: Lovely to have you having me.

Speaker D: Have a great can.

Speaker G: You too. Thank you.

Speaker A: Welcome to the podcast. Jessica Serrano, CMO of Babel Brands.

Speaker E: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Absolute pleasure. We always start with what would you reset if you had that opportunity within the marketing industry or sort of business in general?

Speaker E: In business in general, I would reset the way we approach meetings. I think a lot of meetings could probably be emails, but most importantly, I love a meeting that has an agenda and an objective. And if we don't need to have a meeting to discuss or review something better to do it over email asynchronously. Hopefully we come out of the meeting having achieved an objective. More of that, please.

Speaker A: I wholeheartedly agree with that. If you can write to everybody, uh,

Speaker E: we just all have to agree, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: So, uh, it starts with that. So it is something that I do with my team. So at least within my remit, we Always start meetings with agendas and objectives, but sometimes you end up in meetings where the person who invited you doesn't share the same principle.

Speaker D: Totally.

Speaker A: So, speaking of meetings, I'd, uh, imagine you've done a couple this week in camp.

Speaker E: So many.

Speaker A: What is it that's really stood out for you in terms some of the key themes, what you're thinking about to take back to Bagel Random.

Speaker E: What surprised me is how much we talked about creators here this week. And I've learned quite a bit of things. I've achieved a fresh perspective on how to think about creators. So I actually came to speak on a panel with a partner that helped helps to source my creator partnerships. And we really value giving a brief to creators and letting them work their magic and not over scripting them. And I heard a lot of encouragement to continue to pursue that. And some interesting debate about what do you give up in terms of brand control if you're not enforcing product placement and distinct brand assets. But one person said consumers are already making content with your product anyways and you have zero control over that. So why would you think anything differently about reaching out to creators? You really have to let them showcase their product in a way that's true to them and resonant with their audience. And you have your other channels for controlling your brand narrative. Another thing that I heard that I found was interesting is that some brands are leaning into multiple handles on social, where they feel uncomfortable sharing content on their primary channels that feels off brand. They're going and doing fun handles that give them permission to push the brand in ways that maybe they would have been uncomfortable with otherwise. I really admire that. I think it requires you to have, from a resource standpoint, the capacity to manage more handles. And we already have a lot of channels as it is. But I'd be curious to go back and follow that trend and see how that's working for brands that are experimenting with that.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I guess it probably feels like you're giving up an element of control. How does that make you feel as a.

Speaker E: That's what this week helped remind me is that it's an illusion of control. And so what are you giving up by trying to control as opposed to the upside potential perhaps of letting go of the reins of it and letting your audience hold a mirror up to you and the role that you play in their lives?

Speaker A: Yeah. And, um, in terms of these creators, how does Bagel brands turn up with them? You obviously got a. A huge portfolio, so I'd love to hear a little bit about some of the brands that you think about and work with on a day to day basis.

Speaker E: Sure. Well I'll start by clarifying that Bagel brands is four brands. So we have Einstein Brothers Bagels, Bruger's Bagels, Noah's Bagels and Manhattan Bagels. They're all in different geographies throughout the U.S. and so the primary, the largest brand that we support is Einstein Brothers Bagel. It's been around 30 years, so we have just started to be more intentional about craters. So in years past the team dabbled a little bit with briefing around a product launch. But this year what we've been doing is more so evergreen content of reaching out to creators and asking them to show us how our bagels, what role it plays in their lives. And we've been really pleased with just how much stronger the content has performed as opposed to when it feels a bit still feels like an ad if you give them too many talking points. And so I will tell you in that experience, sometimes my team brings me creative that I'm like, okay, I'm not the audience for it but what I've had to do is let go of the hesitation there. And what I remind myself is that we can always delete it. You know, we're not getting it tattooed. So the KPIs have shifted for the social team, which is less about it has to perform. But if it's teaching you something about what works and doesn't with the audience then that that's valuable.

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker A: When you're learning in that sort of teaching moment, how do you measure that success across the uh, group whether it's creators or any other form of creative.

Speaker E: I mean it really does come down to some of those on platform metrics and we've started to look at things like what percentage of people get past three seconds and what that fall off rate is at various points and really trying to assess what are the themes about what makes a good hook, what makes people stay on longer, what are we seeing to have maybe high engagement rates. So some things maybe not as strong from an impression standpoint but if people are sharing it, something's resonant about that in a different way. So really just taking the time to digest those insights so that we're optimizing as we go in terms of content that resonates.

Speaker A: Yeah. And um, the other probably big talking point has been AI within marketing and how it all operates. How are you actually using it within bagel brands? I feel like this is the year when all the hype turned into something real and business is actually using it day to day. I'd love to hear a little bit about how you were using it as a marketing team, but also maybe the wider business.

Speaker E: Yeah, you know, if you would have asked me last year, I would have suspected that we as a team would have been further along by now and using it for creative, but it's just not been the case yet. We'll see. Ask me in a year if we're feeling differently about the role that it can play for us when it comes to creative production. We have used it for voiceover and had some success with it in that regard, but more so systems and ways of working and guest research. That's one of my favorite use cases. So in the restaurant business, receipt data for decades has been a primary means of getting back NPS type insights. But they're quite static and you know, you're asking someone a, uh, day later how their experience was. And so we started working with a team that actually had conversational AI that the guests can engage with right in within the four walls. And the feedback that we're getting is so much more nuanced than on. Rate your experience. On, uh, a scale of one to five, you start to hear things like, well, I would have liked more high chairs or I didn't like the way that I had to serve myself the coffee as an example. And those are the kinds of insights that really are much more actionable than like, like this bakery has a 3.5 and this one has a 4Y. Like we were really able to get into what actually drives those metrics. So that I think we'll continue to see. I mean, something I'm um, curious about but haven't yet experimented with is synthetic guest research. So we'll see. That's something I'd like to experiment with, but I certainly want to be cautious on that front because in some ways I'm just old school and I'm used to a good old fashioned focus group with people around a table. But you know, I think in this day and age you have to, to hold onto the foundation that you know is sound, but also be willing to experiment and see where AI could take us, where we could advance when it comes to using AI.

Speaker A: Yeah. How do you see it developing over time? And you touched on uh, that synthetic data piece. Do you feel like you're interested in exploring AI and creative or is that something that maybe you're.

Speaker E: I do.

Speaker A: Changing your view on?

Speaker E: No, I really do and probably is just a factor of not quite finding the Right. Partners yet. But it really does require carving out the time and having the courage to break away from systems and, you know, maybe perhaps we'll test it on one of the four brands as an example in terms of moving forward on it. But to answer your question, the future of AI, I mean, it really will be these agents. So I envision a future where my team is able to delegate to an email agent, a social agent, and come up with campaigns that are cohesive across all the different verticals. But we're not there yet today as a team.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think a lot of teams aren't there.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker A: And um, in this rapidly changing world, like you've had a great career over the last 20 or so years, but what would you advise somebody who's coming into the industry now, those sort of new graduates, or maybe not even graduates who are looking just go, I want to just get out there and do the world of work.

Speaker E: Mhm. It is a interesting, maybe even scary time. The future feels very unknown, but I suspect probably lots of generations have had some version of that in the past. And in the face of change, I try and think about what are the things that feel the most universal and I'd say any opportunity to find a unique way to provide value. So I think if I were a young person, I might get my foot in the door by trying to offer reverse mentorship. We just talked about AI and social, and as a young person who might be more native to those concepts could be a great way to get your foot in the door is reaching out to a leader and saying, hey, I'd love to offer reverse mentorship. I think a lot of people reach out seeking mentorship, but you can also provide value to someone who's more senior than you. As a young person who's growing up just knowing these things from such a young age. And I pursued an MBA to get into this line of work. And that's while lots of people still do that, there's a lot of ways to just get out there and start doing the work. And I think social is a potential avenue of, um, just getting out there and learning what it is to represent your own brand, create content. So those would be the two areas I would suggest focusing on is either through the lens of content or creatively through adding value to somebody with a skill set that they might not have.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that concept of the reverse mentorship. I mean, offering value to somebody else rather than taking is definitely for anybody, wherever they are in their career is a, uh.

Speaker E: Yeah, is wise.

Speaker D: Thoughts.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for your time. It's been amazing to speak to you and enjoy the rest of your career.

Speaker H: Thank you.

Speaker E: You as well.

Speaker A: Edwin Padilla, welcome to Time for a Reset.

Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: We always start with a view of what would you set reset in the world of marketing that might be from your view of Cannes or just something that you'd change in the industry?

Speaker C: Yeah. So look, I can't help but not have the view of Cannes because of where we're at and we've been really lucky to see ton of good creative and a lot of insightful work. So I would say what we have and what the provocation from can right now is to reset creativity across everything we do. And you can't help but see how creativity is not only something that consumers experience or pet parents experience in my case, but how creativity is embedded to strategy, how creativity is embedded to just the deep thought and thinking around it. So I think it sounds like a cliche, but it is so important to get out of the operational way of looking at how we build communication and really ask ourselves, are we really anchoring in creativity and are we using that creativity in service of people and in service of growth?

Speaker A: So it sounds like that you're taking away the creativity piece. I sometimes feel that can is the ad tech world. We sort of lose what it originally was. But for you, creativity is coming back to the forefront.

Speaker C: Yeah. And thank you for asking that question because one of my backgrounds, I am an engineer, so really understanding the technology is important, but then there is creativity in how you deploy technology into solving a problem. So I think what we see is even in the ad tech world, when creativity is unleashed and the tools that we have are used in non obvious ways, that's where creativity takes hold. And to me that's where magic happens and you have the multiplier. So there's a linear way to apply all the tools, tools we have, especially from technology, but then when they're used in a non linear, non obvious way, that becomes a multiplier of effectiveness and creating human connection.

Speaker A: And you talked a bit about sort of nonlinear piece and I'm always interested people's approach. Fragmentation seems to be sometimes the buzzword of the year. Ah, how are Mars Pet really approaching that fragmentation challenge? It was such a big brand, completely global. How are you thinking about that and how are you challenging your teams to approach fragmentation?

Speaker C: Yeah. So fragmentation is certainly, I would say, the theme of the last decade, if you will. As we move and as brand builders, we evolve from Putting out stories in the world that consumers can see themselves in, to really be a part of those stories and really participate as brands into your unique story, as a pet parent or your unique story. So. So that gives us a different vantage point about how you might navigate the communications engine or the communications funnel, which is not really a funnel, it's essentially a loop or an infinity loop. So the way we deal with it is we look at our paid, earned, shared and owned assets and see each of those assets as really a gateway to an experience, a door that lets you into an experience that we've created. And we always say, no dead end, so make sure that door leads you to the next place and to the next place, always with the pursuit of generating value for you and what you're looking for at that moment. And again, back to the previous question. That's where technology allows us to cater that experience in a way that's always in service of you. And for us, it's always the pet parent.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, and you touched on the technology bit there. And obviously AI is so front and center and feels like every conversation, the agenda took place. But in terms of how you're using AI to deliver some of those promises of moving between the doors, how is Mars approaching that?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I think there's the more traditional, I don't want to say traditional because AI, there's nothing traditional about AI, actually, the more widely spread way of leveraging AI, which goes into your media strategy and your audience strategy and really understanding that. Where I get really excited about AI is when we use it, in addition to that to also solve problems. So in the no dead ends mantra that I'm telling you, we have an example on ims where for pet health, stool quality. So poop feces is a very important indicator of health, not only because there's science behind it, but because pet parents are exposed to it and have to literally pick it up. So then one of the things we do is we talk about that message and talk about how IAMS helps deliver that. But we've also created this, this digital tool called poopscan that allows you to scan the stool of your pet and gives you insight as to the quality of that stool. And if it's okay, if it's too firm, if it's too wet and you need to take some action, the engine behind the image, recognition of the stool quality, it's completely AI powered. So when you use AI to help people in a non normal way or non traditional way, it creates this magic. And that has become one of the gateways to our experience. A lot of people come in through the brand experience by the Poopscan tool because they're seeking for help. So that's, I would just say, just one of the ways. And we have so many examples with pedigree adoptables. If you're familiar with that campaign, who won last year. The use cases that I like are the ones that really help. Help drive value to consumers or pet parents.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I love that also, because it's something that wasn't possible a couple of years ago. You're not just reimagining something that already exists and badging it with AI. Exactly. Completely new. Just going back a little bit to going through the doors. I love that analogy. But how are you measuring those people and where they are? Because I'm sure sometimes they get stuck in a door to maybe overwork the analogy. How do you measure that journey?

Speaker C: Yeah. So that's where really using AI and technology and tagging and ensuring you have the right taxonomy in your media is important. And it's really finding the right partners and the right methodologies. That's where our partnership with our agency, with Publicis and Omnicom and even Weber, our agency ecosystem, really helps us understand what's the right taxonomy, what are the right KPIs that we're trying to achieve. And then really setting up the infrastructure in place to measure what we need. Because in this day and age we have so much data, but I think we forget, and maybe that's another reset, is really using known performance indicators. That's what KPI means. It's not just facts. And we get a lot of facts that are not necessarily known performance indicators, and we follow those. So we have very strong conversations at the beginning of what is that? What are we looking for? And how do we set an infrastructure? And we work with our partners and we also have strong internal teams around media effectiveness and what are the right metrics that lead to actual conversion.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because I would imagine that within Mars Pet care that your lifetime with a consumer, uh, is so much longer than so many brands because you as, uh, a dog owner, you have it from the puppy right through to old age and how you transition. So you've got such a long time to work with somebody and be with them.

Speaker C: Absolutely. So what you just talked about, we call that lifetime value.

Speaker D: You.

Speaker C: So how are we present in the key moments where consumers, we call them points of inflection. And there's usually a point when you acquire a pet, so that start of life. But Then throughout the life, either through a different age, transition from puppy to adult, from adult to senior, but also when you have health complications, actually digestive issues is the number one trigger of looking or reconsidering food. So being in those moments becomes important for us to either retain or recruit a potential pet parent into our solution. And then we can stay with them through the entire lifetime and hopefully give them the happiest, fullest life they can with their pet.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm always interested how in this modern world you're looking at your team, how are you working with them to help grow them and inspire them to work in an organization like Mars?

Speaker C: You talked a little bit about it. Even in your question. You say the first thing is inspire them is to always anchor back on why is my work important. And I think that sometimes becomes for us, we're lucky, it's easy because we're in the pet business. And it's just very easy to say we are here to make the world a better place for pets. And most people just get inspired with that. Then the second question is, I understand the mission, I'm inspired by it. What is my role and is what I specifically do meaningful? And that's where I think the biggest, the biggest thing I do to the people that I coach and develop is showing them how, what they do, their area of expertise or uh, the specific task that they're doing fits into an overall machine that creates an experience that actually delivers on the mission. And I think that is the perspective that we sometimes lose with being specific into one subject matter area we lose sight of, okay, but how is this impacting pet parents and how is this making the world a better place for them them and improving their lives. So what I find myself constantly doing is provide people the perspective because I'm lucky enough to see the entirety of the machine and then see how that enables the end goal. And then at the end of the day, last thing is culture, right? When we create a culture that people feel comfortable to bring themselves to work, comfortable with challenging or bringing new ideas, that comfort breeds trust and that trust breeds competency. And when people feel comfortable and they trust you, they bring so many good ideas, especially the younger they are, especially the more in touch, they bring incredible ideas that we just need to be open and chase them.

Speaker A: Then finally, you've been in the industry for 20 odd years, what's your advice to people looking to get into the marketing world? How should they be approaching it in this new changing world? But also so, so many similarities from the whole of business yeah.

Speaker C: So my advice to people trying to get into marketing world or any profession is do something that matters to you. Because if it matters to you, you're going to put a lot of effort on it and you're going to be successful. Because the curve between talent and effort is non linear. You can have a lot of talent, but if you're not enjoying it, you're not gonna put a lot of effort. And conversely, if you have the talent and then you love it, you put so much effort that it gets you to a place where you get rewarded in front of the world. That's we're seeing a lot of people this week. So the hard thing is, how do I know if I love it? And that's why I tell people, seek mentors, talk to people. We're a lot more open than people think. I take so many calls. The challenge is almost mustering up the courage for someone that's trying to get in to then call a senior leader. But at least in Mars, everyone is willing and open to talk to you. So just having that perspective, understanding what it is, is critical so you can make the right choice for you. And then look, it's happened in my career too. Not be afraid of change. I try some things that I didn't necessarily like. So I pivot. A career is called a career for a reason. Because a very long is not a sprint. Right. If you do it right, it'll be a very long journey. And like every journey, you have to course correct along the way. And not being afraid to do that, I think ultimately drives to the success, but also the enjoyment and the happiness of doing something that's meaningful to you.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Edwin, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

Speaker C: Thank you. It's been a pleasure as well.

Speaker H: Well, I'm excited to have a chance to talk to you again. Dr. Charlene Thomas. We have been running from one end of the closet to the other this Cannes season. What, if anything, would you hit reset

Speaker F: on in relation to Cannes or just anything for the first six months in the year?

Speaker H: I am open to whatever comes to mind for you. What do you either just want to do over? What do you want to do in a fresh way? Uh, okay.

Speaker F: I'll start with Cannes.

Speaker H: Okay.

Speaker F: What would I reset? Finding a fan, that was powerful. Add some mist to it and just not like one giving out to you like a real fan. Maybe like a Dyson fan.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: So maybe have packing that. I think I got enough flowy clothes, but maybe they could have been a little lighter in, uh, material.

Speaker G: Yeah, it's, it's super hot.

Speaker F: So that would be reset for Ken for the year. I wouldn't reset anything that has happened because as I've gotten older, I do realize everything is supposed to happen for a reason.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: But probably just overall. And I think a lot of us, uh, executives might go through this. Is getting better at balance.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: So you don't get a little burnout sometimes.

Speaker G: Right.

Speaker F: I do notice some of like my colleagues take reset weekends and, and before I was like, huh. But now I kind of get it. Being inundated with so much information and everything that happens in your life, you do need a moment just to just kind of breathe, take some space. Yeah. And then it just, it helps. There was this YouTube video I watched from a guy named Simon and I forgot his last name. And he tells a story about two men that work in like the forest. And one cuts the trees quicker than the other one.

Speaker E: Mhm.

Speaker F: And the one that doesn't ask the other guy like, how do we come out at the same time? But you have much more output. And the guy says, could I take the hour off and take a nap? Oh, I love it. So the importance of resetting yourself because it just kind of just replenishes and you be in your more productive. Uh, yeah, I would say trying to learn that a little bit better. It's easier said than done. But getting a better grasp on that.

Speaker H: I love that. I love that. One of the things you just mentioned leads me into my next question. You were talking about bathroom talents in particular. So if we move over and talk about your world, which is marketing, we are in an environment today where every single penny is being scrutinized that's being spent on marketing. So how are you thinking about balancing the short term performance needs of every marketing dollar you're spending with the long term brand building?

Speaker F: Ideally I would like for it to be because, you know, there are people that you have to report up to and then you have your CFOs and they obviously have the goals that they're being given by corporate on what to meet and what to spend.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker F: Uh, so ideally I would like that we have some kind of tiered system where this project, it's in its early stage, it's infancy. I'm in one industry, but different industries might use different terms. So like if it's infancy or emerging or developing and that's a set budget and then the next tier, this is what it is. And then I think that Helps balance between short term and long term goals. Right. Because for me being a marketer, especially in the music industry, every project I, uh, am a part of or touch, I do expect it to be long term. I want that artist to win.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: I work with creatives that are taking their life experiences, their communities, maybe even they are the breadwinner for their families. And they have their families and their respect responsibilities on their back. And they're putting it into this art to give to us the world. So it has a lot of meaning to them. You know, every lyric they write, the way they sing the song or rap the song, however, the iteration of it or the genre of the music. So for me, every one of those has meaning to that particular artist because it is an art and I want them all to win. Granted, some don't, but that is my objective as a marketer. I always, always look long term, seeing that they have a nice healthy career. So I'm giving a little bit more guardrails because like you said, in this economy today where a lot of companies are more data driven and it's not as passionate as it was, music 10, 20 years ago was more passion led. Right now that the companies are actually paying attention and it's about bottom line. A lot of things are streamlined, a lot of things are stringent. So you are, are sometimes cut off at the knees with your marketing budget. But I think if we put some kind of tiered mechanism in place, it helps us to plan better.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: And then you have those outliers you have where again, just relating it to music, you have where a song may work that you didn't think.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: You know, and then that requires something else, but it's the exception as opposed to the norm.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: And I think that might be a better way of balancing it.

Speaker H: And I wonder if sometimes a song works. Works in one instance and it doesn't in another. Do you think that has to do with the evolution of how your consumers or how people are finding or discovering the music? Because there's such a fragmented customer journey that we are all dealing with right now. How do you adapt your market.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker H: Strategy to that.

Speaker F: That is truly the case. Living in Manhattan, I always wonder what Manhattan is. Seven, eight million people?

Speaker H: I think eight.

Speaker F: Like, right. Yeah. And I wouldn't just say this is just to music only if we can tell 10% of that. Right. Because how many of us, how many of our companies really just for Manhattan alone. Right. It's just a borough that we can say we sell 7 or 8 million products we only get a fraction. So just to even realize that we're in this one city that spans from X amount of blocks and we're still not hitting every demographic. But then on the flip side, it's like, oh, there's just so much more. There's so much that everyone can get a piece of the pie. So like you say with music, they serve different fragments, they serve different sectors. Because artists are also niche marketers, right? They represent their communities, they represent certain cultures. And how do we serve that? How do we. What we use for one song? And the way we market that, say, will this work for this? I think that's the marketer, right? That all comes down to the individual that's in charge of bringing this vision to life and out to the world. Them understanding that everything is not the same.

Speaker H: Right. Maybe their audience is going to respond in a manner so they need to.

Speaker F: At times it's being a true marketer, which is not going to be done by sitting in office. You have to get outside. Like, just give an example. I live in New York, but I can't say everyone that's here in the south of France is going to listen to a, uh, project that I'm marketing.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: But I will if I'm out hearing and I see, oh, yeah, it's hot and you know, maybe they like songs that are like, light. It's being outside and actually paying and. Yeah. And getting context, trying to see and yeah, we can't justify the whole world, right? But if a marketer understand that we have to have different perspectives.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker F: That it's going to be easier to deal with fragmentation. But then that's also the benefit of having a right. We're here at Cannes and I meet a lot of indie agencies. It's also being a great leader, knowing that you don't know everything. So maybe it is me hiring an indie and coming to conferences like this where I can meet different people and I get different ideas and they help me as part of a marketing rollout.

Speaker H: And I love that because it relates to my next question. So how do you think about partnerships and relationship building maybe with those NDA agencies that you were talking about, to move beyond just the, uh, transactional level and really get into driving collaborative business outcomes?

Speaker F: Well, a successful partnership has to have three parts. It has to be an understanding mutually between the brand, the partner and the consumer. And one can't have a deficit because then it's not going to be successful.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: The second piece would be trust myself and the partner. We have to be Able to trust each other.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker F: Because I have to trust that you're going to understand my brand, my product, my vision. And then I have to be able to trust you that you can deliver it.

Speaker H: You know your space and I know mine.

Speaker F: Yeah, you know your space. That's the perfect way of saying, you know your space, I know mine. We have to have that trust.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: And we have to be able to trust risk. Because you don't want an agency that just comes in and says, I can do whatever, uh, you might want them to challenge you.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: Because that's why you're hiring them.

Speaker G: Them.

Speaker F: It's like being a boss and having employees. If you know more than every one of your employees, what do you need the employees for?

Speaker H: Exactly.

Speaker F: You should want people that better.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: Know more than you and your team as opposed to I just tell you what to do.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: So you would like that. And then the third piece is understanding that we have to again, get outside. We have to understand community, we have to understand culture. We have to be able to speak for the voice. We can't just think, we know everything's sitting in the room.

Speaker H: Right. Community has evolved, uh, to be activated in digital spaces and places. And one of the things that we both have continued to hear a lot about at can is AI.

Speaker E: Mhm.

Speaker H: And how it is building communities in some instances, but also how it may be disrupting communities. So as a brand leader, where are you seeing the greatest potential impact for AI in your industry?

Speaker F: Well, before I get to mine, because entertainment is still a little bit behind and respectfully so, because we have IPs that we're trying to protect.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: So not only in music, when I say in any creative space, I don't want to say AI is new. Like, people have to stop saying that. Where we started calling the phone and being prompted to press 1 if you want to get to this person, whatever that is. Artificial intelligence. That is what that is. It just seems like a couple years now and everybody's like, AI, AI. It's brand new.

Speaker G: It's brand new.

Speaker F: Oh, it's not brand new. Artificial intelligence got a new outfit.

Speaker H: Right?

Speaker F: Just got a new outfit. So being that AI is not new.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker F: We have to one start educating ourselves. It is not going to make communities. Right. It is not. Let's stop, um, that now it is there to do it. What it's been kind of doing, ah, helping us move along and as we want to live. Like the Jetsons, become the Jetsons. Right. So it's collaborative. I don't even Want to say two, it's a collaborator with us, right. To help us with efficiency and processes. But the creativity is still going to need us. AI is not going to be able to build a community. I don't believe that. So it will need the marketers. It would need all of us to go in and shape it. Because if all we do is going to prompt AI, all of us as companies, then we're all going to start looking the same. It's going to take the individual person that's prompting to uh, give it that. Jasaquois.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker F: Yeah, it's going to take that. AI is not going to do that. I don't believe so. I'm sorry.

Speaker H: And we've seen a lot of individualism and creativity out here. Beyond individualism and creativity, what other themes or topics or even innovations have you, you seen this week that's resonated with you being a brand marketer?

Speaker F: Well, AI has been on the top and it's been. Yeah, that level of discussion has gone a long way about just ethically, like even when I was talking about we have to start making sure, especially for intellectual property, uh, that we are addressing how we're going to put guardrails in place. Because even though entertainment is dealing with the music artists or the athletes or a celebrity or actor, actress, it's also us. We don't want people using our face, our likeness, just on whatever deep fake. We've seen the movies, we've seen catfishing and all that stuff and may have, ah, whatever. But like that's real. So we don't want that happening every day. So we have to put some kind of guardrails in place and get those to start. That's been one discussion that I've heard, even down to the bias and not just at a gender level culture, race, because you know, again, it's language models that have been given information by whomever is inputting the information. I don't who those people. And it's gonna be biased across the board.

Speaker H: Yeah. I had a really interesting conversation in a session and they were talking about how they had purposely built a model that was reflective of a consumer who might have dysgraphia or dysfunctional dyslexia or other learning differences. And I thought that's a really brilliant concept to not forget to do. Yes, assume that the model is reflective of the entirety of your consumer base. But your consumer base, especially when you're talking about younger consumers in particular, they have a higher propensity to some of these learning differences. So I thought that Was a really interesting conversation.

Speaker F: I mean, we say it about the Internet, right? We still say, like, go on Google or Wikipedia. Everybody always makes a joke about Wikipedia. Don't believe Wikipedia. So just imagine that for AI. So that discussion. But again, I'm not against it. By no means. I see the benefit of efficiency and process because we don't want to be inundated with having 3,000 emails or 900 emails, whatever your email count is every day. And like, shucks, I didn't get to all my emails today. So to have AI to be able to help streamline those kind of tasks and hey, go research and pull this quicker before I go into a meeting.

Speaker E: Right?

Speaker F: Those are great, but it's not going to replace us, right? It just can't.

Speaker H: So there's a lot of new marketers that are here and talent. New talent. What advice would you have for them if they are interested in getting into the music industry or maybe marketing in the music industry?

Speaker F: Well, one, and for myself, because although I'm in the music industry, I've done sports, I've done fashion. Is if you're a marketer, you're a marketer. Don't go into a company and they just call you a product manager. That's a skill. You want to be a visionary, you want to be a marketer. So if you're getting into the entertainment industry, understand what it is your career path is. If you're going to market, market and understand everything. Because music is not going to go anywhere it sounds. It's been here from the earliest part of time and it's going to probably be going on after us, right? So saying that it's because it also attaches to everything else. It's a part of lifestyle. You see sports, they have a music element. You see tech, it has a music element, fashion. So learn marketing overall, right? And that's how I feel about myself. I truly feel. I have a saying that I feel like I could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge and make you feel like you bought it, because that's what I'll do. Take those poles away. They said Justin passed away first. Uh, but that's how you should feel about being a marketer. The second thing is definitely learn AI. It's not going anywhere. I went to CES this earlier this year in January. Everything you've probably seen in Terminator X or some. Or the Jetsons or something else. Oh, it's here.

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker F: It's not coming. You're like steps behind the AI. You are 30 steps behind where the world is really at, like, I saw robots. I saw the things you put on your arms and make it strengthen. Like, I was like, uh, oh, wait, yeah. We are far behind and where we're thinking technology is. So definitely learn AI. You cannot be afraid of it. Just find someone to educate. I will say that it's only two months where I'm like, I get it.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: Earlier this year, if you would have talked to me, I would have been like, no, AI. But it's because someone didn't educate me. Right. So be educated about it and learn everything. Like, especially if you're in your 20s, go and learn everything.

Speaker H: Learn some French.

Speaker F: Learn brand marketing. Learn everything.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker F: Just learn everything.

Speaker H: Yes. You don't know what you might fall.

Speaker F: Be well rounded. Like, uh, that's what it is. But no. So, okay, I'm in music, so we gotta make this a little fun here.

Speaker E: Of course.

Speaker F: And we gonna get some background, uh, into this too.

Speaker G: Yes.

Speaker F: So, okay, if we say Def Jam.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker F: Now, like I said, music's not gonna go anywhere, right?

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: And there's a song in your life that is the soundtrack to your life. Everyone in this room.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker F: Give me a song from Def Jam that's the soundtrack to your life. Any artist, and if you can't think Def Jam, I'll understand. Just pick a song.

Speaker H: I was going to. To say a song, and I don't now. I just based on how it actually opens.

Speaker F: Wu Tang Cream. I was gonna say Wu Tang Cream, but I was trying to think of the opening statements.

Speaker E: What is yours?

Speaker F: I can't answer that because, uh, likelihood one of my artists sees this, they're like, oh.

Speaker H: So I was in Top of Mind.

Speaker E: Okay.

Speaker H: I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

Speaker F: My song.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker H: So if you're not able to answer the sound, I totally get that you don't want to show any bias, but I know that you do love fash. Yes, I know that. And you don't have to name a designer, but even if it was a, uh, cut of an outfit or if

Speaker F: I know my shoes.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: Any designer that makes a comfortable shoe that we could walk this crusade on. I'm loving you right now. So shout out to you. I like asymmetric. I love stones. I like statement pieces. I love fur.

Speaker H: Yes.

Speaker F: They'll tell you that.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: But not in this tea. Let me tell you something. Oh, no, not for the fashion.

Speaker H: Not for the fashion.

Speaker F: It's just too hot. But if you said to me, like, this fur hat might work with this outfit. And you should wear it in can. Yeah, you.

Speaker H: I would give that a second thought.

Speaker F: I would do it.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker F: Well, I personally love the idea of a fur hat.

Speaker H: I might second you on that. But I'm really excited that we had a chance to connect and I'm very excited about everything that you are working on over at Def Sham.

Speaker F: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to part two of this special edition episode of Time for a Reset hosted by Overline recorded line at CannesLion 2026. A huge thank you to all of our guests for joining us and sharing their insights, experiences and perspectives on the future of marketing and retail media. If you're enjoying Time for a Reset, please leave us a comment or review on your preferred platform and subscribe to be the first to know when a new episode drops. Catch you next time when we sit down with another industry leader.