In today’s world of reaching consumers across multiple platforms, every brand has a story to tell. Storytelling is the key to leaving a lasting impact with your brand on your audience. The job of leading the marketing of a major Fortune 500 brand has now become the art of deciding when, how, and how to express its message.
This was one of the main conclusions from a lively panel discussion held at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity on June 22nd. Variety Brand Entertainment for Fans, hosted by Walmart Connect, was held at the retail giant’s Walmart Connect/Vizio facility at the Hotel Majestic in Cannes. The session featured Seth Dallaire, Executive Vice President and Chief Growth Officer of Walmart US; Tim Ellis, NFL CMO. Dusty Jenkins, Spotify Chief Communications Officer. We spoke candidly with Han Wen, chief digital and marketing officer at L’Oréal USA, about the challenges and opportunities in reaching consumers and building a brand.
Even a brand name as ubiquitous as Walmart is always looking to strengthen its customer base. When Walmart made reaching Hispanic men a priority, its marketing team turned to Major League Soccer. This is a way for Walmart to position itself as a friend to soccer fans by heavily promoting major matches in a way fans have never seen in English-language media.
Spotify’s Dusty Jenkins Attends Variety Brand Entertainment for Fans Presented by Walmart Connect
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“If our brand can be there and bring exposure there and speak to the audience that’s watching it, that’s very important to us,” Dallaire said. “The granularity often has to do with retailers, like how much should they end up selling for, how many people came into the store, how did they perform in terms of traffic? These are the types of metrics we follow when evaluating investments.”
Wen cited his own experience of pulling off tricky feats with major brands: capturing expected cultural moments and making brands shine. NBA star Kevin Durant found himself getting burned on social media after his on-court feet looked like they needed moisturizer. L’Oréal’s skincare brand Cerave has named Durant as its “new face of legs” to further its goal of promoting skincare products for men, especially moisturizers.
It was a risk that could have backfired on NBA fans and L’Oréal’s core consumers. But that wasn’t the case.
“The answer to the question[when to react to a trend]is to ask yourself what is really at the intersection of what fans of this cultural moment want to talk about and the role your brand should play in that moment,” Wen said.
Mr. Dallaire expressed a similar opinion. “This content is a really important compliment to what we are doing on the results side of the business,” he said. Wen impressed his colleagues, adding that Durant and Serab’s promotion garnered 85 million views in 24 hours on social media “without spending a single dollar of paid media.”
Jenkins shared candid stories of how Spotify executives had to navigate risky moments, but stressed that brands can’t afford to play it too safe. Case in point: Spotify recently decided to change its logo to a silver disco ball to celebrate its 20th anniversary. A large number of Spotify users expressed dissatisfaction with a major change to the Spotify app icon. But while some insiders feared social headwinds, Jenkins knew the flap was invaluable marketing for the brand. She stood her ground even in the face of concerns from one of Spotify’s two newly appointed CEOs.
“He was like, ‘We’re working on a plan to take this down.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, no, we dream of moments like this,'” Jenkins recalled, noting that this was a sign of how much the brand meant to its users. “This isn’t a panicked conversation. It’s, ‘I love you so much that I’m really annoyed that you changed your logo.'”
Wen and Ellis share strikingly similar views on the changing responsibilities of the CMO, which explains why top marketing gurus have enormous influence at most studios. The same goes for other leading brands. Wen pointed out that L’Oréal has a history of more than 115 years, which allows it to take a long-term perspective when making business decisions.
“I don’t think my job will be next quarter or next year,” Wen said. “I see my job as ensuring that the next generation of marketers also have beautiful brands that speak to consumers.”
Mr. Ellis reminded the crowd of participants at the International Festival of Creativity that marketers must not only protect their brands, but also have the adventurous spirit to capture the attention and goodwill of consumers to seize the moment, like L’Oréal and Durant.
“My job is not to make sure people can come to a football game every day. My job is to make sure the NFL remains a leader five to 10 years from now and remains as strong as it is today. So I’m always thinking about how to build that fan base for the future.”
Another big challenge for marketers is the growing demand to extract deep insights from the ocean of data flowing into most big brands from a variety of sources, from retail stores to TV ratings to social media presence. CMOs need to hone their ability to identify trends and patterns from large amounts of data.
“It’s really important to bring all the data and insights together to better understand these things,” Ellis says.
“There are so many opportunities to capture data today, but never has it been more important to understand the ‘why’ and what it means, and to decide what to do with that data,” he said.
(Top photo: NFL’s Tim Ellis, L’Oréal USA’s Han Wen, Walmart’s Seth Dallaire)
