BOB GILBREATH: Wow. We wanted to open our presentation in a different way at the end of a long group of seminars and we thought the best way to get your attention here and bring you to life was really to bring in a crew of parkours from California. Parkouring, also known as freerunning, is really a new form of locomotion that kind of shows you how you can do something incredibly different. It was actually invented right here in France. My name's Bob Gilbreath and I'm the Chief Marketing Strategist of Bridge Worldwide.
JIM STENGEL: And I'm Jim Stengel. It's great to be back in Cannes, a city I love at a festival I love and really seeing all the people that I love. And I just want to say thanks to our freerunners, our parkours, for an incredible introduction.
MALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
JIM STENGEL: You know we wanted to show with their incredible courage and agility and resourcefulness, they're really a metaphor, you know, for us as marketers and the challenges we face.
BOB GILBREATH: Our goal today is really to introduce a question that we hope will force a reappraisal of what the marketing function is all about and dramatically improve our results on just about every measure that you can imagine. And we also hope to maybe summarize some of the things we've been seeing and hearing all week and really put a nice bow on it. I'm joined in this mission by my friend Jim Stengel who was last here two years ago, almost exactly, receiving the award for Marketer of the Year for Procter & Gamble when he was the Global Marketing Officer.
JIM STENGEL: Thanks, Bob. That's very kind. It was a nice memory and I left P&G about two years ago, a company that I love. And I've really since then been inspired to take on this personal mission to help sort of take everything we do up to a higher level because we see the results when that happens and we see the magic in organizations and with consumers when that happens. So to bring this kind of mission to life, I'm teaching at UCLA, which is an incredibly diverse and dynamic and progressive place with a tremendous, you know, student body. I'm writing a book due out in 2011, late 2011, called Grow, I'm consulting with clients who believe in these ideas and some of them you'll hear from today and I'm on the board of two turnarounds, Motorola and AOL.
But why am I here today with Bob Gilbreath on this stage here in Cannes, late Friday, during the Brazil game? Well, I'm here with Bob because we go back to P&G. We share a legacy with that great company. And Bob was a mentee of mine when I was there as Chief Marketing Officer. In fact, in 2004, when P&G ran its first ever Super Bowl ad, we ran a contest to see which brands had the best work and Bob, on Mr. Clean, was a finalist in that competition. And since then, we've both gone in different directions but we both believe passionately in the ideas that we're going to talk about today with you.
BOB GILBREATH: And for me, my story is I left Procter & Gamble to go to Bridge Worldwide, a digital and relationship market agency, because I really fell in love with the digital medium as a way to really look differently and think differently about how business should be run and really many industries we've seen digital transform for the better and marketing's a great example of that. It's really to me the first medium where that old interruptive tell and sell model doesn't work anymore. You know, we can't force people to come to our websites, we can't force them to download our iPad apps, we can't force them to like our brands on Facebook. So we have to give them what we call Marketing with Meaning. And that's a philosophy we developed and really it has two things. One, it's marketing that people choose to engage with, a lot different than just buying eyeballs. And the second thing, it's advertising that itself adds value to people's lives. And that's the topic of my recent book, The Next Evolution of Marketing, and it's really become the brand purpose of our agency, Bridge. It's what we do every day and we really believe that it's working for our clients.
JIM STENGEL: Bob and I really believe that marketing can do much more than we're doing now. And we know you in this audience this week believe that as well. And that's why we're here, to help accelerate this change that we all want and we all need and that's why we're here. But ladies and gentlemen, I do believe at this moment we really do have a very defining time, defining moment. Look at what's happened since we were last in Cannes last year, Goldman Sachs, AIG, Toyota, BP, and marketing and advertising are seen as the villains in this story. There's a Harris Poll that says that 66% of people believe that advertising agencies are in part responsible for the economic crisis. So there's really no going back, you know, to normal. There is no new normal. There's a way forward.
BOB GILBREATH: I think the main point is that society has shifted and our job as marketers has always been to reflect and in some cases define society. And right now with these industries on industry, these issues in our industry, society is demanding more for us, and despite the challenges that we're all seeing, we do believe there's hope and we believe there's hope right here. In fact, you know, I've been here since Saturday just to get a feel for everything, and I took a couple notes, have to have an iPad to do that now of course, a couple of neat quotes that I saw. One was Bob Jeffrey's from JWT on Monday talked about ideas that people want to spend time with. Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook we had here on Wednesday said, you know, technology is forcing industries to design for people, something we could take a lesson from. And just this morning, David Droga, I love this quote, "Our work can change government and society. Let's not have a recovery. Let's recreate our business." And then finally even Yoko Ono said, well, I'm not exactly sure what she said, but I'm sure it was important and related to our topic today.
But also, you know, again the work that we've seen awarded so far, Gatorade REPLAY, Nike Chalkbot and I don't know about anyone else but I got goose bumps when I saw the films from Heineken about what they're doing. And, you know, exciting stuff and not only does it just need one take, it's something that what they have in common is they're going beyond just a clever interruption and actually creating experiences, adding value and earning engagement. And, but at the same time, what we don't want to do is take those examples and see that we're just going to follow those tactics out the window. We see this again and again as a digital agency that what we've got to do is raise to a higher level and look at what those examples represent. What's the higher lever direction that they're all pointing into? And it's definitely not about chasing that next tactic. It's not about getting your geolocation strategy together. It's not waiting for Steve Jobs to save us all with the iAd platform. What we see again and again is that brands are too often just looking for answers, some cases coming here and just asking each other, "What is the answer? What is the answer? What do we do next?" And what Jim and I really felt and why we came here today is that we wanted to encourage people to stop looking for those answers and actually take a step back, hit the reset button and ask themselves the right question, what we call The Burning Question.
JIM STENGEL: So we're going to get to this famous burning question in a minute, but first I wanted to give a little bit of background. Bob and I and Jay Woffington at Bridge last January on a very cold Cincinnati morning got together and we were having a coffee. We were talking about how the industry was changing so much in a positive way. You know, the language of the industry is changing, and we said let's do something to celebrate that and let's come where the creative industry gathers at Cannes and really help accelerate this wonderful movement that we think so many companies and brands are taking on. So we've taken the last several months traveling around the world, talking to leaders of some of the most famous brands in the world and we asked them, "What do you think the question is and what are you doing about it?"
BOB GILBREATH: And of course we'd be doing everyone a disservice if we didn't give the entire world, not just the folks that we're meeting, a chance to weigh in on this. And so a couple months ago we created this website, burningquestion.com. We've been crowd-sourcing the answer. We've been asking people to give us feedback on what is that question that we should be asking ourselves. We've been lucky enough to get hundreds of responses on the site and really interesting things that do seem to be pointing to a different direction that we're going to show you about today. One of the thing that was kind of interesting as we did this is we were blown away by two young entrepreneurs who had a lot passion, had some great questions, wanted to get more involved, Stan Phelps and Tyson Adams. They were doing such a good job and being so active that we said, "You know what, let's bring these guys on the plane over from Ohio to, here in Cannes, let's have them come and join this revolution and help drive it." And we did have one job for them to do though. Wasn't too hard. We asked them to go on the streets this week and do some interviews of all of you and see what you think that burning question is that can unlock something new for us in the industry. So let's take a quick look at what they saw.
BEGIN VIDEO
STAN PHELPS: Hi, I'm Stan Phelps with Synergy Events.
TYSON ADAMS: And I'm Tyson Adams from liveGLOCAL.
STAN PHELPS: I'd first like to just thank the folks from Bridge Worldwide. It's been a great experience coming out here to Cannes, really a once in a lifetime opportunity.
TYSON ADAMS: Yeah, Stan, and I have to ask you, what is your burning question?
STAN PHELPS: My burning question is about a concept called marketing lagniappe. And the idea is, as marketers, can we tap into our best resource, our current customers, and give them something to talk about, tweet about, blog about and post to Facebook about? How about yours?
TYSON ADAMS: Yeah, my burning question is is how can we create social causes to have better brands and use social media and story telling to further outreach that increased sales?
STAN PHELPS: Great. So let's go out and talk to other people at the festival and find out what their burning questions are.
TYSON ADAMS: Yeah, let's go.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think the state of marketing is in flux.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Marketing today is all about conversation.
MALE SPEAKER: Becoming more personalized.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Nowadays it's about how to connect people with brands.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think it's changing. I think it's just evolving. That's, it's in a constantly dynamic state.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Five years ago, marketing was about selling.
FEMALE SPEAKER: These days it's chaos and mayhem.
MALE SPEAKER: I think the consumer is much more critical than five years ago.
MALE SPEAKER: The goal of marketing is the same as it ever was.
MALE SPEAKER: Making sales happen.
MALE SPEAKER: Engage people, excite people.
MALE SPEAKER: Make an impact. Do something useful.
FEMALE SPEAKER: You got to make money for your clients.
FEMALE SPEAKER: The biggest challenge for marketers right now is to understand the human beings, to understand how they relate to media, to understand how they relate to products.
MALE SPEAKER: How do we make them listen to us so that's the main challenge.
MALE SPEAKER: How to use technology more effectively.
FEMALE SPEAKER: I think the challenges are to keep up, to keep up with our markets, to find our markets.
FEMALE SPEAKER: The key issue is how to be different.
FEMALE SPEAKER: The only way to attract people's attention right now is to do something unexpected.
MALE SPEAKER: I think marketing can change the world.
FEMALE SPEAKER: By really promoting a positive ways of action and ideas.
MALE SPEAKER: If I knew this, I would be a rich man I think.
MALE SPEAKER: You're either in or out as a brand and if you're honest, you're in.
FEMALE SPEAKER: The burning question in marketing is again how to reach this consumer that is just totally being bombarded with all of these various communication devices out there.
FEMALE SPEAKER: There's a lot of people who are very passionate about a lot of different issues here and they're trying to do what they can to make the world a better place.
MALE SPEAKER: The burning question would be how can we do, how can we change things for the better?
FEMALE SPEAKER: We can do all sorts of things with brands to make a better town, a better country, a better life for many, many people.
END VIDEO
JIM STENGEL: That video, we obviously hit a nerve. Everyone talked very thoughtfully about this and I think with a great amount of care and concern. But in all those comments, a common theme is coming out. And as we talk to CEOs around the world and you heard from some of them this week, Bob McDonald and Maurice Levy earlier today, talking about many of these ideas. We traveled around the world to talk to CMOs and we got hundreds and hundreds of Twitter posts. And during all of this, the burning question fell into place. And here it is. How can we in marketing and business hold ourselves to a higher standard to create a positive impact on those we serve, our employees, and even the world? So you may or may not be surprised, I doubt it, it is pretty simple, but it is deeply profound. And this question really gets to what we've had in our guts for a long time. When we do work that meets this standard, we transcend advertising, we redefine brands and we redefine companies and we've seen examples this week, the Pepsi Refresh, Gatorade, IKEA, VW, Pampers, Old Spice, work that transcends the advertising and sets an agenda for the brand and the company. So the big question for my colleague and partner and friend Bob is why aren't people doing more of this if it's so wonderful?
BOB GILBREATH: That is another question. Well, let's have the, ask the audience. Who is doing this type of work today? Fewer than I thought. Okay, the handful with your hands up, how, are you doing it a hundred percent of the time? Keep them up. Okay. Didn't think so and that's definitely not enough of us. So let's take a timeout. Let's actually break down this burning question a little bit more. We have to put some thought to it and, you know, Jim, the thing I think I love just to start it off is that point on marketing and business. And to me, you know, that really speaks to the point is what we need to do, whether we're on the client side or the agency side, is to do more than just making ads. We've got to elevate our thinking and really go to the entire consumer experience, every touch point that there is, everything from packaging to consumer relations, corporate responsibility, everything's on the table.
JIM STENGEL: And I love the simplicity of this question, you know, and this idea of holding ourselves to this higher standard. And it really speaks to the desire we all have to do work that is important, that has a higher ideal, that makes a big impact. Work that we're actually proud to show our friends and our families. It's about making marketing a far more noble profession.
BOB GILBREATH: And again for me, you know, Jim, what I love, the noble profession concept is exciting. And to do that, what we've got to do is make sure that we're also not just talking about consumers, shoppers and our shareholders. We've got to talk about all the people that we serve with our brands. Everybody across the board is expecting more for us, from us, they've got multiple roles and we've got to put all the participants in the mix. So that's creating work that benefits everyone from shareholders to employees, consumers and society itself.
JIM STENGEL: So this burning question is actually being asked and in part answered by some of the world's leading companies, Luxottica, P&G, Samsung, Pepsi, Levi's, IBM, Kraft, to name a few. And these brands represent, in total, over $20 billion in advertising spending. So this is a big start. And it's important to note that while these leaders are setting the path, paving the way, they don't have all the answers. So what we're now going to do is hear them in their voices tell their stories honestly and transparently about their works in progress.
BOB GILBREATH: And what we're going to see here is really three different chapters of the story here. How these business leaders identified a need for change, that moment when they said, "The consumer is different. We've got to adapt." Some of the new directions that they've been taking, we've, have a couple examples there of the companies. And then finally, what are the payoffs? What are the results that they're seeing, not only in the bottom line but some of the bigger and more surprising positive impacts? What's really interesting about this is that some of these executives you'll see we've known for years. Others have been winning here. We called them up and we said, "Can we have a little bit of your time?" And every single person we talked to accepted, whether we were just talking on the phone for the first time or had known them for years. So let's start off and look at how these executives saw that need for change.
BEGIN VIDEO
INDRA NOOYI: I think that we have gone through an immense shock to the system in the last couple of years. We've had an excess of short-termism that really compromised long-term sustainability.
ESTHER LEE: If I think about marketing and what didn't work as well in the past, is that it was much more one way.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: Our industry was very much into what I call push. So you create a message and you go out and communicate this message. And that worked, that worked for many, many years.
SUE SHIM: Too many brands are approaching these channels in the same way they approached traditional channels. This does not work. These engagements need to be constantly fed new content, information of value to be worthwhile to today's consumers.
SALMAN AMIN: Consumers have more choices than ever and they are absolutely free to cast their vote in any direction they so desire.
ESTHER LEE: Whether we like it or not, transparency is the name of the game.
MARC PRITCHARD: Consumers are increasingly cynical and distrustful of brands, companies and governments. They're looking for brands with a higher order purpose that are doing good, not only for themselves but for the world.
MARY BETH WEST: Today we have no choice but to elevate the reason that we are in business beyond just the transactional buying and selling of merchandise.
ESTHER LEE: So we can't just put messaging out there and control what people think. This is now about really allowing some level of co-authorship with people because they have access and they have the power.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: You have to manage in a very holistic way because consumers talk to each other, there's the Internet and there's very, very easy way when something comes out like, you know, it comes in the, in Lyon in France and fifteen minutes later, it's here in San Francisco and people are starting to talk about that, so very, very, very different dynamics.
INDRA NOOYI: We have to figure out how to hold a consumer's attention in this intensely fragmented world. It’s not easy. It's not easy at all.
MARY BETH WEST: To have the rate of change that we've had within the marketing world in the last five years means we have got to have an environment that is innovative and creative and fast paced and experimental.
JOHN KENNEDY: The old way was more fragmented. The old way was more mechanical. We're living in a world now where it's much more transparent, collaborative and organic and that's often required a whole entirely different way of working.
ESTHER LEE: It's not just about selling. It's really about setting up a total experience for customers.
SALMAN AMIN: As retailers have consolidated and the shopping experience has changed from the store, brand owners have now got to pay much more attention to that last one yard or one meter where a number of the decisions are made. They're made at the point of sale and we've never had to work so hard historically during that last one yard. That's critical change that's taking place.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: You have to understand you're going to lose control of your message. The days that we controlled what your message is are over. They're over. You don't control the message, you manage the dialogue. And how you manage and how you steer that dialogue, that's an art and that's what they're all about these days.
END VIDEO
BOB GILBREATH: From a lot of leading executives and I think what's interesting is these are all people who got to their jobs by and large by following that former way of doing marketing and I think one thing that really struck me is John Kennedy from IBM talking about this is a whole new way of working. This is not just a new tactic. This is not just getting a new campaign or a new agency. This is about changing the entire model of marketing that they've been doing for years.
JIM STENGEL: You know we've heard, all of us, a lot of these needs and these words over the past few years. I mean I talked about them as well and, you know, we are continuing to talk about them. What I think is amazing about what we just saw is the uniformity and the urgency and the passion by this collection of leaders. That to me is what is so exciting and so optimistic. All these leaders are seeing the need for change. So now let's look at a few examples of what these same leaders are doing to chart a new way, to innovate, to build their brands and delight their consumers, you know, in this environment. So let's take a look at the video, some new ways.
BEGIN VIDEO
LISA MANN: It's no longer about placing an ad and having a consumer see your ad. It's about inviting the consumer to engage with an asset that you create.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: What we're living today is an era of engagement. It's not about the breadth. It's about the depth.
INDRA NOOYI: We are engaging consumers in a way that is very different than the past where we just told them, you know, this is a great product. Drink it. Now we are saying, it's a great brand, but it's a great brand that wants to make a difference in society. We have a project in Pepsi which is the Pepsi Refresh project. Rather than just advertise Pepsi, we're using a bulk of the dollars to give out grants to help communities around the country. And people submit grants and people vote on it online and then the people who get the highest votes, we're giving them. You know, money is ranging from $5,000 to $250,000. So it's a profound movement that we've launched.
SALMAN AMIN: The Pepsi Refresh program in the U.S., that's been a terrific example of tying into a movement, the need to be part of a broader society, to give back to the communities that we all live in and we cherish so much or to the causes that we are so passionate about and return the control back to consumer and say brand Pepsi is a brand that is really keen to work with you, so you pick where you would like us to spend some of the resources we have and tying in with some of your most passionate causes.
ESTHER LEE: The brand is actually an expression of a promise made. It's not just about what you want to stand for. It's what people now assume you've promised them. Our Facebook strategy, we take a very integrative approach so, yes, we have marketers. We do promotions. We provide products and services for the first time, give unique offers to our fans, but it's really important that our social media environment is a place where consumers encounter the entirety of the company.
JOHN KENNEDY: We have begun to define our brand not just in what we sell and what we offer and why that's different, but who we are as a company behind those things. Smarter planet is more than a campaign. Smarter planet is an agenda for IBM and it ties from our business strategy as well as our point of view on how technology can improve the world. And we're living at a time right now of such great change, it's a message that is resonating with so many different audiences because it points out how through the combination of science, engineering, technology, innovation, we can solve some of the world's greatest problems.
LISA MANN: We have to create something of value, we call it an asset, that they'll want to engage in and it really isn't about creating the commercial and buying the one spot on the Super Bowl. It's just not like that any more.
MARY BETH WEST: The iFood app is about saying to consumers at 4 o'clock in the afternoon if you're thinking about what you need for dinner and you have certain ingredients, we got some recipes for you. If you know you want chicken but you're not sure what to do with that chicken, we've got a recipe for you. So we don't think about it as we're taking our products and selling our products as much as we're solving a consumer need and that consumer need is what to have for dinner.
LISA MANN: It isn't about advertising per se anymore, but it's about being invited in to a consumer's life and having them invite you in to bring value to their lives.
MARY BETH WEST: On Philadelphia Cream Cheese we launched a Real Women of Philadelphia program, which was a digital program. Six thousand recipes were uploaded by consumers. We have in our kitchens ten thousand recipes on Philadelphia Cream Cheese. So in a moment, consumers caught up with Kraft.
END VIDEO
BOB GILBREATH: Again, pretty great start for these companies and some of it is being awarded as we speak over here. You know, Jim, for me I was really impressed by both Indra and Salman talking about this idea of a movement, not something you hear in marketing historically. I don't remember a Kotler book that talked about a marketing movement.
JIM STENGEL: Yes. I mean and we're hearing a lot I think from these leaders and we heard it all week about movements. And what I think is really interesting, our old language was, you know, brand equity, points of parity, points of difference, brand character, brand personality. The language is really changing. It's got meaning and impact and ideals and purpose. You know, it's really, really, really something fundamental going on here.
BOB GILBREATH: And I think another example of that language was Lisa Mann talking about developing an asset for Kraft. Lisa, you're here in the audience. Thanks for coming. I want to, let me put you on the spot a little bit. Tell us about this idea...
JIM STENGEL: Let's give it up for Lisa.
BOB GILBREATH: Yeah, please. Tell us...
LISA MANN: Thank you.
BOB GILBREATH: Tell us about, you know, an asset, new language, that you developed the iFood app, one of the first apps on the market and got on the Apple Store. How does that just come about? Just a crazy idea one day?
LISA MANN: So it's a funny thing. Obviously we're a CPG company and we do our business in the grocery stores, right, but we found that things were changing. You got to back it up a bit. When are consumers thinking about your product? And we started to think about ourselves as a media company. And we started to think about developing assets. So what's an asset? Food and Family magazine, Comida y Familia magazine, Kraftfoods.com, iFood Assistant, an iPad app, those are assets. So now we think we're in the business of building assets that consumers will want to engage with and we will be providing a service. So it's a big mind shift. We're not a product company only. We're also a service company. And we need to understand what our consumers need. What service do they want from us? We decided it really, it's always been the same thing. When Mary Beth was talking, it can be about chicken. What consumers want from us is a solution. They want to be the hero. They want, every meal and snack they serve their family, they want to be the hero. So then what service can we do to help them do that? Well, meal planning from recipe development, choosing a recipe, turning it into a shopping list, going to the grocery store, then having a video at home how to cook that chicken. So when we think about the assets we're doing, we needed technology. So people think the iFood app was an overnight success. I would argue it's been a ten-year journey. And what happened was technology let us take this insight of making mom a hero. It let us take it on the road. The iFood is out of home. When moms are looking for a solution and they're busy, they're not always at their computer looking at kraftfoods.com or any other Web site. They're on the road. iFood Assistant enables them to search for a recipe, turn it into a shopping list, the shopping list then, by GPS, what's the nearest grocery story, and then this is one of my favorites, several retailers now have a live link so they can say what's on special. Consumers can choose, go shopping, they can add other things to their shopping list because again it's not all about us. It's about them. So take their shopping list, go shopping, go home, put their iFood on the counter and watch the video how to prepare. That's what it's all about. It's a changing world and technology is what's enabling, that's the magic behind seamlessly becoming a trusted partner for your consumer.
BOB GILBREATH: Awesome, thanks, and, definitely, and watch for new, soon from Kraft about a new iPad app that Lisa says is going to even blow away iFood ,so stay tuned there. Let's take a look at a couple more of those success stories here.
BEGIN VIDEO
JAIME COHEN SZULC: The message not only has to be disruptive because the space is very cluttered so the message has to be very disruptive. But if it's disruptive and it's not relevant, people will not engage. We have, at Levi Strauss, we have a few success stories which I'm proud of. One of them, of course, is the Go Forth campaign here in the Americas. I think it speaks to the true core values of people and it's really embodiment of the energy and events of our times with all the financial crisis and people losing their jobs. It's really a call out to people like you and I to make a difference in the world.
MARY BETH WEST: You have to be nimble. You have to be willing to take a risk. You have to be experimental.
FABIO D'ANGELANTONIO: If you want to deliver meaning, if you want to deliver content and establish a real relationship with your consumers, number one point is that you can right time to defining what a brand stands for, what it promises and how to articulate that. OneSight is a foundation that gives every year, hundreds of thousands of frames and sunglasses. And especially in countries where sun is very strong, sunglasses are crucial to maintain their eyes. Through our frames, we also are able to give the gift of sight back to people that never had the money or the culture or the doctors to really have access to that. We do that also through giving for free brands like Ray-Ban, our Ray-Ban sunglasses to the people.
MARC PRITCHARD: We're holding ourselves to a higher standard by putting everything in brand building through the lens of purpose, to make sure that we are inspired by our purpose of touching and improving more lives and that we are focusing on moving from marketing to serving. So I'll give you an example of what that looks like. The simple example is Pampers and UNICEF. Pampers is about caring for babies' happy, healthy development. That's their purpose. They have dryness, fit and comfort for their diapers that allows babies to sleep, play and explore. Unfortunately, there are many women and children around the world that die from neonatal tetanus and what Pampers does is give moms a way to help those babies by just buying a pack of diapers. One pack equals one vaccine to fight neonatal tetanus. That's a way that you make life better through a better diaper and you make life better through the vaccines that you're giving to those consumers.
INDRA NOOYI: Every company has to recast itself and think of itself as delivering performance with purpose. And any time you articulate something called performance with purpose, which is in its essence how can we as a company do better by doing better for society, it is not a short-term statement, it is not a short-term deliverable.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: By aligning ourselves to the very core human values that your consumers have, and that's the only way I think we're going to be successful. That's the only way we're going to make a difference in the world. That's the only way we're going to make a difference for our brands. And that's the only way we're going to make a difference for ourselves.
END VIDEO
JIM STENGEL: A really strong theme coming through is this idea of purpose and higher ideals and making a difference, doing something really important. And Esther ou from AT&T happens to also be here live. I was having dinner with Esther last night. We were talking about love and relationships and all kinds of nice things, but we were also talking about AT&T's new agenda. And she's been on film and she's here to share with us a bit about how they're activating that. It's not just a campaign. It's a redefinition of what they're trying to do as a brand. So, Esther, could you share a few thoughts about AT&T's new platform?
ESTHER LEE: Thank you, Jim. What's really interesting, when you are defining a higher purpose for a brand, it's really important to set the platform at that level. So when we were actually in the midst of defining this new campaign that we launched a, just a couple of months ago, it wasn't about the bits and the bytes or the product functionality or even the benefits to our consumer. We had to start the question at what is the company's purpose and point of view and ultimately what is kind of the positive change or positive value that we're trying to create in the world? And in order to answer that question, first of all we have to recognize that the company's gone through a tremendous transformation over the past few years. I would say just a mere three years ago we were in the voice business, you know, talking on the phone, and today it's about living your life in the palm of your hand. We're really about, you know, driving the way people live their lives. So when you think about that and you also think about our role in that is so much more robust. It's not just about building a network. It's about building all the capability on the network. It is also for the company important to recognize that if you look back in time, the scale at which we've operated, we've always been about how do we provide something for society? It's about kind of human progress. And so the platform that we created a couple of months ago with the help of BBDO is Rethink Possible, and when you think about those two words, think about it from the standpoint of kind of expand the boundaries of "can" or seeing what's on the other side of "too far," you know, kind of think about it from that standpoint. So the campaign has just launched. There are so many elements that are going to be coming out. One of the things, because it is Cannes and it is a creative festival, we wanted to actually preview one of the pieces of brand film that we're going to be launching in a couple of weeks. It is establishing a bit of this point of view just to share with you. This point of view is very important for us in that it reflects our imperative, what do we come to work to do every day. It's our commercial agenda, but it's also our human agenda. But importantly, I think it's also a place of shared aspiration between our consumers and our stakeholders in the company. So with that, I would like to share this with you. The other thing is when you have a brand that is Rethink Possible, you kind of have to rethink possible the way you bring your stories to life. So this is actually going to launch in movie theatres in 3D. Unfortunately we can't show it to you in 3D because the theatre won't, the technology here doesn't allow it. But if you're interested, CYOP and BBDO are going to show it on a 3D laptop at the reception later today and you can take a look in 3D. So I'd like you to, I'd like to run the film. Before we do that, just if you can think about the standpoint that Rethink Possible is about, you know, changing your perspective and kind of looking at things a little bit differently. So if we can roll the film.
MALE SPEAKER: Thanks, Esther.
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JIM STENGEL: Beautiful, that'll be at Cannes next year. We'll see.
BOB GILBREATH: I think what's interesting, we were talking about this last night as well, is it's almost a metaphor for the entire industry. Here we are running around, chasing the next bauble that falls away, fighting for who's got the rights, who's got the authority offline, offline, and if we can just rise our game, take it to another level, think differently, there's opportunities for all of us to build our businesses and improve society too. But let's talk about results. You're all waiting to see that of course. Is this just a bunch of talk and what's happening with these efforts that are going forward so far, so we asked that tough question too. Here we go.
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MARY BETH WEST: It's most important that we participate because if we wait for the measurement tools to catch up, so you have an ROI on every single tactic you're executing, the next wave of change will have occurred. And we need to be participants in what's happening. And we'll figure out the metrics as we go.
MARC PRITCHARD: In a big company with a lot of experiments, there are a lot of failures. And that's actually what you need to do and the trick is to learn from those failures.
SALMAN AMIN: So when you now look at brands through the prism of performance with purpose, you very quickly realize the financial metrics are the, not the only ones that matter.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: It's not even thinking about market share. It's not even thinking about the financials. It's really thinking about the role that this brand has in people's lives.
LISA MANN: So measuring results is always challenging in a new space, while ROI and increased revenue is obviously the number one objective and goal. But now we believe that we understand the precursors to increased ROI and increasing revenue and that's engagement measures.
MARC PRITCHARD: The beautiful thing about the information explosion and the digital technology is that it ultimately allows us to create one-to-one connections with consumers. It's been a dream for a long time by many of us, but it really is now giving us that possibility.
JAIME COHEN SZULC: And if you look at our Dockers campaign was like the number one Googled search item for, you know, two days in a row and it was just like we're getting great results all the time and it's, the multiples are not like what's ten percent, what's twenty percent, it's like a hundred times more than what we had before, number of contacts. And it's just like these are phenomenal, phenomenal success.
INDRA NOOYI: At this point, Pepsi Refresh has got, you know, tens of millions of people who have come on the Web site and have voted.
MARY BETH WEST: Over and over again we're seeing examples of new forms of media that are connecting consumers, millions of consumers, around the globe, I, in ways that we never would have imagined before.
INDRA NOOYI: I think performance with purpose and this notion of doing better by doing better has galvanized our employees' life, you know. We never even expected this much of emotional involvement. People actually loved coming to work for PepsiCo. Now they're proud to be part of a company that actually is practicing performance with purpose.
MARC PRITCHARD: We're seeing some great examples from some results on this that also demonstrate that when you move from marketing to serving inspired by purpose you can get better business results.
LISA MANN: I think two years ago people didn't see the value of all of the assets that Kraft has working together and thinking about it as a total experience, in home, out of home and in the store.
JOHN KENNEDY: IBM at its core is working with and selling into enterprises, commercial enterprises, small companies to large companies. But with smarter planet we had the chance to connect with many audiences who ordinarily wouldn't connect with our brand, from school children who are interested in how technology can improve sustainability, to communities, to mayors, leaders all around the world. So it gave us this incredible platform to extend the brand.
MARY BETH WEST: Five years ago I would never have imagined we'd have a four and a half million fan base on Facebook for Oreo with forty percent of those consumers outside of North America.
SALMAN AMIN: It's been a tidal wave of support across the world as we've started to roll this out and now we are approaching our fourth year of talking about this and working against this program and the momentum keeps building year after year after year.
JOHN KENNEDY: The future of marketing will be more open, more transparent, more collaborative, more data driven, more scientific.
SALMAN AMIN: That's I think the nirvana of what brand engagement is all about. And the brands that do that the best going forward will emerge as the winners.
SUE SHIM: I believe in the power of marketing with value. We can solve real problems for our consumers, not just sell products. Let's ensure what we offer to consumers truly enriches their lives. When we realize that, we can achieve anything.
MARC PRITCHARD: We will no longer be just focusing on a campaign that defines and describes what we want people to know, but movements that will inspire action by consumers. So ideas that are so powerful that people will be compelled to act and be part of the brand and be part of participating in creating the brand.
LISA MANN: The higher standard is helping simplify consumers' lives, helping solve their everyday problems, being invited in, being their partner. That value, that's meaning.
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BOB GILBREATH: I don't know about you. I think I got goose bumps again there. What I really, one of the things I really loved was Salman talking about, you know, financial metrics not being the only metrics that count, that it's got to be something more. And I also love Lisa, you know, again, that point on engagement being that new secret measurement that leads to getting great ROI and loyalty for much longer than we could ever imagine with traditional advertising model.
JIM STENGEL: You know, it's really, you know, as we all know, it's all about engagement, you know. If we don't have the people in our companies who are engaged in what we're doing, it won't happen with consumers. You know, and you all know this. You can sense this in an organization within minutes when you walk into it. I was interviewing Miles Nadal earlier this week for my book, and he was giving me lots of examples of the companies that kind of put their employees first, get them really, really inspired by the mission, the purpose, the meaning of the brand and then it will go into, you know, into the consumers. But too many companies overlook it's all about the employees first. So anyway, we've been up here talking for about forty minutes. We now want to come out to you and get a few reactions to what we've been talking about. And the first reaction we want to get is from a dear friend and colleague of mine who happens also to be the Chairman and CEO of the world's largest advertiser and a man who deeply believes in the ideas that we are talking about and is acting on them. And I'd like Bob, if I could put you on the spot, I've done it before, if you could say a few comments of what you've heard and your personal view on it.
BOB MCDONALD: Well, Jim, you told me the reason you wanted me to do this is because Mark was busy doing the Young Directors event.
JIM STENGEL: That's right.
BOB MCDONALD: So I, no I think that the amazing thing about purpose is once you commit yourself to a purpose, you open up all kinds of realms of opportunities you never considered. When we thought about sponsoring the U.S. Olympic team, we approached it a traditional way. We had eighteen brands, sixteen athletes, that we were going to advertise those brands in support of the Olympics. And then some people in the organization got the idea, well, what if we bring those brands together and advertise the Procter & Gamble Company for the first time and our purpose of touching and improving lives, but how do we make that purpose relevant? And that's how we got to the Thanks, Mom idea. Then we went to the Olympics and we discovered that the families had no place to meet the Olympic athletes. Imagine that. The families are not allowed in the Olympic village, and somebody came up with the idea of buying a house and refurbishing a house and creating a house where they could meet the athletes. Then we discovered many of the families couldn't afford to come to the Olympics. And of course the natural idea is why don't we subsidize them and allow the families to come to the Olympics. So you can see how when you get the purpose...
JIM STENGEL: That's right.
BOB MCDONALD: ...and it inspires, it creates all opportunities for innovation, ideas and insights and that's of course what drives the connection, attracts the people and builds the business.
JIM STENGEL: Beautiful, thank you, Bob. Thanks for that great story. You know we're at Cannes and there are a few creatives here, right, and there are a few creatives who are very famous here and I'm going to find one or two of them. And I see one right here. His name is Rob Schwartz. He's from this little shop out in Los Angeles called TBWA\Chiat\Day, something like, you've been here before, I take it. Rob, I want you, from the creative community, what you've experienced the last forty minutes, what, you know, what's it mean to you? What's it like to work in a culture like we're talking about?
ROB SCHWARTZ: Well, thanks, Jim. I thought you were kidding when you said you were going to put me on the spot the other night. Well, I think what's amazing here is that you've got a lot of great clients who are saying we have to do more and we have to not just do something cute. And we are fortunate enough to work with Pepsi and the, kind of the thesis when we first started working on the brand was the world doesn't need another Super Bowl spot. And that was really a reflection of the audience. We looked at, you know, the way the category was declining and people were not engaging with these brands who made, you know, brown, bubbly water and the way they were engaging was to give back. And we thought maybe there's something here. Maybe there's an idea here and we connected that with performance with purpose, drafted off of that and next thing you know we were, you know, off the Super Bowl and doing something crazy and trying to, you know, refresh the world.
JIM STENGEL: Super, super. And then the last word is from my friend David Lubars who was kind enough to come out and talk to my class at UCLA this winter and was a big hit. So, David, you have the last word on what you've experienced over the last forty minutes.
DAVID LUBARS: Thanks. Thanks, Jim. You know, the thing that's happening to me in the world, it's a very incredibly healthy thing. Now people are deciding not just what they want to buy but who they want to buy it from, and the technologies and all the things that are available today allows brands to communicate their values and their ethics and they're sold to people so they know who they're doing business with. And that's how brands can now create a true, beyond a relationship, a marriage, where you go through life helping each other, doing things. It's just a great, it's like the good part of capitalism now for all we've seen that was bad. And these are companies that always had ethics and soul that we've, that Jim's, and, that we've seen tonight. It's just now they get to express it in a better, more honest and authentic way. And I think you'll see more and more of it from the good companies and the bad companies are going to have to figure it out.
JIM STENGEL: Great. Thank you, David. Back to you, Bob.
BOB GILBREATH: Well, we've also had a couple people from this room, I don't know who you are, but thank you very much for spreading the word for us already. One comment on Twitter, so simple, so profound, so transformational, why not, plus the parkours, right. Good. So, you know, get, I'll, Jim, what do you think?
JIM STENGEL: Well, you know, I think these, the, what we've heard on Twitter over the last several months, I mean, the comments that you've heard today on the films and live, I mean I think they really are a fitting conclusion, not just to this presentation, but really to the week, the extraordinary week we've all had in Cannes. And what we tried to do in this little presentation is to provide, you know, some inspiration, a great deal of hope that things are going to move and are moving in the right direction. These people don't have all the answers. We don't either, but we've seen some really promising results. And this burning question, which we think is so simple and profound, works on so many levels. It grows brands, right. It results in great business. It attracts talent. It inspires the kind of work we award here and it leads to happy employees with meaning and that leads to happier consumers and customers. This is the only way to work. So I have one more question for all of us. And that is how do we help each other be part of this transformation, agencies helping clients and clients helping agencies. And how do we challenge ourselves to make advertising and marketing a much more honorable profession again, to have the work we do, do more good, to have marketing that motivates our employees and makes them feel great about what they're doing for their consumers and customers. We should be proud to be in this great industry, to be part of a noble profession, a noble profession. That's what these leaders here are talking about. And if we're all successful in this endeavor, this movement, we might even have, at next year's festival, a Noble Lion and we've even mocked it up. What do you think? So I doubt Terry Savage is in the audience, but we would like you, if you believe in it, tweet about it, blog about it, write to Terry. We think the titanium was a great lion, but there's a movement going on here and we think this should be recognized in Cannes and we like the idea of a Noble Lion for work that has a deep meaning and impact on consumers and employees and the world at large. That's the standard we need to be working against.
BOB GILBREATH: I think some of you might want to be on that jury as well, which we'd love to have you. But, you know, at the end of the day, Jim, it's a great beginning. You know, hopefully the genie is out of the bottle for you. You've got something you can take away from this week and start thinking about not only what are some great solutions out there but what is that better question that you can ask yourself? And we're not going away. We're still going to be at burningquestion.com, really as a source, a place, so we can continue that conversation. We're going to put up videos from today and really, you know, help be an asset as you go back to your offices next week and start looking at how do you put some of these thoughts into action. And an extra special bonus, for those that are here and if you're interested, please do join us right after this session up on the rooftop terrace. We're going to continue the conversation in person...
JIM STENGEL: We're in the sunshine. There are cold drinks and snacks, so please come up.
BOB GILBREATH: Yeah, we're going to give out some copies of my book. You know, really just want you to come up, have a good time, hopefully debrief a little bit of what you've seen today. Talk to somebody you've never met before. We're all here, we're all in the same business and we can learn from each other, and by having those conversations, we can make some great change. So hope you see, hope to see you up there, hope to see you the rest of the week and in the future. And for our trip up, let's have the parkours take us out.
JIM STENGEL: They're back, they're back.
BOB GILBREATH: Thank you.