Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 1: Welcome to Business Marketing. My name's John Horsley. I'm the host of today's episode. We're recording live at Cannes Lions, and we're in the beautiful surroundings of the Dep Secret Garden. Today, I have the absolute pleasure and delight of being joined by Jennifer Kattula, who is General Manager and CMO of Microsoft Advertising. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, John.
Speaker 1: I normally ask this question as a kind of a starter or, you know, starter for 10, which is, why did you decide to get into marketing, media, advertising?
Speaker 2: Well, it's an interesting story because I actually started my career as an engineer. I was coding and building websites during the first dot-com era. And while I was very good at technology and loved doing that, what I found is, what I was drawn to was actually telling the story about technology and helping people understand and simplify complex things in a r- in really human terms. And so I did a career switch like many people do, went back to business school, and then have spent basically the last 20-plus years doing marketing and technology.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's cool. I really like the idea of simplification of, of complex propositions. Uh, there's so much jargon within our industry. Um, there's also stuff that's unseen as well. So, you know, if it's ad tech, you know, it's pipes and plumbing and, and ways things work, a mechanism. That's, uh, a real art and craft in its own right. How do you think about that yourself? So, you know, when you're looking to communicate a, a proposition to your client base and, and prospective customers.
Speaker 2: Well, I, I mean, I think it comes down to what are, what do people need, and what do they care about? Really core human values. Do you want efficiency? Do you need connection? Are you looking for, um, y- wealth? I think a lot of times people are driven by some really kind of basic human instincts of fear, um, belonging. So those things are really important to understand, and that holds true even in a B2B context where, you know, you might be marketing or communicating with a buyer who's buying advertising. And I, I always talk about some of my, um, early marketing days where I was marketing to media buyers, and one of the key insights we had with media buyers is a lot of times they were early in their career, right? And, um, doing really hard jobs and, uh, maybe the lowest on the totem pole. And w- we wanted to create programs that really showed the love to tho- that audience and made them feel seen and feel special and build products and communicate products that made their lives easier. So, uh, you know, I think you have to really understand what is the human insight of the buyer, whether it's the end customer, the end consumer, or if it's a business-to-business buyer. And at the end, we are all people, so we're always marketing to people. And I, I really try to, um, for myself and the, the marketing that we do and the, and the marketing our team does, is speak in human language.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I loved the language you, you're using then, you know, such as love, et cetera. Emotional language, quite frankly.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Uh, and the types of language that people connect to. Uh, when I think back maybe 20 years or so, or, or probably even over the last 10 to 20 years, a lot of B2B businesses kind of look the same. They lack p- personality. They were kind of vanilla. Do you feel that that's changing at this point in time and, and B2B is, uh, gaining its own voice, its own character, its own personality in terms of how it communicates and, and why with its customer base?
Speaker 2: I think that's a r- really interesting question. I, I feel like B2B and B2C have started to converge, I actually think over, like, maybe the last 10 years, because we have access to so much information, and people are getting their information on social media. We're seeing like, I don't know, what, 10,000 impressions a day of some kind of media and, uh, a- and so you have to break through in some way. It's not... I think B2B used to be about what is the feature or the benefit of this product, and now to your point, it's shifting to what is the actual, like, emotional human value that this product is going to create for you, or the opportunity. Like, what is the unlock that you're going to have? What is the magic that you're going to have for yourself or your business in a B2B, um, space?
Speaker 1: Do you feel that we're going through a renaissance at this point in time in terms of storytelling, the value and the art of story- storytelling?
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Like, I, I really truly think we are because the sto- the story is what's connecting us. The s- even though you can do, um, such hyper-personalization of your advertising, if you're not connected to the story that the brand is telling, and that's not just connected to the brand, it's connected to the community of people that are buying that brand that you identify with. And so that story really matters, and the story is the shortcut, just like the brand visual identity is the shortcut for you to understand, like, this is the thing I need to buy, and I don't need to go do research about it. Um, so that was, that is what the story does, and now we're seeing stories being told in so many different ways. It's not just the brand telling the story to their audience directly. They're telling the story through creators. They're telling the story through many different mediums. Here at Cannes, they're telling their story through experiences and allowing you to experience their brand in very different ways. So I, I think you're, you're absolutely right. Like, there is a renaissance, um, and this part of the craft of marketing is so, so important, especially when we're talking about so much AI here as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what I'm thinking. So my gut feel is this AI Is driving this. So, you know, in terms of, uh, how companies need to market themselves, they obviously have to put out great content. Um, clearly now we, we obviously wanna get into citations as well, into your ChatGPTs or whatever it- engines people are using to search Shortlist and, and so on.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Um, so if you're not creating that content, you can't be, uh, in consideration. Uh, and the other element as well, and s- I'd like to understand this from yourself and perhaps your advertiser base, but it feels like there's a ground swell at the moment, um, versus the last 10 years. So if you look back over the last 10 years, everything was about performance marketing, uh, short-term, you know, windows, revenue marketing, and so on. Uh, w- uh, probably a detriment or an under-investment in brand. Uh, and it feels at the moment there is a, a shift where more budget's going into brand, um, as at the end of the day, when somebody is coming to Shortlist or make a purchasing decision, you wanna be there, uh, and be, be front of mind.
Speaker 2: Abs- I'm really glad you brought this up, and I'd love to talk a little bit more about just how brands are needing to do different kinds of marketing right now, and that means marketing to agents and marketing to these LLM chatbots. We're kind of l- living in sort of three different eras of the web. You have the, the web that we know, that we click on, and we have page views and all of that. Then we have the chatbots like ChatGPT. And then, increasingly, we're gonna have more autonomous or semi-autonomous agents. And these are so personalized to that specific person or whatever use case or environment it is, vertical, what have you, and so brands need to be found in those environments. And the way to be found is to make sure that you can be re- re- read by the LLM, first of all, and so that you have a very rich content ecosystem that tells your brand story, right? Like, and it's not just your, your brand manifesto or your brand book. It is truly all of the product information you have, the customer reviews, the case studies, the storytelling that people are saying about your brand, the community. So a lot of those ecosystems are incomplete, um, or they're scattered in a lotta different places. And so I, what I see a lotta brands doing now or really thinking about now is, "How do I show up in a chatbot experience with credibility so that I can be, be, not, not only be found, but, um, I can create resonance, and my brand connection can come through right away?" Um, so I think that's really important, and I think that that's, like, a new space for marketers right now, which is, um, a little bit different than what, how we've been marketing in the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I love the fact that you talk to community and that you talk to ecosystem as well. Um, obviously all businesses sit and exist within an ecosystem, but frankly, I, I beli- and, and that could be partners, that could be publishers, you know, e- et cetera. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Um, that would also be fans. Uh, that could be followers. That could be, um, the influencer communities, various other tribes, right? Um-
Speaker 2: Exactly
Speaker 1: ... what, what I really like is the fact that attention is being or starting to being paid there, whereas actually I feel in the past it's been undervalued, and there's been a lot of assumptions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I, I think that's a great point because the, the ecosystem really does matter, and if you think about where people are getting their information now, it's not this one-way communication at all from a marketer or from a brand to a, a consumer. They're getting their information from creators. They're getting it from reviews. They're getting it from their own personal experiences. They're still getting it from word of mouth. And let's be real, they're purchasing most of their products in a store still, even though we talk about digital all day long. Um, so they're being influenced when they walk into a store and how, what the merchandising looks like. So you're absolutely right that there, there is a huge ecosystem here that, that needs to, you know, I think, n- n- that, that needs, that needs to be taken into account when you're marketing. And, and then I think there, the hard part is putting value on each piece and how they relate to each other.
Speaker 1: What we've touched on means that there are fundamental shifts and changes in terms of the customer journey, be it B2B or B2C. Uh, within B2B alone, there can be up to dec- 20 decision-makers-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... in terms of a buying committee. Um, there's content that's involved for different stages of the buying committee, uh, and also different roles that people are playing in that decision-making process. So it'd be really good to understand what your approach and, and your take is on that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Um, so the c- the customer journey is, it's, it is changing. The, there are, uh, like you said, sometimes a lot of decision-makers in the customer journey. The way we approach it is we are mapping our audiences. So we're mapping our senior decision-makers. Where are they finding their information? How do we reach them with what types, types of content? And then breaking that down, the next level of decision-maker, maybe the, the managers or the leaders, and then finally, the people that are working in our tools and what do they need specifically across all of those. And then creating this ecosystem of content that is, is connected and experiences and channels that are all connected and related so they tell a cohesive story that we wanna tell in the market but that are relevant and resonant with what the audience needs right at that moment in time. Um, one thing I'd love to add here is that- The, the way we're reaching people is changing a little bit as well. Um, many of our audience will potentially get information on social media, and what we have found is that for B2B, people buy from other people. And, and so what we- we've launched actually in the last year or so is an employee advocacy program, which is essentially like employee creators who are talking about our products on their social media with their networks. And this has proven to be, uh, just an extraordinary way to both extend our reach and deepen our connection with our customers, and do it super authentically so th- those connections can have, like, a different sort of texture with our, with the connect- with the customers. And our brand is not, um, it's not brand to customer. It's really told, the storytelling is told through the lens of a human being.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's fantastic. Um, I'm just thinking back to the past. You'd often look at companies and you, they'd kind of feel faceless. So it's great that you've got the faces to the, you know, of the business to the people that are interested. And the other bit as well is, um, it would endear people to wanna find out more about the company and, and perhaps attract the right talents as well.
Speaker 2: E- e- exactly. And I, I think it's a win-win-win because the people that are putting their faces out there, they're building their personal brands. They're learning a new skill. They're getting out there, and, and that's helpful for them. You know, they're landing speaker spots and asking to be, being asked to write blogs and things like that. So I look at it as a win-win-win, and, um, and it's, it's so good for the company because the algorithm, algorithms on social media, they do change quite frequently, so we don't have control over, like, how some of our organic content is gonna get, reach our customers.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure. I mean, you see LinkedIn changes fairly frequently.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It does.
Speaker 1: Um, and I'm thinking at the other end of the spectrum, so, uh, executive leadership as well, um, allowing leaders within the business to have a voice, um, and being able to market their voice is, is more important nowadays as well.
Speaker 2: That's, that's so true, and every leader has a different way to explain things. Um, they might have a d- a slightly different audience. They might have, uh, a slightly different angle and a slightly different point of view that can really connect the dots for the bigger story. So I mean, just taking, for example, in our organization, we have product leaders that are really gonna talk about, uh, you know, the technical aspects of how Microsoft advertising and the, and, and the broader Microsoft AI solutions can help marketers, and do that more in a technical enterprise way. And here's me as a CMO, I'm talking about how the brand matters. Um, so we all have our different angle, and I think it's, it's been really a huge benefit to our organization.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, excuse me. I'm thinking about the technology as well. So, you know, Microsoft, wow, I mean, you have arsenals of technology. I mean, it, it's incredible, and you are very far ahead in terms of AI. Uh, be interesting to understand how AI's accelerating your particular product, you know, the advertising platform.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Well, we have Copilot built into the Microsoft Advertising Platform, and our customers are seeing, uh, incredible gains by using it for things like diagnostics, reports, um, creative production. We can... You can upload your brand into it, so you can create assets very quickly, lots of permutations of assets. So it's saving a lot of time. And honestly, it can recognize patterns that people can't, or it can get them, it can get them a lot more quickly. Uh, and, and our clients that are using it are just, um, seeing extraordinary results as a, uh, as a result. We have Copilot built into our Monetize platform, which is our publisher solution. We have it built into Clarity, which is a, uh, sort of a webmaster solution for, um, websites. So it's built into these tools, and I, I think the, the insight or the thesis is that people, um, of all disciplines want access to information and to be able to do it through natural language, to ask for what you want and get it back in a very, um, a, a digestible format. And so we're building it across there. And then, of course, if you wanna go into this as well, we can talk about, um, just internally how we're using AI and technology to, uh, work better, faster, increase our quality. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Cool. Um, can I ask you something first-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... first though, which is with the addition of AI into your platform, does it mean that the technology is becoming more open? So what I mean by that is, uh, enabling your customer base to better innovate, uh, and build their own tech that is connecting with yours.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you asked that question. We actually just launched our MCP server for the Microsoft Advertising Platform.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: So it allow, in, in your, in your chatbot of choice, you can connect into it and query. And so it's in your workflow. I think that's the, that's the real workflow shift that we're seeing across the board is people don't want to log into a million different tools. And so if you can allow them to do their work in Claude or in Copilot or in ChatGPT, they're gonna be more productive, and they're gonna be able to integrate it into their own personal workflow. So we're really excited about that, and I, I genuinely think that's kind of the way that things are going, whether it's advertising technology, SaaS, what have you. These MCP connectors are changing the game for businesspeople a- a- across the board.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's complete democratization.
Speaker 2: Complete democratization. And, and we're seeing all of our employees build their own personal workflows. So as a result, you can create the da- the exact dashboard you wanna see or the exact automation that you want to build, whatever that is for your specific role, and that's really cool. It's very empowering. It's, it's incredibly empowering for the team because they can move faster, and their imagination is unlocked
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. I mean, that's, that's one of the things that I find really exciting about the, the AIs and, and the tools that are available. I'm not a, a technologist. Uh, I have ideas. Um, and I believe that you can build anything, but all you're limited to is your boundaries of your imagination.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. It's-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... and, and I think a lot of people struggle with that blank page a, a little bit, but once you do something, it's like a snowball effect.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, well, certainly around workflows as well. So you say, "Okay, fine. Um, how much time is it taking you to do this, this, and this?" Think about how you might be able to automate things, um, to free up you to be able to do something more beneficial to yourself of your time, uh, and more productive for the business.
Speaker 2: A- absolutely. Uh, we can take off some of the routine roadwork that we have to do, or, or things that are manual that shouldn't be, and automate those, put them on a routine, create a skill, something like that. And then your time can be used for collaboration, brainstorming, ideation, the strategy work. AI is not gonna get you 100% of the way there on most of the stuff that you're gonna put out into the world. So that last mile, if you can spend your time on the last mile getting, refining it, and making it perfect for, for your customers, like, that's where your time should be spent. And I think on top of that, people get so much personal satisfaction when they're able to do that sort of higher, more intellectual work, and spend their time doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we didn't talk to it, but you mentioned influencers earlier when you talked about community and various other aspects. And hey, look, I can hear some influencers on the stage just behind us, so just making me think about this. In the world of B2C, they've been synonymous for a long time, less so in B2B, how is it that you're engaging and working with the influencer community at this moment?
Speaker 2: Well, we a- we actually have a community that we call our Friends of Microsoft Advertising, and these are some, um, really prolific journalists, um, experts in search advertising. And we have been nurturing this community for a very long time. And what that means is we reach out to them when there are new product launches, we host calls with them so they can ask questions. There's a lot of education with this community, 'cause we want them to understand our products. We want them to ask us hard questions, and challenge us, and push us to make the platform and the products better, because these truly are the experts. So we work very closely with them. In fact, the person who manages that whole program is here in Cannes this week talking to many of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they're, they're, they're also the gatekeepers to communities or multiple communities outside of your own natural one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Many of them have hundreds of thousands of followers, and have been doing this kind of work for decades at this point.
Speaker 1: In terms of customers, your clients, what types of questions do they come to you with in terms of their advertising challenges?
Speaker 2: How long do we have?
Speaker 1: I've got plenty of time.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I think, I think most marketers right now are, and I hear this across the board, I've heard this this week here, is, i- is adapting to the, the AI, the new AI world, and what does it mean to do branding and marketing to m- m- to machines, really. What does it mean to do that? How do you do it responsibly? How do you still care for the brand and the craft? How can you, how can you elevate, continue to elevate and push, and not get h- have the technology pull you down to the mean? Because that, if you're not careful, it can. Everything will start to sound the same, everything will start to look the same. Because the, all the, all these LLMs are all trained on historical data, and they're all gonna sort of regress to the mean. So I think there's this real question of just how do you continue to push and stay relevant with so much changing technology, um, and an explosion of content too. There's so much, and people still have a constraint of hours in the day and how much media you can consume.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the content's blowing up isn't it, at this point in time? There's, there's more noise out there. There's a lot of pulse, there's a lot of clutter. But at the same time, I also believe that it means that great content is rising to the top in a way it's not before.
Speaker 2: That will always happen. And even if that great content, honestly, is AI-generated, and it, it, it takes, it still takes craft to generate something great or incredible through AI. It really does. Like, it's, it's not a simple prompt. It's gonna take iteration and practice. It really requires the reps to do something extraordinary with AI. So whether it's human-generated or whether it's AI-generated, if it's great, it will rise to the top.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it, it's down to the judgment of the expert human as well.
Speaker 2: Totally. Totally.
Speaker 1: Um, so what's new in, in, in the Microsoft world in terms of, uh, potential releases or, or, or things that you guys are doing around your technology?
Speaker 2: Well, we just had our Build conference a couple of weeks ago, which is really a developer conference, but all this stuff seems like it's converging together. We announced something called Web IQ, and Web IQ is essentially the grounding mechanism for the internet for LLM. So it's not just Copilot that grounds all the information. It, they, it's grounded for ChatGPT and other of these big chatbots. Um, so essentially the whole web is grounded through this. So we announced that, and then we also announced, like I said before, the MCP server for Microsoft Advertising. Another product that I'm really excited about that seems to fly under the radar is a product called Microsoft Clarity, and you install this on your website just like you would Google Analytics, and it can show you how your brand is showing up in the LLMs. So what are they prompting, or what is a person prompting, and how did your brand show up or not show up with a specific prompt? So it's pretty cool, um, and very insightful. Like, let's, let's just say it's very insightful, 'cause it felt- Like up until now, it's been a black box, not a lot of transparency. Yet, if you are a marketing, uh, leader, you know that you're getting so much more traffic from the LLMs, but you're, you're asking yourself, "What is, what are they seeing in the LLM that's causing them to come to my website?" So it's, it's a really insightful tool, and we're really excited about it.
Speaker 1: Clarity.
Speaker 2: Clarity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been playing with it.
Speaker 2: It's very, very cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like-
Speaker 2: And easy to install
Speaker 1: ... I like the heat mapping as well and the customer journey-
Speaker 2: Yep
Speaker 1: ... that, that you can visualize.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, and it's been really useful for me. Um, I like the fact that you've been open, and you've actually shown there, you know, the, the longer terms that people are, are querying. Um, I know that, yeah, when I look on, on ChatGPT or other sources, I know that I'm not able to access that data, um, which is a, is a struggle, so at least you guys are, are providing the clues and, and parts of the, of the puzzle that are essential to marketers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really cool tool. I, I didn't talk about the heat map, but that is, it's super insightful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, and we're, you know, a little bit of future gazing. I mean, I know that we're, we're moving at the speed of AI at the moment. It is insane, and you know, if we look back six months, it looks very different than where we're at now. But what can you see on the horizon maybe over the, the next six to eight to 12 months?
Speaker 2: It's really hard... It's hard to say because things are moving so fast. What I, what I will say and w- what I think is important for marketing leaders is that we're, our roles, in my view, are getting so much wider. And so if you think about a, a marketing person or... You have a lot of disciplines within marketing, and it's a very linear handoff process. I'm seeing all of those roles starting to blur. I'm seeing people just going very wide while also going deep in a number of different areas. And even on our team, we're, we're saying this is the year of the AI builder. We want our, our employees to be builders with AI and sort of the deciders of how they use their tools in their own personal workflows so that they can kind of go from idea to execution and then build that work loop again, get that feedback loop in on their own. They have agency and empowerment and the technology to do it. Um, so that's really what I'm seeing, just this kind of a shift in the shape of marketing roles in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's, that's been a reoccurring theme during some of the conversations I've had, uh, whether it's on the show or offline during Cannes this year. Um, a number of people have talked, uh, to the expectations of the board and how that's changing. Um, you know, what a CFO, a, a CEO, COO, et cetera, what their expectations are from the marketing lead now. Um, the, their view on the role, and frankly, it feels like more than one individual. So the other day we were describing this individual that is, you know, a chief technology strategy marketing communications, you know, officer XXX and X, uh, and that generally doesn't exist within one individual. Are you feeling the same?
Speaker 2: I, I, I am because I, I actually think with AI, the marketing leader is, is often the leader that is driving the transformation within an organization because they're, they are, they really own the customer experience.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: So they're thinking about... They're the first to see that half their website traffic is now coming from an LLM. They're the first to think about, "Should I put an agent on my website?" And then you just start pulling that line, and then you say, "Oh, I can connect my MarTech stack to my product stack with an LLM. I can do X, Y, and Z." And so, just like I said, the, the roles are blurring in marketing. I think even the marketing discipline is sort of blurring across because what we're trying to all do is go from idea to execution, left to right, and now we have the tools to do so. Um, so I do think that the marketing leader is often at the tip of the spear when it comes to some of these questions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In terms of the board, now let's, let's, let's look at the board again. So marketers represent around about 2.5 to 3%, uh, in terms of board positions worldwide. Um, it's around about, it's about 2.5% of the Fortune, um, and then globally it's roughly 3% will actually be on the board. Um, when you look at CEOs and other members of the board, it's around about 8% have any level of marketing background or marketing experience. Do you see that changing and, and transforming, um, from the point of view of what you've just talked to, which is why I've asked the question, in terms that, you know, marketing owns the, the customer experience, brand, you know, et cetera, which feel even more important in terms of the kind of the brave new world that we're entering at this point?
Speaker 2: I, I don't know if I can speak specifically to the board, but I can say that the work that I've been doing over the last couple of years at Microsoft is helping our, my peers in the leadership team and my finance partners understand the value of marketing and, and building out aligned measurement models so that we can all be on the same page with, "Here are the activities that we're doing, here's the strategy, and here's how it's impacting our bottom line or top line," right? And, um, and that's the journey we've been on, and I, I, I know this is what a lot of marketing leaders are doing, is what, what is the value and- That shared perspective, I think, is challenging to get to because the, the, the game board is changing so quickly.
Speaker 1: And do you feel that marketers perhaps in the past or perhaps now as well, and this is reflective of the point that I made, um, don't necessarily know how to communicate with the board or, or have the language, are being equipped the language to communicate effectively with a, a CFO versus a CEO, et cetera?
Speaker 2: I, I can only speak from my perspective. It is something that I've had to learn over the last couple of years, and what, what is the language that my finance partners care about? Um, what is the rhythm of our business? What matters on a quarterly basis versus a yearly basis? What is the business, um, forecasting for, and how does that then translate down from a commercial perspective into the specific things that my team does? And w- it's allowed us to get very pointy about what we're gonna do and what we're not gonna do, and we're all, all working on it together to build out, like, pretty, um, defensible measurement to go with it. So we can, we can point at things and say, "This drove X and this didn't, and so we're not gonna do that other thing."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I've... I- it's been a journey for me, and I, I talk to a lot of my peers in the industry, and it's a journey for everyone.
Speaker 1: I b- I believe so. Um, and I think that that will continue for some time, and I can see tr- I can see quite a bit of change in terms of the makeup of a board, uh, and the experience of the individuals who are leading the company. Uh, anyway, um, couple of just kind of q- off-the-cuff quickfire questions. So we're in Cannes. Um, you've spent some time walking around, I assume, and seeing some of the activations and so on and some of the messaging. Um, are there a number of brands, or is there a particular... You know, if I said, "Cannes," name a, a brand that's popping, popping out at you at this point in time.
Speaker 2: I've been to a few beach houses so far. Um, I don't know if it's a specific brand that's popping out to me, but the f- the, the experiences that have been the most impactful are the ones that are smaller and curated. I just went to a women's lunch. It was the best event that I have been to yet at Cannes because it was curated. There were curated speakers, and it was sort of the right level of people, great connections, met a bunch of new people. So I, like, that's what I get out of it, is these in-real-life connections that you can't... Like, they don't... If you're in New York and you're gonna meet somebody for coffee, it's not the same.
Speaker 1: No, exactly.
Speaker 2: It is not the same. So, uh, yeah, that's the magic here. But the activations that I... I mean, they're all so beautiful and, and so different. Obviously, a lot of, you know, AI experiences, tons on creators, tons on sports and celebrities. Um, and it's great to hear, have them here as part of the mix because they're, they're part of culture, and culture is part of marketing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, 100%. Um, just another quick question. Um, a go-to resource for yourself. So it, it might be a, it could be... I don't know. It could be a podcast. It could be perhaps a book. It could be, um, a website, but something that you go to that helps you f- find or helps inspiration find you.
Speaker 2: Okay. So one thing I haven't shared on this podcast yet is I am doing a lot of vibe coding on the side because I think of myself as a builder.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: And where I get a ton of in- inspiration is I follow Lenny's podcast. Do you... Are you familiar with Lenny's?
Speaker 1: No, I'm gonna listen.
Speaker 2: He's a, he's a product manager turned, like, AI podcaster, and it's pretty technical. He has a lot of technical founders and leaders on it from a lot of, you know, the Silicon Valley companies, and I learn so much. And I, I, I feel through that podcast I have been able to stay on top of what's happening in AI and make sure that I am not just fluent in the Microsoft ecosystem but fluent in everything that's happening out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That sounds great, and that's really useful. I'm gonna follow it for sure.
Speaker 2: Oh, good.
Speaker 1: I've been vibe coding.
Speaker 2: I love hearing that. What did you build?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I've been building a, I've been building a tech platform that sits behind our site that extracts-
Speaker 2: No way
Speaker 1: ... value out of the conversations that we have with individuals such as yourselves and others, um, for the benefit of the community.
Speaker 2: Well, congratulations on that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Um, and then lastly, sort of a, maybe a reflective, um, question. So you talked about what attracted you to marketing in the first instance. Uh, if, yeah, if, if you're providing a piece of advice for a younger l- individual, they may be at the start of their career or perhaps they've just graduated and they're looking at the world of marketing, media, tech, advertising, what piece of advice would you provide them?
Speaker 2: I don't wanna sound trite, but stay curious, and I think it's important to have real examples to talk to people about. Examples of things you're passionate about, examples of things that you're an expert in, at least at that point in your life, and examples of things that you've made. I think that's really important, that you're not walking into, say, a job interview or whatever it is, and y- y- you only have your education on your resume. It's, it's... If you are truly curious, you're gonna go deep in a lot of different areas, and you should have those examples to talk about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Brilliant. Beautiful example. Thanks so much for your time on the show today. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: So welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: You're welcome