Lightly edited for readability. Speaker 1: Welcome to Business Marketing. My name's John Horsley, I'm the host of the show today. Uh, we're recording live at Cannes Lions. Um, we're in the beautiful surrounds of the Depr Garden. I have the absolute pleasure of, uh, introducing and inviting Oliver Whitten onto the show, who's Chief Operating Officer at AdForm. Hi, welcome.
Speaker 2: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Um, I always ask this as a, a starter for ten, but it would be great to understand what it was in the, in the first instance that attracted you to the world of marketing, advertising, media, the space that we're in here at Cannes today.
Speaker 2: So I- I'm one of the rare people, I think, who ended up studying something to do with this. Um, but I ended up studying, uh, new media and information systems as a, as a master's because, um, I lived in Japan for a couple of years as a, as a teacher strangely. Um, and when I was out there, uh, the kids that I was teaching, 16, 18-year-olds, were on their phones constantly. Uh, and, and as a parent now, I have to deal with, with that, um, on the other side of it. But at that point, um, the technology was just far ahead frankly of what people were doing, um, how commerce was done. People were banking on their phones, and I thought, "This is fascinating," and I wanna, I wanna come and, you know, get into that, and I think it's gonna... It's gonna come to, to the UK and to Europe, and of course it has. Um, and it was that-- I, I guess that was probably the, the spark that made me say I want to work in, in technology. And, and as I was studying, it was the, the marketing side of it that fascinated me and, and you know, how, how commerce essentially can be, can be done through all of these new devices that were sort of proliferating at the time so yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's, that's incredible. I, I'm gonna guess in Japan back then, was it a state owned, um, telco?
Speaker 2: Uh it wasn't state owned. So you, you had a few big telcos, um, Domo and a few others that were sort of the big telcos, but it was more the hardware. So the flip phones then were just, you know, had incredible screens. You could do a huge amount more with them. Uh, and we were still on sort of relatively straightforward, um, you know, devices at the time. So I think it was, you know, and that was obviously all pre, pre-iPhone and pre-smartphone, but it was the sort of precursor to that I suppose, and you sorta saw what was possible and, and that opened my eyes at least. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you very much saw the future, and that's what attracted you in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's making me think. So when we were speaking earlier, you, you've explained that you are 10 years in now at, uh, AdForm.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So you must have seen tremendous change there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Abso-
Speaker 1: And-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... almost in the future now from-
Speaker 1: .... from when you started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: What's that look like across the years?
Speaker 2: It's, um... No, it's amazing. I, I mean, this industry, I'm, I'm m- more than 20 years doing, doing this stuff and u- and, and I've been fortunate to work in a lot of innovative businesses through that time. Um, but actually the last 10 years has, has moved at an incredible pace, right? You've seen, um, the rise of new channels that have come online that were, you know, previously unaddressable to programmatic like CTV and audio streaming and, and digital out of home and these sorts of things which, you know, keep it absolutely fascinating. Keep, um, you know, keep the challenges for the marketers and that's challenges that technology l- companies like us, you know, can solve basically. Uh, and similarly I suppose in that last 10 years you've had identity fragmentation, right? That's been a, a huge challenge that we've had to help advertisers and agencies to solve for and publishers to solve for. Um, uh, and if, and if it ever got dull, you know, there's a new challenge around the corner each year or a new opportunity around th- around the corner each year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, when I look at ad tech, I very much think about the, the pipes and the plumbing-
Speaker 2: Yep
Speaker 1: ... as it were. Um, and quite a lot of, of ad tech is almost invisible certainly to the buyer. How do you communicate and, and differentiate yourselves i- in a market that frankly can be fairly complex for buy side people to understand?
Speaker 2: Well, I, I actually think it's a good thing that you say. I mean, ideally the infrastructure shouldn't be the concern of the marketer, right? The infrastructure and the plumbing should work as seamlessly as possible. But the reality is it, it has been complicated, right? It's a, it's a market that you've seen waves and waves of innovation and each wave of innovation might be solving for a particular challenge, but it also adds a layer of complexity to what they need to achieve. And in, in a way, the more, um, that ad tech, the, the nuts and bolts of ad tech can slip into an infrastructure sort of play and the execution and the strategy that the marketer is trying to achieve can be done in a more seamless, simple kind of u- intuitive way, then the better. And I think, you know, AI is really opening up the potential for that in, in ways that's never been, been there before, basically. Uh, and in terms of your question around, you know, how do you differentiate? I think for us that's very much about, you know, how we listen to our customers, how we innovate our products, um, how closely, you know, w- we run those sort of cycles so that we, we, you know, we're very proud to have boots on the ground across all of the markets that we're operating in so that we can be close to our clients, so that we can know where they're going in the next three to five years, and we can develop a roadmap, help them to sort of be part of that development, uh, so that we're sort of meeting, meeting their next challenges as it were. Yep.
Speaker 1: So you're, you're developing the technology around the use cases of a number of your clients-
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely
Speaker 1: ... um, as opposed to build and they'll come, which is the attitude-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... of, of some businesses.
Speaker 2: Yes. I mean, I... So there is certainly an as- an element of build and they will come because as any technology company does, you have to place your bets and, and place, you know, uh, you know, you have to estimate where you think the puck is going and, and, and, you know, be there and ready. Um, and we certainly have done that in areas like identity where we were far ahead of, you know, the market in terms of developing an identity solution that, that really helped with, you know, cookie deprecation and that sort of thing. Um, and that probably wasn't at the time something that our clients were crying out for, but rapidly started to. So I think there are examples where you put your stake in the ground and say, "We've gotta go after this." But, you know, a lot of, a lot of, um, development is around what customer use cases are, where their pain points are and really lis- listening to them and that, that helps you to stay ahead really.
Speaker 1: So it's very much about taking a leadership position-
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 1: ... uh, and providing the guidance to your, to your clients where you have a, a different vantage point 'cause you're obviously seeing across the entire, um, client base and, and ecosystem as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think that's where, you know, a-ad form is, is quite different, right? Most companies, uh, in the space have been, al- although this is changing over time, but most companies in the space have been sort of dealing with one part of the advertising workflow whereas, you know, for reasons chosen long before I joined AdForm, it's a very broad stack of technologies, right? So it's an ad server, DSP data management platform, sell-side tools, um, and that actually gives us quite a good purview across those different sorts of challenges whether it be things around data or things around creative, things around, you know, trading and media. Um, and that allows us to sort of see where, you know, where we can find the synergy across all of those different aspects basically
Speaker 1: Are there any particular client demands that, uh, that reoccur I guess at this point in time?
Speaker 2: So I think the, you know, I, I think if you look at, um, the potential for simplification in a complex and fragmented world, that's probably the, the biggest driving force, right? Is, is, you know, more... As I said, more and more media channels are, are becoming addressable, but that means, you know, how do you connect them from a measurement perspective? How do you connect them from an activation perspective? Um, you know, how do you discover, uh, and plan around those different channels? Uh, and I would say marketers are always crying out for they want to do the new things, but they want them to do-- want to do them in a, in a way that connects with the other parts of their media planning. Um, and that's where I think we, we spend a lot of our focus and effort is, okay, how do you, how do you make that process seamless? How do you connect the dots for the, for the marketer? So that's probably the biggest, biggest theme. And, you know, this year we launched a, a, a what we call the campaign planner, which is essentially an AI-backed, um, campaign planning sort of suite within, within our DSP and, and frontend. And that is really to help with those sort of challenges, right? Is, you know, "I, I've got this goal. I wanna achieve this outcome. Here's all the range of media data, et cetera, that you can go out and, and do that across." Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Have expectations changed on, on the client side, uh, certainly with the proliferation of, of AI?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I think so. I think, uh, you know, e- with AI, um, I think the customer relationship is going to change a bit actually, um, because we are seeing clients drive innovation on top of the platform, which I think is a really exciting shift where, you know, if you think about ad tech platforms in general, you know, the features and functionality that they're able to provide are limited to the roadmap and the investments that we're making. Um, with the rise of sort of MCP, you know, as a, as a layer and essentially an A-A-API gateway, um, it's actually now clients are able to innovate on top of the infrastructure, and I think that's, to me, that's probably the next exciting frontier is actually this real co-collaboration with partners, with clients to build out new use cases, things that we might not think of, but that they can put our system together in clever ways a-and to, and sort of drive an outcome that way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So for listeners who, who might not understand what MCP means, uh, it'd be great if you could just explain that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So MCP is, um, Model Context Protocol. So it's essentially a standard protocol to simplify APIs, which are, you know, a, a technology, um, sort of communication path between technologies. Um, and what that allows you to do is use an LLM, so use Claude on top of, uh, or OpenAI on top of an ad tech infrastructure like Adform. So we've essentially taken all of the APIs that we've had existing, and lots of clients use our platform within other systems already, but we've put this MCP layer on top. What that means is that anyone who could use, you know, Claude, for example, is able to then essentially call into our system and do all sorts of use cases. So we've unlocked eight hundred different features that they're able to then put together in ways that, you know, we might not have thought of. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's, that's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, do you have any examples of, uh, a client doing this or, you know, is there a particular sort of exemplar, as it were?
Speaker 2: Uh, so we, um, so this is all pretty new. We've got a, a, a list of beta clients. Some of them are on stage here actually, um, tomorrow morning, which is, is quite exciting. Um, and they're coming up with, you know, I would say pretty interesting use cases that are gonna solve for the p- specific challenges of their businesses. So some of those, some of those, you know, are around creative aspects. You know, how are they managing, um, their ad serving, for example, and making sure that that all works very seamlessly. A lot of them are around reporting and insights. What are, what are the things that they're able to derive and correlations and things that they wouldn't have been able to easily see that they're able to now see? Um, and there are planning use cases and that sort of thing as well. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's incredible. I love the sort of the, the democratization, I think is the right word, o-of technology through AI, and almost the humanization as well, which it might sound odd to use that word at the same time, um, but there is such a, an empowerment to individuals, uh, now. Um, I've been building a lot of tech myself. I'm not a techie. I've been using Claude, Claude Code on my, on my desktop. Um, I decided to build a, an analytics view as a starting point as great. Now there's various analytics tools that I have and that are available to me, but I don't need all of the information. There's particular information that I need to be seeing at any point in time. Um, and now I'm looking at other, uh, workflows which have, have saved me many hours of my time, um, or they certainly will going forwards. And the bit that I'm looking at next will be orchestration, and I imagine that's what your clients are doing is building sort of marketing auto-automation or marketing orchestration is probably a better term, platforms of their own to do what they need around their use case where they can't get anything like that off the shelf, and then they're connecting up the, the tech stack, the tech ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, and I think, um, this is a interesting new frontier for everybody, right? As you say, you know, uh, probably few of us were, were vibe coding, you know, a year ago, and now people are able to set up, you know, the most incredible things, you know, u-using natural language, um, that wasn't there, it wasn't there impossible before. But, but a lot of our marketer clients are starting to do exactly that and, and piece them together. But the agencies, of course, are investing hugely in this area and building out those orchestration layers on behalf of clients. And our job, you know, we see our job as twofold. One, we, we provide a huge, you know, sort of architecture of, um, possibilities and, and linkages into different media channels, di- huge amounts of reporting and data that they're able to then pull out and bring into those different systems. Uh, and I think that's, that's, you know, sort of the role that we will play. At the same time, we've got lots of customers that are using our UI, and we're putting native agents into that in order to make it easier for them just to go about their normal day-to-day work. But, um, but I think this whole orchestration piece sort of, uh, I suppose above the traditional ad tech stack, our role is then to plug into that, make sure we can make everything available possible. Yeah
Speaker 1: Brilliant.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, I'm just thinking about your ecosystem or, uh, you know, the, the types of clients and partners that you work with. So obviously you have agencies, uh, you're working with publishers, you work with, um, client-side brands. Um, how do you... Yeah, how do you communicate a- and, and kind of tell a story that, that resonates a- ac- across those very different types of businesses?
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, w- we will have global narratives around these things, right? Where we- we're able to sort of, I suppose, position the overall. But the reality is that it's a learning journey for all customers and agencies at the moment. So actually it's much more in the one-to-one dialogues, it's in the workshop sessions that the, the really exciting stuff is coming out. Um, so I think yes, we tell, we tell a story at a global level from a sort of marketing perspective. Um, and then we, yeah, activate that into markets obviously. But actually I think, I think most of this is gonna come through, yeah, really close engagement with clients, with partners, um, to realize those opportunities. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, just gonna change the, the topic slightly.
Speaker 2: Change subject. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, you know, you've been in commercial, uh, operational roles for a f- a fairly long time now. When, you know, when a business like yours is facing, you know, big, big change in the market, what do you focus on first and why?
Speaker 2: So I think we, we spend a lot of time on, um, on strategy, on people, on product, um, uh, and on customers basically. I would say those are, those are the kinda core pillars of, of any business. Um, but for us, you know, that- that's sort of where everything starts. So we, we look very closely at what we should develop. We listen to our customers to decide what we should develop, and we make sure that we've got the right people in the right places who can really go and execute against that. Um, and that might sound incredibly simple, but you know, with any scale business, it, it inevitably isn't . Um, and there are, you know, lots of, lots of details that you need to work through. Um, but we, you know, l- I think, I think like any business, we really try to be customer focused, um, first and foremost, and, and develop things that are, that are gonna land in market basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How d-... I mean, you were talking about a fit between your commercial and your product team. How, how does that work? What does that interface actually look like?
Speaker 2: So it's fascinating actually. We've got a very scaled process around that. Our CTO is here this week, um, and, and, and leads our product group as well. And, and we have a really scaled process where we're sort of essentially gathering feedback from all across the 26 odd markets that we're in through our customers. Those are bubbled up through our customer success teams, um, into what we call engagement groups. Those are then bubbled up into a steering board. Roadmaps are decided. Um, you know, it's a v- it's a very scaled process because we've got a, a pretty large development capacity in the business. Um, and we need to make sure it's always sort of optimized. But also it's a competitive market out there, right? So we need to make sure that the choices that we make are the right choices. So we're pretty analytical in that process as well. No.
Speaker 1: You've also talked to the fact that you're obviously a global business.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Um, so US, North America is obviously a huge region. Europe, slight different. It's fragmented. We've got local nuances. Uh, how different is it to build and, and sell ad tech in a, in a market such as Europe?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, um, I, I must say I love it. I love the, uh, the complexity of Europe and the, the nuances of Europe. Um, you know, but there, there are probably things that we see that the European market cares about a bit more than the States. That's things like privacy, right? Where, um, Europe has led on GDPR. Uh, you know, we see some of that coming into some of the US states now, of course. But, um, you know, things like privacy, things like transparency have been ... You know, really understanding log level data, really understanding what's happening in transaction flows and so forth is very important to, to European marketers, but also publishers. Um, you know, and we've seen, you know, we're here with a lot of, you know, big tech companies and, and actually there was a bit of a pushback in Europe against some of those big tech companies because of the conflicts of interest and, and because of the, the dominance and power that they, that they have. So I think those things are quite different probably between, between Europe and the US. Um, and they're things of course that we, you know, we, we, we stand quite strong against because it's a sort of values, values thing, um, for a, for a European business like ours. Yep.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting the point that you made around privacy. Um, the expectations of the European market obviously being different than, than the US. In the States obv- obviously have CCPA or California law. Um, but certainly, you know, even CCPA is not the same standard or, or degree as, uh, as GDPR. Trust is, is essential, obviously. Um, is there a, a lot of influence that comes out of Europe that dictates what gets produced, how you evolve your product? Um, and I'm particularly interested in the, the trust element.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we, I mean, we are, we're, we're a Danish business originally. Um, we're, we're in, you know, many markets across Europe, lo- lot of markets across Europe and, and, you know, Europe is the mainstay of our, of our business. So yes, you know, the European market has more of an influence on, you know, on our business overall. But the US is incredibly important. It's the home of, you know, it's the home of adtech. It's where all of our competitors come from. It's where a lot of innovation is bred from. So we're constantly looking towards that. I think for us, trust is about, um, it's about the values that y- that you ascribe in the business. Um, it's about the relationships that you have with your customers, how much you're listening to them as I, as I mentioned. But it's then actually about delivering those things through, through product and platform and offering and, and, and, you know, that's things like transparency and we were, you know, far ahead of the market in terms of, for example, working with PwC on, on transparency audits and that sort of thing. Um, where, you know, perhaps that wasn't, you know, as important and, and we certainly, you know, try to put that trust aspect right at the core of what we do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I, I'm gonna make an assumption, but I imagine now that we're in the, the world war, as AI likes to Pump out itself the era of AI. But we're in the era of AI. Um, has that made the trust question harder, um, because more decisions are happening outside? Or perhaps it's made it slightly easier as there's perhaps more checks and balances in place?
Speaker 2: So, um, I think you could break AI apart a little bit in that, right? Because, uh, uh, as I said, the programmatic ecosystem has relied on AI for a very long time, as, as frankly have all of the social ecosystems search. Um, there's been a huge amount of machine learning, deep learning, neural networks sitting in the background, you know, optimizing and making decisions on behalf of clients, you know, every single day at, at a pace that is impossible to be done by humans. Um, and so in that regard, you know, marketers have already relinquished some control to platforms and technology because it's able to do a better, faster job than, you know, was possible, uh, manually. Um, with GenAI, I think it's something slightly different because GenAI's about the interface and what you're able to then, um... You know, how easily you're able to input, you know, uh, push/pull things out of a system, but also how you're able to then have agents orchestrating working with other agents. Um, but I don't think that means that all of the underlying data, so for example log level data should still exist. Being able to audit systems should still exist. Um, and so it's not replacing a lot of those things, it's simply simplifying the, the frontend and simplifying some of those workflows. Uh, so I think it's right that marketers should still be able to request all of that data that sits underneath, um, even though we move to, or, you know, the AI, uh, age, as you say. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You're not wrong. I mean, you know, in our technology I think we've used AI for about 10 years.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, certainly machine learning-
Speaker 2: Yep
Speaker 1: .... et cetera. Uh, but the, the GenAIs, the ChatGPTs, et cetera, have obviously brought this to the forefront, um, and have changed thinking, consumer behavior, customer journey as well. Um, actually, how are you thinking about the new sort of evolving customer journey in terms of how you market your business?
Speaker 2: How we market our business. So, um, I think, you know, w- we're, we're a midsize business, right? And we, we try to punch above our weight from a marketing perspective, and I think we've, we've, you know, we, we've generally d-done that, you know, I think, you know, to the right degree for the size of business that we are. I think that, um, a lot of our marketing in reality comes down from marcomms PR events, um, where... And, and some, of course some digital, you know, um, as well. But probably less so in the AI, um, AI sphere, uh, as it is today. But it is really helping us with productivity and, you know, creative and copywriting and all of these sorts of things. Um, so it's really creating great productivity gains for us as a, as a business, as I think it is for m-
Speaker 1: Yeah
Speaker 2: ... you know, for many. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I w- I would imagine that you've incorporated works- workflows, that you've developed a, a, a timesaving and cranked more efficiency.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hu- Huge amount. A- Absolutely. And I think like any business, we're looking all the time at every aspect, right? So, so all, all across, uh, you know... And as a software business, a lot of that is, well, how much, you know, how much more code can we ship? How much more, how many more features? How much, how fa- much faster can we innovate? Um, but of course it's also in our sales, it's in our marketing, it's in our customer, you know, um, experience teams and that sorta thing as well. Yep.
Speaker 1: Do you feel at this point in time that there is a proliferation or rise of, of storytelling, um, and a, a shift in terms of investment, so more investment going to in- back into brand?
Speaker 2: I think, um, we are, we are seeing that. Um, I think at least i- in the, in the sorta program- programmatic sphere, you know, we are, you know, we're at the delivery end of, of that, right? Um, but with, because we are also opening up a lot of new channels, areas like digital out of home, CTV, audio, those are opening for, um, audiovisual advertisers or for outdoor advertisers so much more storytelling potential because you're able to marry the, um, the data, the rich data signals that are coming through with those big creative canvases. And I think that's, for me from a brand building perspective, that's one of the most exciting things that's coming through, is that sort of shift to bringing, bringing a really data led approach to the, to the upper funnel kind of, yeah, medium.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you give a, a, perhaps a, a good example, um, within one of those categories whether it's CCTV, uh, or perhaps audio? I mean, audio I think is fascinating and enormous shifts and changes happening there at this point in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think, um, within, I'd say digital out of home is an, is, is a, is a easy example. We've, we've been investing hugely into that in the last, you know, two years. Um, and what we're seeing is a lot more, you know, when we're going through a heat wave in the UK, right? We're seeing a lot more sort of weather based targeting real time, uh, response to, you know, real world events that were, you know, you're going from a world where things were being planned on a two week, you know, two week cycle to you're able to really as a marketer change, change messaging in, in real time, um, depending on what's going on in the world. So I think those things are becoming much more a mainstay in digital out of home. Similarly, you know, we're seeing in, um, the CTV space, we're seeing, uh, uh, and this is maybe a, a move in the different direction, but we're seeing a lot more performance advertising coming into CTV than we would have done before. So, um, it was probably the barrier to entry was a bit high, um, in broadcast whereas, you know, as you're coming in there's a lot more streaming content is available. You're seeing marketers who are trying to connect the dots. They're, they're able to be more precise, um, in the, uh, targeting that they're providing, but they're also able to connect that through to, um, to real world, you know, to action, uh, at the other end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask you a question about the board. So globally I wanna say it's around about two and a half, maybe three percent of, uh, boards have a, a CMO. Why do you believe that is and also do you feel that that's gonna shift? Do you think that's gonna change again with the proliferation o- of, of AI and the new requirements for a business? Or do you think the role's just gonna fundamentally evolve or perhaps fragment?
Speaker 2: So I think the reality is that marketing is, and always has been at, at the center of revenue generation, right, for any business. Um, uh, and the number of touchpoints with which that can be achieved, and the connectivity with which that can achieve, technology is driving change in that all the time. So I think that's the direction of travel. Um, uh, and I think you will see more, more CMOs, you know, uh, at, at the board level, um, uh, and taking CEO positions, for example, which is increasing, you know, all the time. Um, because I think it is... You know, it's the center of, the center of commerce, the center of, of the revenue for a business, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, yeah. This is making me think of a conversation I had last night, and that was with a CMO. It was about the expectations of the board. Um, the individual they were describing, 'cause there's obviously a number of individuals making up the board of directors-
Speaker 2: Yep
Speaker 1: ... all with different viewpoints, uh, all with different requirements. Uh, and they were saying, well, actually, what their expectation is, is a, you know, a role that doesn't exist and a human that might not exist at this point in time, but, you know, the chief marketing strategy technology commercial xxx and x officer. Um, and that struck me as either something that would be outsourced to, uh, a supply side business-
Speaker 2: Hmm
Speaker 1: ... um, requiring, um, somebody to manage the orchestration of that or, frankly, a number of roles that don't exist at this point in time that perhaps need to be created within an enterprise.
Speaker 2: Or it's just business. I mean, uh, you know, the reality of business today is all of those functions that you described, technology, marketing, sales, you know, th-they are fundamental to any business. Product development, you know, having a good cycle. They're fundamental to any business, so I think that's the role of an exec team, to bring those pieces together. And how you organize it, you know, is very dependent on the company and the nature of the business. Um, but that's just, that's the fundamental of sitting in an exec team these days, is if, if you're not connecting the dots between, you know, you know, sales and revenue, technology, you know, customer impact, you know, customer marketing, et cetera, then, you know, uh, you're probably n-not gonna thrive, I would say. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um, so just going back to the start, you talked about your journey and, and what got you interested in, um, Out marketplace. Uh, and I normally like to end this way, but what advice would you provide to a younger individual who is perhaps graduating or graduated college, university, uh, or an individual at the start of their career that, uh, has aspirations around the world of marketing, media, advertising, tech, you know, et cetera?
Speaker 2: So I think there's the... Th-th-there is the, th-the obvious thing of, of, you know, just being curious and jumping in and diving in. But actually it was a, a, a boss very early in my career said something to me which has always stuck, uh, which was fill the void. Um, and, and what he meant by that was, you know, if you're ... When you, whenever you land in your job, if you see somebody else not doing something and you think it needs to be done, just get on and do it. Um, and it was the best piece of advice that I ever got given because it was sort of, okay, I see an opportunity. No one else is picking this up. I'm gonna do it, and I think it just helps you to constantly be thinking, Are we, are we doing enough? Can I do more? Um, uh, and that helps you to, to go forward in your career. But yeah, that's probably the, the best bit of advice I got given at least, so .
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you're creating your own promotion there, aren't... Building your own career path at the same time, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course, you're being proactive. You're being responsive. Um, you're showing your ability to be adaptive as well-
Speaker 2: Oh
Speaker 1: .... which I think is incredibly important-
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm
Speaker 1: .... within an enterprise.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and I probably can't say this to, um, many graduates nowadays because... You know, but at least as a, as a leader, we're very much looking at, um, you know, AI skills and AI literacy as being a really core thing, um, when we're hiring people. And I think probably graduates are gonna be... You know, have that as native in the way that, you know, you see a seven-year-old pick up a smartphone and, you know, that seem to just be able to use it. But, um, but I think that, you know, that real enthusiasm for it is gonna be absolutely critical to the next phase of work, essentially. So yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well look, many thanks. You've been an incredible guest on the show today. Um, wish you a successful and a fun time here in the sun at Cannes.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's been great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You're welcome