September 17, 2025 • 20 mins
In today’s episode, we continue our Cannes Lions series as Alan and David Sandstrom, chief marketing officer at Klarna, discuss how embracing change, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), and balancing data-driven efficiency with creativity are shaping the future of marketing and brand-building.
Klarna is a financial technology company that is well-known for its "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) options. David highlights the macroeconomic trends that he believes are contributing to the continuing growth of BNPL, while also sharing Klarna’s efforts to diversify their offerings with digital banking and mobile phone plans. Innovation and experimentation are core to Klarna’s culture, and can be seen in initiatives like their interactive customer hotline featuring an AI avatar of their chief executive officer. David also outlines how he and his team encourage employees to use AI internally by actively measuring AI usage, using it as a team on a daily basis,
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
So today on the show I've got David Sandstrom.
He's the CMO at Klarna.
He's been at Klarna for eight years as the CMO.
We talked about his longevity.
We also talk about Klarna's push into digital banking, their use of AI and how it'sadvancing their marketing practices inside and how he's actually driven the team to help
adjust and drive that transformation.
(00:53):
That and much more with David Sandstrom.
David, welcome back to the show.
I know it's been fun.
I've been fun watching Klarna and what you guys are up to.
But before you get into the business, anything new happening in your life?
(01:17):
In my life.
My life is actually Klarna.
So there's a lot of new things going on.
mean, we're releasing a new card in the US first.
I think we announced mobile plans yesterday or we announced the plan to release mobileplans with a couple of weeks.
We have a balance line, so the ability to hold money with Klarna.
We're now almost fully live with Walmart in the US, which is obviously a massive thing forus.
(01:42):
So I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
Very busy.
Very busy.
Well, let's talk a little bit about your career path.
Where did you get your start and how did you end up at Klarna?
So I got my start within strategy, insights, consumer behavior.
So I was a planner slash strategist at a media company, um which was a lot of fun.
(02:06):
I've always been very intrigued by human psychology, behavior, why people behave in waysthey do, why they like brands, why they hate brands, why they follow influencers, why they
don't.
So my career start was a lot about going deep into data.
Way before AI, so I had to do it myself, right?
From that, I then transitioned more into creative because I wanted to get these, likebring these strategies to life, not only check the data, but rather, okay, when we know
(02:33):
these things about humans, can we create something that actually influences people?
Because I don't like theory too much.
Like there are a lot of good theorists out there, but like really, really living what youwork with and learn and produce something.
And that is how I got into advertising.
I used to be the CEO of DDB in the Nordics for seven years, think, six years, seven years,something like that.
(02:57):
So I spent a lot of summers here in Canada because that was part of my job.
And the last thing I did with DDB was actually start transforming Klarna.
And then me and Sebastian, the CEO of Klarna, had a conversation.
He said, why don't you join us and do this instead?
And that's pretty much it.
That's the story.
Yeah.
And here we are, nine, eight years.
(03:19):
I was gonna say it's been a while.
What do you credit the longevity?
I think the constant change.
It's a cheesy thing to say, but I do think it's the constant change.
Every year is a new year.
Every year feels like a new book in the chapter of Klarna and my career.
So it is the perfect place to stay if you want a new career every year without having togo through the hassle of switching jobs.
(03:46):
Well, last time we had you on the show, we talked a lot about buy now, pay later.
That business is still growing.
How do you think about the growth and the...
You talked about all these other things at the top of the conversation around yourdistribution channel.
You're finding even more places to put that functionality if you...
Yeah, I mean, I personally believe, although we're doing a good job at growing it,obviously, I need to believe that at least, I do think like we're riding a big macro wave
(04:15):
here.
uh Consumers, especially in the US, shying away from credit.
I think em the macro environment that we're in has also led to the fact that people havestarted caring more about their money, more about their finances, staying on top of
things.
And although I do think Binopulator is
to some extent frowned upon from, uh sometimes from media, obviously incumbent banks andcredit players.
(04:43):
It is a fantastic tool.
It is a utility for uh consumers, especially in times like these.
It is an ability to spread your cost, no interest, no fees attached.
And that is why we're seeing the growth.
Like Buy Now Pay Later is basically credit for people who hate credit.
Well, and you see you've got buy now pay later, you've got all this massive user base,you've started an advertising and brand building business for other brands.
(05:12):
How does that come about?
Like, and what's the latest developments there on that front?
Yeah, I mean, what we need to do now as Klarna, Binoculator has always been this doubleedged sword, right?
It's hugely popular.
We're riding the microwave.
But on the other end, we don't want to be positioned as a one trick pony, right?
So the biggest challenge I have as the CMO at Klarna is really to try to tell the storyabout Klarna as being way more than this one feature, right?
(05:41):
So we're launching the balance, which means that people, it's like a bank account,basically.
People can hold money with us.
We're launching our new card, which is a debit and a credit card combined.
So we're doing all of these things, but the consumer education piece, that is really whatwe need to get across.
How do we transcend beyond buy now, pay later?
(06:03):
And let's talk about the, I mean, you're extending into banking features.
Do you think of yourself now as a digital bank?
I think we have to.
We have probably always thought about ourselves as some sort of consumer, retail, everydayspending partner.
And I do think that we've moved more and more into very basic components.
(06:28):
People want to be able to hold, save, and spend money.
People want to be able to access credit.
People want to be able to spend that online and in-store with a card.
So the features and services that we're launching now
really tells that story and speaks to that narrative way more of being a, I don't want tocall it neo bank, but more a global consumer retail bank.
(06:51):
What's the apprehension of the NIO Bank?
I have to ask.
I don't know.
just don't like the I like calling things what they are.
I think like already 10 years ago, like when we started to pivot Klarna, we had this hugeconversation.
Like what is the world going to look like in 10 to 15 years?
And then we said, well, there are probably going to be three to five global consumerretail banks based on tech slash AI nowadays that dominate the market because there are
(07:22):
not.
Most of the global banks are B2B and the consumer banks are local.
They're huge, but they're still local in the US.
There are very few, if any, global retail banks.
And we're now seeing Revolut, Newbank, Klarna, and probably PayPal in that mix starting toemerge into this something.
(07:43):
And you can call it Newbank, can call it global consumer retail bank, whatever it is, butthe place for money for consumers globally.
Well, you guys have been very public on your use of AI.
mean, your CEO doing his latest report as an AI avatar.
How do you think about AI and how does it work for you in your marketing organization?
(08:06):
I mean, so far, or the journey we've been on is like, it started out as a party trick,like look at these great things that you can produce and create and spit out, but you
know, the hands had six fingers and you had three eyes and it was a bit strange, to nowstarting to grow into something that is actually useful.
(08:27):
I don't think it's yet fully production ready, but what we use it as is a fantasticsupport to everything we do.
But I continuously iterate that we're not doing yet anything new based on AI.
We're only doing the things we used to do, but way more efficient, way faster at a waylower cost.
(08:50):
So it's essentially partnering with the creative process.
Partnering and short-cutting things that were tedious and costly, Just like, maybe a verybasic example, but if you historically wanted to shoot a 30-second film, right?
The process, just up until shoot, is cumbersome, right?
(09:11):
And costly, right?
You bounce ideas back and forth, but the ideas are visualized by like hand writings orstuff like that.
And so we use it a lot for ideation now.
So almost like briefing.
I sit personally sometimes in VO3 and say, hey, we should be doing something along theselines.
Then I still need professionals and creatives to take what I have done and make aproduction ready.
(09:35):
But the first 80 % of almost every project is just now cut short tremendously fast.
We talk about it starting out as like a uh parlor tricks or magic tricks, but like whathas been the key to helping people adapt it and practice using AI?
I mean, I think, I get that question a lot, like what are the big things that Clarn hasdone in order to get this going?
(10:01):
Because we're really at the forefront,
And I think, and I talked to a of CMOs about this as well, and I think our investment inAI culture has been more important than our investment in AI infrastructure.
And we've invested heavily into that as well.
But when it comes to culture, right, we've really created a culture where people lean in,
I don't think Sebastian would celebrate anything publicly that isn't part of AI and peoplewant to be celebrated publicly, right?
(10:27):
So we measure AI use, we use it together on a daily basis, we have it as the startingpoint for everything.
A common question is like, well, have you run this through chat GPT or whatever, right?
So the investment into AI culture and really...
almost forcing people to use it in the beginning, sometimes giving people tasks that arejust impossible to do.
(10:51):
Like if I would tell you, translate this text into 15 languages, be done by Monday, likeeither you need a big team or you need, like there is no way of doing it without AI.
So our investment into AI culture has been fantastic.
One of the, I think, hurdles for many organizations, and I think you might have a uniqueperspective on this, given your agency background and now sitting CMO role, how does AI
(11:17):
affect creativity or the creative process in your mind?
I mean, I think it's now unleashed.
think it's like people talk about this replacing creativity.
I'm seeing the exact opposite.
Like creative people, they are going to have like, it's their time to shine now becausecreativity is going to be the difference between good and bad.
(11:39):
Right?
Everyone is going to have access to these tools.
It's not going to be gated behind some like massive investments.
Like everyone's going to be have access.
and creativity will be the thing that sets things apart.
Because I know firsthand the difference between prompting a good idea versus prompting abad idea.
just giving it, like the issue with AI is that it's also trained on the average.
(12:03):
On the bell curve, you get the highest point of the bell curve, So if you prompt it togenerally, if you're uncreative, if you just tell it, me a campaign, you're gonna get the
top of the bell curve campaign, right?
And everyone's gonna get that.
That might fly for a couple of more months.
Next year, everyone's going to do that.
(12:24):
Instagram is going to look different.
TikTok is going to look different.
Social channels, in my opinion, are going to be way more entertainment channels thanactual social channels.
the creativity is just going to be truly unleashed.
for creative agencies that I know well, to me, a magical thing is happening.
And that is...
(12:45):
which has always annoyed me massively with this industry is that you have people that callthemselves creatives.
And they have gated the term creativity.
And the only one who can be creative is creatives, right?
And here in Cannes, have copywriters and art directors who are, they feel that they ownthat term.
(13:06):
Now, everyone can be creative.
There is no term creative anymore.
It's just like that is gone.
So everyone's there.
And I do think
we're going to see a almost like battle royale for creativity.
When everyone can be creative, the best creativity is going to win, not the ones createdby Brazilian art directors.
(13:27):
All right, well I want to transition.
There's a series of questions I ask everyone that comes on the show.
First one, favorite question, a little bit more reflective.
Has there been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are today?
I mean, I was born in the US in Key West in the 80s.
And my dad played a band.
(13:47):
So he was a hippie and my mother is German.
So I'm German by like, that's my nationality.
So the combination of a hippie Key West musician and a very strict by the book German, Ido think uh that's a fantastic combination that I feel within myself quite often.
(14:10):
It makes for a great CMO apparently.
Well, if you were starting this journey all over again, what would you, what advice wouldyou give your younger self?
I think try to enjoy it.
I always enjoy New Year's Eve when I stand there and say, this was a great, it's been abumpy ride, but it was great.
I would like to be able to celebrate more on a weekly basis.
(14:32):
Enjoy the ride.
Is there a topic you think marketers need to be learning more about or maybe somethingyou're trying to learn more about yourself?
ah
I think you see the pendulum here in Cannes as well.
Like if you would have been in Cannes 10 years ago, it would have been all aboutcreativity, all about ideas, all about campaigns, art direction, design.
The pendulum has now swung to the other side, completely to the other side, right?
(14:57):
I haven't seen a single agency have a spot on the beach.
It's all the tech companies, all the hyperscalers, right?
The conversation is about AI data sets.
programmatic, targeting, segmentation, hyper efficiency.
And I think that pendulum has swung slightly too far.
I don't think we should be with the Brazilian art directors, but I also don't think thatthe industry can be fully dominated by data scientists.
(15:23):
So I think we need to once again ask ourselves, how do you build a brand in times of AI,TikTok, and UTC, which is a very hard thing to do.
It was easier back when everyone was watching TV.
Well, are there any trends or subcultures that you're following you think other peopleshould take notice of?
(15:43):
I'm just mainly curious what you're curious about these days.
ah
I I'm currently quite curious about, as I said, how do you build a brand when the creatorsare actually building the brands and you're just part of that?
So I'm quite happy that we have a strong brand because that means that we can acceleratethat through creators.
But if we didn't have a brand today, we can't rely on this TikTok thing to happen.
(16:08):
in general, I'm always quite intrigued by, no.
anti-trends.
So as I said, like it used to be very much about creativity.
Now it's about uh data.
Like what's the counterweight to that?
And since we live in this currently uh TikTok, Twitter or X time where everything is veryshort form, very fast, I'm quite intrigued by long form video on YouTube again.
(16:37):
I do think uh podcasts and YouTube are probably the only formats
where you get some time with the viewer.
A TV ad is 30 seconds, a TikTok is god knows, four seconds, right?
You never get any time, right?
You never get any time.
10, 15 minutes on YouTube, really going deep on a proposition, on a brand, on a story,like there's something to that that has been working well for us.
(17:06):
That's awesome.
Good plug for this format too.
uh Last question for you.
What do you think is the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
Again, I think that the more, if we go completely data driven, we're asking to bereplaced.
Like, the more you behave like a robot, the more likely it is that a robot is gonnareplace you.
(17:28):
That's the thing.
And I think we need at least with one foot to clench on to what brands are.
And I don't wanna be too fluffy.
I love performance and I love growing the business, right?
But there is something magical to brands like,
The feeling they invoke, there is something there with inspiration, aspiration, emotionsthat I fear if we don't cling on to a bit more, we're going to be replaced by data
(18:01):
scientists, which are needed in the mix, obviously.
Yes, yeah, I reflect on what you're saying and I think there's this notion of Talkworthiness and whether your brand is it can play a role and and you know guess one of the
gatekeepers to that is how successful you are earned media or exactly getting people totalk about
(18:23):
I think maybe it's a bad analogy, but I do think sometimes brands can be compared toindividuals and people.
And if you look at it, Taylor Swift, example, she obviously has a team that coaches her.
She probably is more data driven than we attribute her, but she's not 100%.
Like that is not built by an algorithm.
there is some fairy dust, there is heart, there is emotion.
(18:46):
Like it's a good mix of really, really understanding your audience beyond the data set.
And I think that is where brands need to be.
They need to resonate both rationally, functionally on a utility level, but they also needto be something more, that magical thing like that you used to have with a Coke
(19:07):
or whatever it is, right?
And I think that the winners in the future are going to be companies that actuallyunderstand that and that find a healthy mix between the data sets and just the...
ungraspable, unmeasurable thing.
And as you said, like Talkability or as I spoke about here in Cannes, brand fame is a hugebusiness driver.
(19:32):
Fame in general drives business because you just increase the probability of good thingshappening to you the more famous you are.
Thank you for having me again.
Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts, and opinions of Deloitte.
The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only anddoes not imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product, or service.
(20:02):
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
It's created and produced by me with post-production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloitte digital dot comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(20:30):
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You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast today.
and you can search our archives.
I'm Ellen Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
So today on the show I've got David Sandstrom.
He's the CMO at Klarna.
He's been at Klarna for eight years as the CMO.
We talked about his longevity.
We also talk about Klarna's push into digital banking, their use of AI and how it'sadvancing their marketing practices inside and how he's actually driven the team to help
adjust and drive that transformation.
(00:53):
That and much more with David Sandstrom.
David, welcome back to the show.
I know it's been fun.
I've been fun watching Klarna and what you guys are up to.
But before you get into the business, anything new happening in your life?
(01:17):
In my life.
My life is actually Klarna.
So there's a lot of new things going on.
mean, we're releasing a new card in the US first.
I think we announced mobile plans yesterday or we announced the plan to release mobileplans with a couple of weeks.
We have a balance line, so the ability to hold money with Klarna.
We're now almost fully live with Walmart in the US, which is obviously a massive thing forus.
(01:42):
So I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
Very busy.
Very busy.
Well, let's talk a little bit about your career path.
Where did you get your start and how did you end up at Klarna?
So I got my start within strategy, insights, consumer behavior.
So I was a planner slash strategist at a media company, um which was a lot of fun.
(02:06):
I've always been very intrigued by human psychology, behavior, why people behave in waysthey do, why they like brands, why they hate brands, why they follow influencers, why they
don't.
So my career start was a lot about going deep into data.
Way before AI, so I had to do it myself, right?
From that, I then transitioned more into creative because I wanted to get these, likebring these strategies to life, not only check the data, but rather, okay, when we know
(02:33):
these things about humans, can we create something that actually influences people?
Because I don't like theory too much.
Like there are a lot of good theorists out there, but like really, really living what youwork with and learn and produce something.
And that is how I got into advertising.
I used to be the CEO of DDB in the Nordics for seven years, think, six years, seven years,something like that.
(02:57):
So I spent a lot of summers here in Canada because that was part of my job.
And the last thing I did with DDB was actually start transforming Klarna.
And then me and Sebastian, the CEO of Klarna, had a conversation.
He said, why don't you join us and do this instead?
And that's pretty much it.
That's the story.
Yeah.
And here we are, nine, eight years.
(03:19):
I was gonna say it's been a while.
What do you credit the longevity?
I think the constant change.
It's a cheesy thing to say, but I do think it's the constant change.
Every year is a new year.
Every year feels like a new book in the chapter of Klarna and my career.
So it is the perfect place to stay if you want a new career every year without having togo through the hassle of switching jobs.
(03:46):
Well, last time we had you on the show, we talked a lot about buy now, pay later.
That business is still growing.
How do you think about the growth and the...
You talked about all these other things at the top of the conversation around yourdistribution channel.
You're finding even more places to put that functionality if you...
Yeah, I mean, I personally believe, although we're doing a good job at growing it,obviously, I need to believe that at least, I do think like we're riding a big macro wave
(04:15):
here.
uh Consumers, especially in the US, shying away from credit.
I think em the macro environment that we're in has also led to the fact that people havestarted caring more about their money, more about their finances, staying on top of
things.
And although I do think Binopulator is
to some extent frowned upon from, uh sometimes from media, obviously incumbent banks andcredit players.
(04:43):
It is a fantastic tool.
It is a utility for uh consumers, especially in times like these.
It is an ability to spread your cost, no interest, no fees attached.
And that is why we're seeing the growth.
Like Buy Now Pay Later is basically credit for people who hate credit.
Well, and you see you've got buy now pay later, you've got all this massive user base,you've started an advertising and brand building business for other brands.
(05:12):
How does that come about?
Like, and what's the latest developments there on that front?
Yeah, I mean, what we need to do now as Klarna, Binoculator has always been this doubleedged sword, right?
It's hugely popular.
We're riding the microwave.
But on the other end, we don't want to be positioned as a one trick pony, right?
So the biggest challenge I have as the CMO at Klarna is really to try to tell the storyabout Klarna as being way more than this one feature, right?
(05:41):
So we're launching the balance, which means that people, it's like a bank account,basically.
People can hold money with us.
We're launching our new card, which is a debit and a credit card combined.
So we're doing all of these things, but the consumer education piece, that is really whatwe need to get across.
How do we transcend beyond buy now, pay later?
(06:03):
And let's talk about the, I mean, you're extending into banking features.
Do you think of yourself now as a digital bank?
I think we have to.
We have probably always thought about ourselves as some sort of consumer, retail, everydayspending partner.
And I do think that we've moved more and more into very basic components.
(06:28):
People want to be able to hold, save, and spend money.
People want to be able to access credit.
People want to be able to spend that online and in-store with a card.
So the features and services that we're launching now
really tells that story and speaks to that narrative way more of being a, I don't want tocall it neo bank, but more a global consumer retail bank.
(06:51):
What's the apprehension of the NIO Bank?
I have to ask.
I don't know.
just don't like the I like calling things what they are.
I think like already 10 years ago, like when we started to pivot Klarna, we had this hugeconversation.
Like what is the world going to look like in 10 to 15 years?
And then we said, well, there are probably going to be three to five global consumerretail banks based on tech slash AI nowadays that dominate the market because there are
(07:22):
not.
Most of the global banks are B2B and the consumer banks are local.
They're huge, but they're still local in the US.
There are very few, if any, global retail banks.
And we're now seeing Revolut, Newbank, Klarna, and probably PayPal in that mix starting toemerge into this something.
(07:43):
And you can call it Newbank, can call it global consumer retail bank, whatever it is, butthe place for money for consumers globally.
Well, you guys have been very public on your use of AI.
mean, your CEO doing his latest report as an AI avatar.
How do you think about AI and how does it work for you in your marketing organization?
(08:06):
I mean, so far, or the journey we've been on is like, it started out as a party trick,like look at these great things that you can produce and create and spit out, but you
know, the hands had six fingers and you had three eyes and it was a bit strange, to nowstarting to grow into something that is actually useful.
(08:27):
I don't think it's yet fully production ready, but what we use it as is a fantasticsupport to everything we do.
But I continuously iterate that we're not doing yet anything new based on AI.
We're only doing the things we used to do, but way more efficient, way faster at a waylower cost.
(08:50):
So it's essentially partnering with the creative process.
Partnering and short-cutting things that were tedious and costly, Just like, maybe a verybasic example, but if you historically wanted to shoot a 30-second film, right?
The process, just up until shoot, is cumbersome, right?
(09:11):
And costly, right?
You bounce ideas back and forth, but the ideas are visualized by like hand writings orstuff like that.
And so we use it a lot for ideation now.
So almost like briefing.
I sit personally sometimes in VO3 and say, hey, we should be doing something along theselines.
Then I still need professionals and creatives to take what I have done and make aproduction ready.
(09:35):
But the first 80 % of almost every project is just now cut short tremendously fast.
We talk about it starting out as like a uh parlor tricks or magic tricks, but like whathas been the key to helping people adapt it and practice using AI?
I mean, I think, I get that question a lot, like what are the big things that Clarn hasdone in order to get this going?
(10:01):
Because we're really at the forefront,
And I think, and I talked to a of CMOs about this as well, and I think our investment inAI culture has been more important than our investment in AI infrastructure.
And we've invested heavily into that as well.
But when it comes to culture, right, we've really created a culture where people lean in,
I don't think Sebastian would celebrate anything publicly that isn't part of AI and peoplewant to be celebrated publicly, right?
(10:27):
So we measure AI use, we use it together on a daily basis, we have it as the startingpoint for everything.
A common question is like, well, have you run this through chat GPT or whatever, right?
So the investment into AI culture and really...
almost forcing people to use it in the beginning, sometimes giving people tasks that arejust impossible to do.
(10:51):
Like if I would tell you, translate this text into 15 languages, be done by Monday, likeeither you need a big team or you need, like there is no way of doing it without AI.
So our investment into AI culture has been fantastic.
One of the, I think, hurdles for many organizations, and I think you might have a uniqueperspective on this, given your agency background and now sitting CMO role, how does AI
(11:17):
affect creativity or the creative process in your mind?
I mean, I think it's now unleashed.
think it's like people talk about this replacing creativity.
I'm seeing the exact opposite.
Like creative people, they are going to have like, it's their time to shine now becausecreativity is going to be the difference between good and bad.
(11:39):
Right?
Everyone is going to have access to these tools.
It's not going to be gated behind some like massive investments.
Like everyone's going to be have access.
and creativity will be the thing that sets things apart.
Because I know firsthand the difference between prompting a good idea versus prompting abad idea.
just giving it, like the issue with AI is that it's also trained on the average.
(12:03):
On the bell curve, you get the highest point of the bell curve, So if you prompt it togenerally, if you're uncreative, if you just tell it, me a campaign, you're gonna get the
top of the bell curve campaign, right?
And everyone's gonna get that.
That might fly for a couple of more months.
Next year, everyone's going to do that.
(12:24):
Instagram is going to look different.
TikTok is going to look different.
Social channels, in my opinion, are going to be way more entertainment channels thanactual social channels.
the creativity is just going to be truly unleashed.
for creative agencies that I know well, to me, a magical thing is happening.
And that is...
(12:45):
which has always annoyed me massively with this industry is that you have people that callthemselves creatives.
And they have gated the term creativity.
And the only one who can be creative is creatives, right?
And here in Cannes, have copywriters and art directors who are, they feel that they ownthat term.
(13:06):
Now, everyone can be creative.
There is no term creative anymore.
It's just like that is gone.
So everyone's there.
And I do think
we're going to see a almost like battle royale for creativity.
When everyone can be creative, the best creativity is going to win, not the ones createdby Brazilian art directors.
(13:27):
All right, well I want to transition.
There's a series of questions I ask everyone that comes on the show.
First one, favorite question, a little bit more reflective.
Has there been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are today?
I mean, I was born in the US in Key West in the 80s.
And my dad played a band.
(13:47):
So he was a hippie and my mother is German.
So I'm German by like, that's my nationality.
So the combination of a hippie Key West musician and a very strict by the book German, Ido think uh that's a fantastic combination that I feel within myself quite often.
(14:10):
It makes for a great CMO apparently.
Well, if you were starting this journey all over again, what would you, what advice wouldyou give your younger self?
I think try to enjoy it.
I always enjoy New Year's Eve when I stand there and say, this was a great, it's been abumpy ride, but it was great.
I would like to be able to celebrate more on a weekly basis.
(14:32):
Enjoy the ride.
Is there a topic you think marketers need to be learning more about or maybe somethingyou're trying to learn more about yourself?
ah
I think you see the pendulum here in Cannes as well.
Like if you would have been in Cannes 10 years ago, it would have been all aboutcreativity, all about ideas, all about campaigns, art direction, design.
The pendulum has now swung to the other side, completely to the other side, right?
(14:57):
I haven't seen a single agency have a spot on the beach.
It's all the tech companies, all the hyperscalers, right?
The conversation is about AI data sets.
programmatic, targeting, segmentation, hyper efficiency.
And I think that pendulum has swung slightly too far.
I don't think we should be with the Brazilian art directors, but I also don't think thatthe industry can be fully dominated by data scientists.
(15:23):
So I think we need to once again ask ourselves, how do you build a brand in times of AI,TikTok, and UTC, which is a very hard thing to do.
It was easier back when everyone was watching TV.
Well, are there any trends or subcultures that you're following you think other peopleshould take notice of?
(15:43):
I'm just mainly curious what you're curious about these days.
ah
I I'm currently quite curious about, as I said, how do you build a brand when the creatorsare actually building the brands and you're just part of that?
So I'm quite happy that we have a strong brand because that means that we can acceleratethat through creators.
But if we didn't have a brand today, we can't rely on this TikTok thing to happen.
(16:08):
in general, I'm always quite intrigued by, no.
anti-trends.
So as I said, like it used to be very much about creativity.
Now it's about uh data.
Like what's the counterweight to that?
And since we live in this currently uh TikTok, Twitter or X time where everything is veryshort form, very fast, I'm quite intrigued by long form video on YouTube again.
(16:37):
I do think uh podcasts and YouTube are probably the only formats
where you get some time with the viewer.
A TV ad is 30 seconds, a TikTok is god knows, four seconds, right?
You never get any time, right?
You never get any time.
10, 15 minutes on YouTube, really going deep on a proposition, on a brand, on a story,like there's something to that that has been working well for us.
(17:06):
That's awesome.
Good plug for this format too.
uh Last question for you.
What do you think is the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
Again, I think that the more, if we go completely data driven, we're asking to bereplaced.
Like, the more you behave like a robot, the more likely it is that a robot is gonnareplace you.
(17:28):
That's the thing.
And I think we need at least with one foot to clench on to what brands are.
And I don't wanna be too fluffy.
I love performance and I love growing the business, right?
But there is something magical to brands like,
The feeling they invoke, there is something there with inspiration, aspiration, emotionsthat I fear if we don't cling on to a bit more, we're going to be replaced by data
(18:01):
scientists, which are needed in the mix, obviously.
Yes, yeah, I reflect on what you're saying and I think there's this notion of Talkworthiness and whether your brand is it can play a role and and you know guess one of the
gatekeepers to that is how successful you are earned media or exactly getting people totalk about
(18:23):
I think maybe it's a bad analogy, but I do think sometimes brands can be compared toindividuals and people.
And if you look at it, Taylor Swift, example, she obviously has a team that coaches her.
She probably is more data driven than we attribute her, but she's not 100%.
Like that is not built by an algorithm.
there is some fairy dust, there is heart, there is emotion.
(18:46):
Like it's a good mix of really, really understanding your audience beyond the data set.
And I think that is where brands need to be.
They need to resonate both rationally, functionally on a utility level, but they also needto be something more, that magical thing like that you used to have with a Coke
(19:07):
or whatever it is, right?
And I think that the winners in the future are going to be companies that actuallyunderstand that and that find a healthy mix between the data sets and just the...
ungraspable, unmeasurable thing.
And as you said, like Talkability or as I spoke about here in Cannes, brand fame is a hugebusiness driver.
(19:32):
Fame in general drives business because you just increase the probability of good thingshappening to you the more famous you are.
Thank you for having me again.
Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts, and opinions of Deloitte.
The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only anddoes not imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product, or service.
(20:02):
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
It's created and produced by me with post-production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloitte digital dot comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(20:30):
love hearing from listeners.
can contact me at marketing beyond at Deloitte dot com.
You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast today.
and you can search our archives.
I'm Ellen Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
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