Business of Marketing

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Luis Miguel Messianu, Founder, President and Chief Creative Officer of MEL, for a conversation about cultural intelligence, creativity, AI and where brands will find their next wave of growth.
Luis has spent decades challenging the way brands think about multicultural marketing, building award-winning agencies and leading creative work across some of the world’s biggest brands.
His argument is increasingly relevant far beyond multicultural marketing: the brands that win will be those that understand culture deeply enough to make people feel genuinely understood.
Luis explains why specificity creates authenticity, why multicultural thinking belongs at the centre of the brief rather than at the edge of a campaign, and why brands looking for growth need people inside their organisations who have actually lived the cultures they want to reach.
Justin and Luis also explore the impact of AI on creativity. Luis describes AI as “augmented imagination” and argues that, as technology makes execution faster and easier, human nuance, taste, cultural insight and the quality of the underlying idea will become even more valuable.
They discuss:
• Why multicultural marketing can no longer be treated as a niche• How cultural intelligence creates stronger brand connections• Why changing the brief is often the first step towards changing the work• What leading McDonald’s creative work across 46 markets taught Luis about human behaviour• Why AI could make cultural insight and creative originality more important, not less• How agencies can protect their creative soul while still building successful businesses
They also talk about agency reinvention, creative standards, mentoring the next generation of talent and why Luis believes advertising is ultimately “the business of optimism”.
A wide-ranging conversation about culture, creativity, growth and what will differentiate great brands in an increasingly AI-powered world.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Lisa Morgan, Managing Director of Generation Media, one of the UK’s leading independent media agencies specialising in children, young people and family audiences.
Children and young people are often the earliest adopters of new platforms, technologies and behaviours, but understanding what captures their attention, earns their trust and builds lasting affinity is becoming increasingly complex.
Lisa explains why Generation Media built its business around deep audience specialism, how children now influence major household purchasing decisions, and why marketers need to move beyond simply measuring reach and attention towards understanding fandom, affinity and long-term engagement.
They discuss the changing role of linear TV, the growth of experiential marketing, social media regulation, brand safety, the importance of insight in spotting emerging trends, and why global strategies still need local understanding.
Lisa also shares how Generation Media’s employee ownership model has shaped its culture, how coaching changed her own leadership style, and why AI and automation will make human qualities such as curiosity, judgement, passion and strategic thinking increasingly important.
In this episode:
• Why children and young people cannot be treated as one audience• How brands can spot emerging trends before they become mainstream• Why marketing is shifting from attention to affinity and fandom• How AI is changing the skills agencies need• What employee ownership can teach businesses about culture and leadership• Why the future of media still includes lessons from the past
This is a conversation about understanding the next generation of consumers while building the next generation of agencies.

AI might be dominating the conversation in marketing, but Miguel Machado believes most businesses are focusing on the wrong thing.
Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Miguel Machado, CEO of Keenfolks, to discuss why competitive advantage will come from data, not AI alone, and why marketing needs to move beyond one-off campaigns towards intelligent systems that continuously learn and improve.
They discuss:
Why marketing needs to focus on business outcomes, not outputs
Why proprietary data will determine who wins with AI
The shift from campaigns to repeatable intelligent marketing systems
Why 90% of AI pilots can fail while investment continues to grow
How CMOs and CTOs are becoming increasingly interconnected
Why technology adoption ultimately depends on people
Why efficiency should be a consequence of growth, not the objective
How Keenfolks is building a new model around technology, data and human capability
A conversation about what AI-native marketing actually looks like when you move beyond the hype and connect technology directly to business growth.
Recorded live at the DEPT Garden during Cannes Lions 2026.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Katie Mitchell, Managing Director of Seen Studios, joins Justin Cooke on the Business of Marketing to explore why the future of brand experience is neither physical nor digital, but the connection between the two.
Katie explains why physical spaces still matter in an increasingly digital world, how brands can turn stores, pop-ups and events into content engines, and why the best experiences start with a genuine understanding of the audience rather than the creative idea.
The conversation covers how brands can build connected online and offline experiences, localise global campaigns without losing consistency, make experiential marketing work harder commercially, and measure the return on expensive physical activations.
Katie also gets into the business of running and growing an agency, from building a strong leadership culture and protecting margins to why she believes human relationships will remain critical to new business, even as sales and marketing become increasingly automated.
A conversation about experiential marketing, retail, brand experience, consumer behaviour, agency growth and the increasingly connected physical and digital customer experience.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026, Justin Cooke sits down with Marcus Startzel, CEO of GumGum, to explore what the next era of advertising looks like when brands stop thinking only about audiences and start thinking about mindset.
Marcus explains why context, attention and receptivity are becoming critical to advertising effectiveness, and how AI is making the old promise of reaching the right person, with the right message, at the right moment far more achievable.
They discuss:
Why consumers are different people at 7am and 7pm, even if the audience data says otherwise
How GumGum is using its Mindset Graph to understand when people are most receptive to advertising
Why attention alone is not enough without relevance
How AI could reshape targeting, optimisation and brand outcomes
Why customer obsession still matters more than the technology
What Marcus learned about leadership from Amazon and serving as a nuclear submarine officer
Why “ship, shipmate, self” still shapes the way he leads
How fast decision-making, trust and constant innovation separate the companies that grow from those that get left behind
A conversation about AI, adtech, customer obsession and leadership, and why understanding the moment someone is in could become one of advertising’s biggest competitive advantages.

Recorded live at Cannes Lions, John Horsley sits down with Alistair Hill, Co-Founder of On Device, to explore why marketing measurement still gets so much wrong.
They discuss why click-through rates can be a terrible measure of brand effectiveness, the growing problem of survey fraud, how brands can connect brand lift to commercial outcomes, and why AI is shifting measurement from reports consumed by people to data consumed directly by machines.
Alistair so explains why the smartest marketers are moving towards outcomes-based planning, why confidence matters when balancing brand and performance, and why being able to find and tell stories through data remains one of the most valuable skills in marketing.

Emma Armstrong, CEO of BBDO New York and Global Transformation Officer at BBDO Worldwide, joins John Horsley live from Cannes Lions to discuss AI, creativity, brand building and the future of agencies.
Emma explains why the role of a modern agency goes far beyond making advertising. The best agencies act as business partners, helping clients understand shifts in culture, technology and consumer behaviour, then turning those changes into ideas that build brands and drive growth.
As Emma puts it, agencies are “translators of the world into brands.”
They discuss why brand building is becoming more important as media fragments and customer journeys become increasingly complex, and why the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence could make human creativity and judgement more valuable, not less.
Emma also explores the risk that “AI drives us to the mean”. While AI can accelerate research, analysis and repetitive tasks, she argues that distinctive brands still depend on people who can think differently, make connections and apply judgement.
The conversation also covers:
• Creativity as a measurable driver of business growth• The changing relationship between agencies, CMOs, CEOs and CFOs• Why agencies need to understand the whole business, not just the marketing brief• How AI is changing advertising, marketing and creative work• Why distinctive brand assets and consistency matter more in fragmented customer journeys• Building high-performing agency cultures and leadership teams• Why saying no to the wrong pitch can sometimes be the right commercial decision• The future of the advertising agency model• The skills the next generation needs to succeed in marketing and advertising
A wide-ranging Cannes Lions conversation about BBDO, artificial intelligence, creativity, brand strategy and why great agencies still have an essential role in helping businesses stand out and grow.
 

In this episode of The Business of Marketing, John Horsley sits down with Erin Chin, Global Head of Brand Marketing at Logitech G, live from Cannes Lions, for a wide-ranging conversation about brand, creators, fandom and the changing media landscape.
Erin explains why Logitech G treats creators as business partners, not marketing channels, and how its “design by collaboration” approach brings gamers, esports professionals and creators directly into the product development process.
They discuss why brands need to stop over-engineering creator partnerships, the importance of giving creators genuine freedom, and why the ambition shouldn’t be to control every expression of a brand, but to build something communities actively want to make their own.
The conversation also explores:
Why creator authenticity matters more than tightly controlled brand messaging
How Logitech G co-creates products with gamers and esports professionals
Why fandom can become one of a brand’s strongest competitive advantages
Supporting creators beyond the commercial relationship, including mental health and underrepresented communities
The huge shift in Gen Z media consumption towards TikTok, YouTube and creators
How brands should measure creator impact beyond traditional engagement metrics
Why share of search can reveal whether creator activity is genuinely driving interest
How AI search and answer engines are changing brand visibility, earned media and content strategy
Why brand remains a competitive moat that competitors and “dupes” cannot easily replicate
What marketers can learn from the best work at Cannes Lions about keeping ideas simple
Erin also shares lessons from a career spanning Goldman Sachs, P&G, Diageo, Proximo Spirits, PepsiCo and Mountain Dew, and explains why deep consumer understanding remains at the heart of great marketing.
A conversation about what happens when brands stop treating audiences as targets and start building products, stories and communities people genuinely want to participate in.

Carmen Rodriguez, Global Chief Growth Officer at GUT, on bravery, sustainable growth and why the best agencies know when to say no.
Recorded live at Cannes Lions, Justin Cooke sits down with Carmen Rodriguez to explore what growth really looks like when creativity, culture and commercial ambition all have to move together.
Carmen explains why GUT sees itself as “a brave agency for brave clients”, why bravery isn’t binary, and how the agency uses a bravery scale to help brands become progressively bolder without losing sight of the business outcome.
They discuss:
Why sustainable agency growth can mean growing more slowly, not faster
How GUT said no 27 times in its first year to protect the kind of agency it wanted to become
Why people come first, the work second and clients last
How GUT identifies the gap between a marketer’s ambition and a brand’s willingness to be brave
Why long-term agency relationships depend on trust, senior involvement and genuine partnership
Why agencies need to understand the client’s business, not simply sell advertising
Why simple execution built on a powerful human insight is cutting through at Cannes
Why creativity should remain at the centre of growth
Carmen also shares the thinking behind GUT’s philosophy that “bravery means business”, and why consistency, creativity and the courage to make uncomfortable decisions can ultimately drive stronger commercial results.
A brilliant conversation about the business of creativity, recorded live at Cannes Lions 2026.

Michael Scott, Global CRO, LoopMe: Why Brand Performance Is Back
What happens when marketers focus too heavily on the 5% of consumers already in market?
Michael Scott, Global Chief Revenue Officer at LoopMe, joins John Horsley live from Cannes Lions to discuss why brands need to start filling the top of the funnel again, and how better data, AI and real-time measurement are making brand investment easier to prove.
They explore the shift from web to mobile apps, the growing importance of first-party data, why immersive mobile experiences are becoming more valuable, and how AI is changing targeting, optimisation and product development.
Michael also explains why marketers need to simplify ad tech, move beyond jargon and focus on the outcomes that actually matter to the business.
In this episode:
Why over-investing in lower-funnel marketing eventually runs out of road
How AI and LLMs are changing web and mobile behaviour
Why first-party data is becoming critical to brand performance
How marketers can quantify upper and mid-funnel investment
Why mobile apps offer brands a more immersive customer experience
How AI enables near real-time audience optimisation
Why ad tech needs to make the complex simple
The value of long-term brand building over constant promotion
Michael's advice to people starting their careers: “Just say yes.”
Recorded live at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The Business of Marketing brings together senior leaders shaping the future of marketing, media, technology and business.