From AI insights to IRL experiential marketing, the crosscurrents of discussion at Cannes Lions were reflected Tuesday by top movers and shakers in marketing and media who joined Variety in the C-Suite in collaboration with Canva at the Festival of Creativity.

Leaders from a range of sectors braved the heat that has gripped Cannes this week to share insights and talk shop with Variety, which is presenting a series of panels this week at the Canva Creative Cabana located in a prime beachfront spot off the Croisette.

Participants on Day 2 (June 23) included the pairings of Rita Ferro, president of global advertising for Disney, and Michelle Mesenburg, chief brand officer for Target; Todd Kaplan, chief marketing officer for Kraft Heinz in North America, and Taylor Montgomery, global chief brand officer for Taco Bell; Frances Berwick, chairman of Bravo and Peacock unscripted, and Alan Cumming, actor and host of Peacock’s “The Traitors” and NBC’s upcoming “The Traitors: New Blood”; Ndidiamaka Oteh, CEO of Accenture Song, and Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer for L’Oreal; and Gabrielle Wesley, chief marketing officer of Mars Wrigley North America, and William White, chief marketing officer of Walmart.

Watch full videos of each conversation at the links below.

Participation Is the New Approach to Marketing 

Rita Ferro, president of global advertising for Disney, and Michelle Mesenburg, chief brand officer for Target

The value of partnership opportunities for even the biggest retail and media brands were among the themes explored by Disney advertising chief Rita Ferro and Michelle Mesenburg, chief brand officer for Target. The juxtaposition of familiar names creates an aura that savvy consumers recognize as significant.

“Disney is an incredible partner to Target,” Mesenburg said. “We just did an exclusive drop at Target of Disney IP with Lego. What gets really fun is when we can come together and create new value for the consumer, but then you can also attach it to one more thing. So Disney, Target and Lego is really special. We are also doing that through something we call Saturday Spectaculars, which are in-store events. So every Saturday at Target, you can come and experience something new, and Disney is a regular player in our activities at Target.”

Ferro and Mesenburg spoke about the heightened demand for marketing messages to be incredibly timely and relevant to consumers. It can be a homerun for a brand to find an organic way to plug in on a cultural moment or the latest pop culture buzz, but only if it makes sense for the brand. This is one big reason why sports and sports-related content are more sought-after than ever — it’s unpredictable and the stakes are (almost) always high.

“You have to be ready for the moment. You don’t know when it’s going to happen, but live allows you to create that spontaneity and that creative decision-making in real time,” Ferro said. “We’ve invested a lot in technology — with the size of live portfolio we have — to make sure that we can take advantage of those moments where you can really drive resonance and results as part of putting the right at the right moment.”

Ferro reminded the Cannes Lions crowd that ABC has the Super Bowl telecast in 2027 for the first time in 20 years – and for the first time in ESPN’s nearly 50-year history as America’s premier sports outlet. Having the Super Bowl to sell for the coming TV season has made Disney’s upfront sales negotiations extra dynamic this year.

“This is the first time I’ve actually gone to market with it in the U.S., so obviously that makes it a very robust marketplace for us because there’s a lot of interest,” Ferro said. “In general, I would say people are looking for sports, they’re looking for streaming, they’re looking for big live moments and big partnerships.”

The Dynamic Intersection of Brand and Culture

Taylor Montgomery, global chief brand officer for Taco Bell, and Todd Kaplan, chief marketing officer North America for Kraft Heinz

If there’s one thing that can unite this fractious world, it just might be ranch dressing.

Todd Kaplan, chief marketing officer for Kraft Heinz North America, had the crowd laughing as he recounted the food giant’s recent decision to move quickly to capitalize on a trend sparked by the World Cup tournament unfolding in North America. Amid anecdotal reports that airport security services have been confiscating bottles of ranch dressing that sports tourists have tried to smuggle out of the country, Kraft Heinz came up with a TSA-friendly size of ranch dressing. Kaplan got a strong response when he described ranch as “one of the best American delicacies.” Within a day of seeing the reports, Kraft Heinz was whipping up a special 3.4 ounce sachet of dressing.

“We made them available in a clear, carry-on case, and we gave them out to consumers so they can take the equivalent of a bottle home with them that still clears through security,” Kaplan said, with evident pride. “So there’s a lot of opportunities as you think of these big brands where you can still be listening and participating culture pretty quickly by just being agile and moving quick.”

Taylor Montgomery, global chief brand officer for Taco Bell, offered a similar anecdote that shed light on how Taco Bell works to align its fast food brand with influential voices in pop culture. He sees it as a necessity.

“You can’t just say what you’re about, you actually have to do something and take a step that shows your fans and consumers that you’re going put your money where your mouth is,” he said. Montgomery detailed a Taco Bell campaign that began a few years ago to “liberate Taco Tuesday and free the trademark for anybody to use.”

None other than Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James signed on to be the pitchman for the cheeky campaign.

“And it just so happens, King James himself had tried to liberate Taco Tuesday on his own unsuccessfully. So what a fun partnership for us to actually help one of the biggest athletes in the world do something he couldn’t do on his own,” Montgomery said. “That’s how the campaign was born [in 2023] and at the time it was our biggest campaign ever.”

Montgomery added that marketers sometimes miss the cultural intelligence that sits all around them – namely, their coworkers.

“First and foremost, listen to your team,” he said. “My team is more plugged into culture and what people are selling about the brand and have a more diverse point of view than I do on how people are thinking and receiving us. You absolutely have to trust and listen to your team because they’re going to bring you insights and ideas that you maybe hadn’t thought of.”

Scaling the Fan-Verse

Alan Cumming, actor and host of Peacock’s “The Traitors” and NBC’s “The Traitors: New Blood,” and Frances Berwick, chairman of Bravo and Peacock unscripted

Frances Berwick, chairman of Bravo and Peacock unscripted, dove into the success story behind Peacock’s hit reality show “The Traitors.” The show has been the rare new unscripted format to break through in recent years.

“It’s built every single season and Season 4, which we had earlier this year, was up by 72%. It’s up to 6.4 billion minutes,” Berwick said. “And it really is on a roll because it is a perfect format and there’s something for everyone in it. It’s got strategy, it’s got psychology, it’s got a lot of friendships and relationships, suspense, drama, comedy — and, of course, Alan.”

Cumming enjoys a wide-ranging career as an actor and host. But the complexity of a reality competition series like “The Traitors” was a first for him. He’s got no regrets — in fact, he’s quite hooked on the show.

“I’m quite good at staying open to new things and giving things a go and I think it’s been a great. It’s been a huge success and really I love doing it, but it’s also been really affirming of my understanding of when I do just stay open to things and give things a go, they usually turn out quite well,” Cumming said.

Berwick detailed what a lift the show has given to Peaock, putting it on the map with a stylish reality hit that is all its own. NBC is drafting off that success to launch a new iteration, “The Traitors: New Blood,” which bows in September with Cumming as host.

Once “Traitors” began to show traction with streaming viewers, NBCUniversal was quick to develop an “always on” strategy to keep the show top of mind for fans.

We’re really thinking about how we can create more interactivity with the audience,” Berwick says. In fact, NBCUniversal is wading into the buzz round Polymarket, Kalshi and other prediction market services that have stirred controversy. But NBCU’s take with the “Traitors” is far more innocuous. “We have a prediction game on Peacock that people can play along with and we’re looking to do more of that,” Berwick said.

Both were asked to name their dream contestant that they’d like to see participate in the series. It follows 22 strangers sent to a Scottish manor with the goal of trying to survive and unmask the “traitors” embedded in the group who are secretly trying to murder each contestant.

Cumming didn’t hesitate with his response: Michelle Obama. Berwick did pause for a moment before settling on Jalen Brunson, the New York Knicks guard who helped lead his team to a big underdog victory in the NBA Finals earlier this month.

Doubling Down on AI For Creativity and Personal Connection 

Ndidiamaka Oteh, CEO of Accenture Song, and Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer for L’Oreal

The “answer layer” – that’s a new and hugely important metric that brand managers need to pay attention to, in the view of Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer for L’Oreal.

Dubey urged marketers to study AI query results to see if the top models are including or citing their brands in the information sources cited in very fine print.

“As LLMs are becoming the new front door to beauty discovery, we are thinking about three questions: Are we appearing in the answer layer? If beauty is a conversation, how are we shaping that conversation when everything is becoming like a chat?” Dubey said. “And we have been very good in e-commerce over the last 10 years. How are we going to become the commerce category captains in beauty?”

Ndidiamaka Oteh, CEO of Accenture Song, is laser-focused these days in her role on the transformative effects of AI. But she acknowledged that it’s still very hard to chart the path forward on where AI is going to be game-changing for sectors and individual businesses.

“I will say I have never underestimated and also overestimated AI more in terms of what it actually can do,” Oteh said. “In some ways, it’s really amazing how it helps you find insights and really get specific to us being able to reach consumers that we’ve never been able to reach before in the right way and the fact that you can now actually do messages that are relevant for them. At the same time, it doesn’t always mean that it’s delivering the best. That’s like a derivative content conversation. When we start talking about the best creative, that still has a lot of human influence.”

Oteh got a giggle out of Dubey when she used a beauty metaphor and a nod to the heatwave that has gripped France this week to illustrate her point about the importance of learning how to communicate effectively with AI platforms in order to harness the full power of the technology.

“You look [at AI platform] and you say, ‘I am going to Cannes and I know it’s going to be 100 degrees and what is the best makeup?’ And that is how you make a decision. You don’t just say, ‘What’s the perfect lip color?’ And that is what’s changing. So we are creating data sets and enriching the data in a way that touches more consumers versus less.”

Breaking Through in the Attention Economy 

William White, chief marketing officer for Walmart, and Gabrielle Wesley, chief marketing officer for Mars Wrigley North America

Marketers who are slow to actively engage with AI are missing out on insights and leads that will be make or break for companies in the attention economy where consumers are increasingly resistant to passive advertising messages.

There are profound learnings to be realized just from examining the nature of AI prompts that reference a given brand, according to William White, chief marketing officer of Walmart.

“We’re moving it from a world of inference to intent. We know so much more about what someone is looking for. We’re not guessing based on some signal we’ve picked up,” White emphasized. “They’re literally saying what it is and so that just allows us to serve them better. It also allows us to be more anticipatory of their needs, more predictive of their needs.”

White also stressed that AI is a game-changer when it comes to offering research and data on consumer trends.

“We’re now building audiences that are AI-powered, if you will, in terms of giving us the intelligence where we’re anticipating life stages or we’re anticipating different types of behaviors where we’re seeing those shifts. It allows us to personalize in a way that makes us less transactional and more relationship-based because we’re able to anticipate and serve up those needs to our customers in the moment.”

Gabrielle Wesley, chief marketing officer of Mars Wrigley North America, concurred with White and noted that the shift from mass media to content choices that are increasingly personalized has made consumers much more savvy — and sensitive to hard-sell marketing and advertising.

“One hundred years ago there was just radio. Radio was what kept your attention and then there was the visual with TV, and now we have so many ways to connect with consumers. Consumers have gotten more savvy and more demanding about what they want. They don’t want to be talked to,” Wesley said. “They want to engage. And because they want to engage, it’s like any other relationship. You have to keep having conversations, you have to keep taking them on dates, you gotta keep showing them new things and showing them different parts of you. And so I take that very, very seriously to engage with consumers on a, a two-way relationship, not just message giving.”